It’s hard to move a school from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’, but even harder to move a school from ‘Good’ to ‘Outstanding’. In fact, there’s a high chance that a ‘Good’ school will remain ‘Good’ or slip down.

Out of 3734 schools reviewed, only 4% moved from Good to Outstanding in their next inspection¹, 4%!
What is so special about these schools that the inspectors HAD to make them Outstanding?

• Reason #1: Becoming ‘Good’ means completing a really tough ‘tick list’ of things that need to be done every day with rigour; achieving it is no small feat and neither is maintaining it. To become outstanding, you sadly can’t just tick this tough list and expect to move to the next level. You MUST evolve and build a culture of excellence in your school.
• Reason #2: School leaders are brilliant at developing children’s performance and behaviour, but can struggle to do the same when it comes to their staff. Why? Because school leaders were extensively trained to work with children but not adults. As a result, many leadership teams are not performing to their full potential.

I’ve worked with schools for over 7 years. I walk into at least 4 schools a week and I know more ‘Outstanding’ heads than anyone else². I know how these heads have achieved their outstanding status and the patterns of how to become genuinely ‘Outstanding’ have become very clear. I’m going to share these patterns at my upcoming event: