Category: Outstanding schools

Are you expecting inspectors? Then how about a handy crib sheet to help you from the moment you get the call?  This comes from Paul Murphy, Headteacher at Lancasterian Primary School, Haringey, London who had their inspection in May – thank you Paul 😊 If you’ve not got one already then please click here to automatically download […]

  At our annual conference ‘Moving to Outstanding 2016: Best practice from outstanding head teachers’ the brilliant Gillian Kemp, Headteacher at Cyril Jackson Primary School in London, shared a way in which you can have a pretty good idea of when your next inspection will be. I’d never heard of this way before but speaking […]

Getting to good is hard work, I’m in schools every day and I see that first hand. However becoming outstanding can be a bit of a mystery. I know heads who can walk into a requires improvement school (or worse) and turn it around to be good; some specialise in this. But getting to outstanding […]

Looking for a great book to read as a leader for read a book day? I thought I’d share some of my favourites: Good to Great, by Jim Collins – one of the best leadership books (but might be hard to read in a day) Legacy – 15 lessons in leadership by James Kerr – […]

I’ve had the chance to analyse the results of Ofsted’s 2015/2016 Inspections and here are the results: How do those outstanding heads do it?  We’d like to share… Every year we host our Moving to Outstanding Conference where we get a group of recently outstanding heads together to share their best practice and we’re making […]

Playtime is a whole 20% of the school day, which is one whole day of the week, and as a teacher I know the difference a good play or lunch time makes to my next lesson! And this is why I love OPAL – committed to making playtimes outstanding.  The fact that they work in […]

As a coach I’m a fan of clarity and one of the ways this can be created is by projecting yourself into the future and taking a good look around. I’m fortunate to coach many heads and school leaders and sometimes I ask them to write the Ofsted report they would like. This can be […]

So the DFE has published today that they will not pass legislation forcing schools to become academies. On the face of it this is great news especially as we head into SATs. But reading the official publication is like seeing a washing machine at maximum revs: it is FULL of spin. Here’s my dissection based […]

Finished working with one of my schools on a Journey to Outstanding programme today and they gave me this!  So sweet of them!  Such an amazing team to work with and I will miss them very much.  It’s been an utter pleasure to work with you, thank you ladies 🙂