The reception children jigged to ‘Mr Bluesky’ booming out on the school PA, waving to friends that they’d not seen in months. One slipped the grip of her mother’s hand and ran over and (before I could stop her at a safe 2m) gave me a hug. But the parents stood in complete silence. To […]
When I first wrote about the gathering storm two months ago, the very idea of sheltering in our homes for weeks on end seemed like a far-fetched dream. But we were different people then. People who idly bustled with crowds at shops and joked about the sudden lack of toilet paper. And so we entered […]
This will be a summer term that we will never forget. Two years ago I wrote a blog on leading in the ultra-busy Terms 5-6. It mused on the all the stuff which traditionally fills our summer terms and feels very important. Until it suddenly isn’t. Because this summer term is not like any other […]
They say a week is a long time in politics. Now it is a long time for all of us, with the crisis unfolding around us at a head-spinning pace. So what do we as school leaders do now? Well, as last week (I know – it was only last week when I wrote a now […]
There are some weeks in school leadership where, by Friday, Monday feels like a different age. This last week (finishing aptly on Friday 13th March 2020) has been one of them. We have all gradually noticed the gathering storm. First the far off rumbles of thunder in countries far away. Then the louder claps as the […]
“That’ll never happen! How could it? Surely those things don’t happen in real life!” Like many Headteachers, as part of my National Professional Qualification for Headteachering (NPQH), I had to complete a critical incident task. Much like Star Trek’s impossible ‘The Kobayashi Maru’ training task, this is a series of hypothetical things that happen simultaneously […]
“Accelerated Learning!” I left a dramatic pause to anticipate the excited rapture of my colleagues. They looked at me blankly. Some did their best to look interested. Others sighed. I had been a Deputy Headteacher at the Junior School in a sleepy market town for less than a month and it was my mission to […]
In stark contrast to the grey drizzle and swirling mist that had been our first experience of the North (our visit to Parklands Primary, Leeds the day before), we arrived at Wilmslow Grange, just south of Manchester, on a bright November Friday. As with Parklands the previous day, it was their reputed excellence and ambitious […]
“… ‘ere’, Mister… You them visitors what have come’t see school?” The small moon-faced boy beamed up at us. He’d been waiting for our arrival and pounced upon us the very moment we set foot through the door. It had taken four and a half hours to travel from Bristol to Leeds through ever gloomier […]
“Don’t do it Simon!” My Deputy was quite sure that it was a terrible idea. I looked out of the window in the airless training room and inwardly fumed. “They need to know!” I countered, “We’d been through it a hundred times! If they’d stuck to the bloody script we wouldn’t be here!” “It’s still a terrible […]
