Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Good
Transform Your School: A One-Day Online Workshop for Headteachers and Senior Leaders
Hosted by Sonia
When?
Choose from available dates:
- Thursday 1 May 2025
- Tuesday, 1 July 2025
- Tuesday, 23 September 2025
- Thursday, 6 November 2025
Time: 09:30-15:30 (all dates)
Where?
Conveniently delivered online via Zoom.
Save time, reduce costs, and learn together as a team without leaving your school.
What's in it for you?
Join this immersive workshop to uncover the 4 key barriers holding your school back from achieving high performance. Sonia will guide you through practical strategies to overcome these challenges, empowering you to:
1. Identify and address the obstacles to excellence.
2. Implement actionable solutions to drive improvement.
3. Create a truly outstanding school that meets the needs of your community.
This is your opportunity to gain the insights and tools needed to transform your school’s performance. Don’t miss out—reserve your spot today!
Limited spaces available. Book now to secure your place!
Do you dream of leading an outstanding school? You’ve come to the right place!
Schools that implement the strategies shared in this workshop are 300% more likely to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating.
But here’s the difference: we don’t just focus on ticking Ofsted boxes. Instead, we dive deeper to address the real challenges holding your school back, helping you create a culture of excellence that goes beyond criteria—and delivers lasting results.
Ready to transform your school? Let’s get started.
This workshop will empower you to:
- Understand why high performing teams are the cornerstone of outstanding education
- Discover proven strategies to overcome the 4 key barriers to high performance
- Make immediate, impactful improvements with practical, actionable tools
Why we know we can help you:
Since 2011, Sonia Gill, founder of Heads Up, has visited recently inspected Outstanding schools—particularly those in challenging contexts.
What has she found?
In nearly every case, these schools:
- Are genuinely outstanding, not just ticking boxes.
- Offer a rich, broad curriculum that provides a holistic education.
- Retain staff who are among the happiest and most fulfilled she’s ever met—often working fewer hours than those in ‘Good’ schools.
To this day, Heads Up continues to visit Outstanding schools and consistently finds that they deliver the kind of exceptional education you, as educators, strive for.
So what are these outstanding schools doing differently?
A simple way to assess your team’s performance is to draw three boxes:
- Right-hand box: How many superstars are in your team? These are the individuals you’d clone if you could.
- Left-hand box: How many people are exhibiting challenging behaviours or underperforming?
- Middle box: The remaining staff who fall somewhere in between.
Most schools have the majority of their staff in the middle box.
However, Outstanding schools have over 70% in the right-hand box. If you’re there too, congratulations—you have a high-performing team!
If not, the following challenges might sound familiar:
The four key barriers to high performance:
Unclear priorities for development and CPD: Who in your team should you focus on to maximise impact?
Too many small behaviour issues: These sap time, energy, and focus from what really matters.
Staff resistance to excellence: Some may settle for ‘Good’ when you’re pushing for ‘Outstanding’.
A lacklustre school environment: You know it needs a spark, but there’s no budget—and you can’t quite pinpoint what’s missing.
These challenges keep you stuck in a cycle of managing low-quality problems rather than leading your school to greatness.
That’s why we created this workshop:
Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Good (and our 1-year programme, Journey to Outstanding—more on that later).
Drawing on over 10 years of experience visiting Outstanding schools, we’ll help you and your SLT learn how to overcome these barriers. Together, we’ll create the Outstanding school your children deserve—not just for Ofsted, but for your community.
Ready to transform your school? Join us and take the first step towards excellence.
What you’ll learn:
| 09:30 – 10:00 | Welcome & self-assessment |
| 10:00 – 10:40 | The challenges of school life that stop your school from excelling, and how to come overcome them |
| 10:40 – 11:15 | How you can identify and grow excellence within your team |
| 11:15 – 11:30 | Break |
| 11:30 – 12:20 | How to have successful difficult conversations to stop those poor behaviours |
| 12:20 – 13:00 | Break for lunch |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | How to inspire and align your team to settle for nothing but excellence |
| 14:00 – 14:10 | Break |
| 14:10 – 14:25 | How Heads Up supports schools remove the barriers that stop them from being Outstanding |
| 14.25 – 14.55 | How to shape your environment to reinforce excellent behaviours and performance |
| 14:55 – 15:30 | Wrap up |
Join Sonia, our expert trainer, at our workshop Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Good.
Join Sonia Gill, Our Expert Trainer, at the Workshop: Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Good
Sonia Gill is a highly qualified teacher with experience teaching every year group from Reception to Year 11. Her passion for leadership led her to the prestigious John Lewis leadership programme, where she successfully managed multi-million-pound business areas, honing her skills in building high-performing teams.
In 2011, Sonia returned to her true calling—education—combining her expertise in leadership with her dedication to transforming schools. Over the past decade, she has visited hundreds of Outstanding schools, studying what sets them apart from ‘Good’ schools. What she discovered might surprise you:
The secret to their success isn’t just a great curriculum or a favourable demographic.
It’s their people.
Outstanding schools create a perfect cultural ecosystem where every single member of staff is aligned with the school’s vision and values. This unity ensures everyone is pulling in the same direction, creating an environment where excellence thrives.
At this workshop, Sonia will share the insights and strategies she’s gathered from these top-performing schools, helping you and your team break through barriers and achieve the same level of success.
Ready to transform your school? Join us and discover how to build a team that drives outstanding outcomes.
Don't just take our word for it! Here's what leaders say:
FAQs
Lol! We get it, but school leaders love our training because we’ve made it better by being on zoom. It’s very interactive, you don’t have any travel costs and it means more of your SLT can be part of the training which means it has great impact. This day always gets great feedback and attendees are pleasantly surprised by how well it works online.
No, it’s such an interactive day we don’t record it because not everyone wants to be filmed.
Yes, you’ll be sent these before the day.
One ticket gives access to up to 6 of your SLT. Additional places can be purchased.
You’ll receive them shortly after the training.
Sometimes the confirmation emails can be caught in junk folders – please check yours. If you are having trouble receiving the details, please contact [email protected]