Here’s how the best schools turn policies into lived behaviours

School leaders tell me this all the time: “We’ve shared the policy. We’ve explained it in briefing. Everyone nodded. So why aren’t people actually doing it?”

When funding feels impossible, focus here

There’s a lot you can’t control right now. The funding formula. Energy costs. National pay scales. All set elsewhere — and often without any sense of your reality on the ground. But here’s the hopeful bit: You can’t control the funding. You can control the impact.

A simple way to uncover £10k you might be missing

If every penny is stretched at the moment, here’s a hopeful thought: You might have £10k in your budget. You just haven’t found it yet. I see this all the time in schools — money that’s there, quietly hiding in plain sight. Here are a few places it loves to hide

Sickness hits budgets hard — but it’s more fixable than you think

Sickness doesn’t just hit the timetable. It hits the budget — and often harder than we realise. Here’s a quick way to see the real picture. Think back to last term (or better still, last year): How many sick days were there? Now multiply that by £150.

A simple calculation that reveals a surprising drain on resources

Here’s a number worth knowing — and once you see it, you can’t unsee it: Everyday conflict in your school might be costing you the equivalent of one full-time teacher. Here’s the simple maths. If low-level issues take up just 30 minutes a week of your team’s time — things like: lateness poor marking mood hoovers resistant TAs caretakers not getting jobs done admin not following through — then across a whole staff, that half-hour becomes a huge drain.

Why excellent schools look like they have extra budget

Here’s something I see in outstanding schools almost everywhere I go: They look like they have money. But they don’t. They have more Superstars on their payroll. What do I mean by superstars? People who are brilliant at their job and great cultural fit for your school. Put simply, you’d clone them if you could! And that alone gives them the equivalent of £200k extra for every £1m of payroll.

The four numbers that make your school budget go further

School budgets can feel so out of your hands — formulas, pay rises, energy costs… all set elsewhere. And when we talk about budgets, we usually dive straight into codes and spreadsheets. The best heads I work with look past the spreadsheet. They keep focusing on four human numbers that tell them whether their school is getting real value from their biggest spend — payroll.

Outstanding news from Our Lady of Lourdes RC Primary School

Every so often, a school’s success story makes you smile all day — and this is one of them. Our Lady of Lourdes RC Primary School in Wanstead has been graded Outstanding in every area.

Reflection isn’t a luxury for leaders — it’s survival

What I’ve noticed from over a decade of working with high-performing, fantastic schools: Without reflection, schools drift. With it, they grow. Reflection isn’t sitting around staring at your shoes. And you’ve definitely had it before. Maybe on a train journey to a conference, where the conversation flows there and back. Or on a precious SLT away day, where the fog lifts and you leave buzzing with ideas. And at some point you’ve said: “We should do this more often.”

What does it mean to be ‘Outstanding Against the Odds’?

In education, the word “outstanding” has long been tied to Ofsted — once a single judgement, now a set of gradings across areas, with a new scorecard soon to come. But beyond frameworks and metrics, when we talk about being Outstanding Against the Odds, we mean something deeper. It’s not about flawless performance or ticking every box for inspection. It’s about thriving for your children, even in circumstances that make excellence very hard to achieve. And schools are doing it — right now.

Category: Excellence in schools

Categories