Ofsted reform is very much on the agenda. Rightly so. The impact of inspection is now one of the factors contributing to the decline in morale of the teaching profession and, unintentionally, to our inability to close the gaps in outcomes between the rich and the poor. Much of this debate focuses on the design […]
Category: Schools
Digital access
Kit is not enough and not all access is good. We must solve three new challenges: the context in which digital technology is used, the purposes it is used for and the chance to distribute opportunity and hope more widely across the country.
One recovery plan to rule them all
A short piece in Schools Week on planning for an educational recovery, with reference to Bilbo Baggins: Recovery can’t be achieved with sparsely spread resources If we want more from our schools, we need to give them more. And we need to weight those resources to the schools facing the biggest challenge. It also would […]
Which schools should we emulate?
Through a high stakes and narrowly quantified definition of performance, we allow institutions to appear that they are high performing by externalising some of their true costs: they make other actors in the system pay some of the price for their results…
To be led by lions
There’s a danger in using schools to change society. It’s tempting: children are the future, after all. But it is also risky to prepare young people for the society we wish existed rather than the one they will actually find themselves in.
Exam reform
The system or the student? This blog is written with the benefit of hindsight and the luxury of not being accountable. I don’t pretend to have warned this would happen or have any easy answers. The problem this year was that we tried to act as if exams were being sat when they weren’t. A […]
Crisis 12: Matthew’s on the computer
The reality of digital intervention in education has often fallen short of the claims. Yet I’ve been impressed with some brilliant uses of technology during the lockdown. Oak National Academy, for example, and the generosity of trusts like Greenshaw and schools like Parklands. Our own experience of delivering a fully virtual Summer Institute to 1699 […]
Unstoppable forces
This is a blog for the Education Leadership Collective. “If, say, one hundred headteachers in a town or city wanted to stand up for something reasonable, I don’t think anything could stop them. The power of collective action is clear. I don’t need to belabour that. Yet this level of unity is rare…” Unstoppable Forces […]
Don’t manage teachers with data
Don’t manage teachers with data. Manage your teachers with your theory. Manage your theory with the data…
Gatekeeping
As a leader you are actively policing the boundary of your organisation. Keeping out the toxins and distractions, seeking out the assets and the insights…
Note to self 