Successful difficult conversations

Category: Growing Talent

You’re a teacher. I’m a teacher. We could get a class of 30 children to listen, to learn, to develop and to behave. So why is it harder with adults?!

Can you imagine, if as teachers, we didn’t actively improve our children’s behaviour? That our job was just about learning and not behaviour. Bonkers, right?!   It might be a nice idea, but the reality is we’re always developing our children’s behaviour in so many ways. And we certainly catch it when it’s not as […]

Crazy right? 83% of schools. Graded better than good? In the summer term 2023? Against the most recent Ofsted framework!? And they have challenging demographics? Things like high pupil premium, EAL and/or SEND? It’s true. And it’s a reason to celebrate. Because these schools are delivering exceptional education to the communities that arguably need it […]

It’s been a pleasure to work with Two Fresh Productions recently, who have helped us to produce two videos of testimonials from headteachers we work with; you can check them out here: https://youtu.be/KGTQnoOWAUAhttps://youtu.be/gfX_TK9VBgw The school leaders featured in the films have worked hard to make their schools great, for their children, not for Ofsted. These videos […]

It’s been hard to recruit good quality teachers for some time and it only seems to get harder.   The reality is it’s an employee market right now: There are fewer teachers to recruit There are plenty of vacancies   So how do you attract the best? As a student of excellence, I look at […]

Exam season is upon us and I hope it all goes well for you all 🙂 I remember the first post-pandemic SATs and many of the heads I work with shared how nice it felt to be doing SATs. The week had a different feel to it, not pressured, but happy to be doing something […]

As a leader it can be hard to get quality feedback from your team as people have a natural and understandable reticence about giving their boss feedback. But without it our own professional development is starved. Here are 3 ideas to help you encourage feedback from your team. Creating two-way feedback when you’re the boss Two-way […]

Something I’ve noticed high performing teams in a range of contexts have are maxims. You will have come across maxims before even if they’ve not been explicitly called one. A maxim is: “a ground rule or subjective principle of action; in that sense, a maxim is a thought that can motivate individuals”. It is defined by the […]

What a great piece of research! One that may well put a cat amongst the pigeons. If you haven’t read it please do, it’s not long and is fascinating. https://hbr.org/2016/10/the-one-type-of-leader-who-can-turn-around-a-failing-school Here is a quick summary and some thoughts. First up: The research was based on 411, secondary, academy heads. They found 5 kinds of leaders: […]

Emma Webster, Employment Solicitor at Yesslaw share’s another common mistakes she sees made when tackling performance. Whenever employee clients come to see me with concerns about a performance management process, their comments are nearly always the same: “I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong or what they want me to do to improve.” They […]