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Category: Creating a great vision

High achievement without burnout — and national recognition to prove it

East Wichel isn’t a shiny outlier. It’s a large, two-form entry school with high mobility and a deeply mixed pupil population. It’s in a town that’s been publicly called out as an education “cold spot” — a place often overlooked and unfairly judged. But under the leadership of Paula Phillips, something different took root.

Why do 50% of school leaders feel stuck, despite so much hard work?

Around half of school leaders feel like their school is working hard but standing still. Half! So what’s going on?

Do you believe it’s possible to have an even better school AND great well-being?

Do you like meeting headteachers that make the impossible happen? Because they are speaking at our conference, Outstanding Against the Odds

Only 9% of school teams have high followership

This week, let’s look at leadership. Because a key job of leadership is to get everyone on board. To help them be great followers. I don’t mean passive ‘do what I say’ followers. I mean committed to the level you are, problem solving followers. But as leaders we often miss one of the most important ways we can do this. We don’t give them a vision that inspires them [...]

I didn’t explain this last week. Let’s correct that now.

Last week I shared the inspiring story of Jo and the team at Clockhouse and their journey to outstanding. In that story I mention the cultural eco-system. What on earth is the ‘cultural eco-system’? It has 3 elements: Vision Values Strategy And they are critical to creating a high-performing, outstanding, team. […]

The shift from a good school to a great school is people

Jo had a problem that a lot of headteachers will be familiar with. She had a good team, who worked hard and were mostly fully onboard with her goal of delivering excellence to all her children (though some of them ‘didn’t get it’, most did). They didn’t have the easiest of contexts, being a large […]

Name ideas for achieving excellence. Our survey says…

I’ve spent over a decade walking into schools and talking to school leaders trying to answer this question: What stops us breaking through the ceiling of normal, and move beyond delivering good education to providing exceptional education? Thinking about how to share what I’ve learned puts me in mind of the old game show ‘Family […]

Christmas is a cultural touchpoint – what are yours? (moments of truth idea)

I call moments where your culture can really be seen ‘cultural touch points’, and many of these happen naturally during the course of the year:

5 easy team culture wins at Christmas

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, it’s a great time to show people you care and reinforce the kind of school you are. In fact, the New Year is also a good time to do any of these too. Here are 5 quick Christmas culture wins – pick the ones that feel true to you […]

5 mistakes schools make when writing their vision

There are mistakes I see time and time again when people create their vision. Here are the top 5 so you can avoid them: Mistake #1: Everyone should write your vision No. You get a vision which seems to please everyone but really says nothing. It reminds me of the phrase: A camel is […]

Category: Creating a great vision

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