The secret to understanding people!
All behaviour is communication. I came across this statement whilst assessing a special school for Unicef’s Rights Respecting School Award. Mountjoy School in Dorset caters for children aged 4-18 with severe learning difficulties. Many children there are unable to communicate verbally,…
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36 suggestions to transform the teaching profession!
These 36 suggestions have come out of lots of years working in and with schools. The teaching profession is haemorrhaging teachers at an unprecedented rate: 20% plan to leave in the next two years, 40% in the next five years! Lots…
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Finding your Purpose
Many businesses have a purpose statement of some kind but for many it is little more than words on a website. The principle is very simple – in order to score you need to be clear what you’re aiming at!…
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Out of the Cave – part 2: The path to authenticy.
Back to Plato’s cave. In the outer part of the cave, behind the prisoners there is a divide. Behind this divide are puppeteers who are holding aloft objects which deflect the light coming from the fire at the front of…
Read moreGetting out of the Cave – part 1
Or Why everything you thought you knew is wrong! The ancient philosopher Plato suggested that people everywhere live most of their lives like prisoners trapped in a cave. The prisoners are confined in their viewpoint and can only see shadows…
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Will this be your best year yet? You decide!
How committed are you to what you’re doing? One of the biggest killers of progress is indecision. Wavering, hesitancy, half-heartedness, apprehensiveness. None of these traits give birth to successful, thriving projects or businesses. At some point you have to make…
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It’s not money you need, it’s trust.
People talk about needing ‘capital’ in order to expand and grow a business or improve their school. What they usually mean by this is money. But there is another kind of capital that is far more significant to growth than…
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Leadership lessons from Bananarama
Before the summer, having booked to see Michael Buble in concert at Hyde Park with my wife for our anniversary, we discovered that one of the support acts was Bananarama. Who ended up being the highlight of the show since…
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GRIT predicts success better than any other measure
How long do you stick with a task or project when it’s not going your way? How long do your kids, your students or your staff keep attacking a problem before they conclude: “I can’t do this.” According to recent…
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Your team will make or break your project
In ‘Built to Last’ Collins and Porras set out to study twenty ‘visionary’ companies: companies that have stood the test of time, that have outlived the average lifespan of a company and ‘left an indelible imprint on our world’. Companies…
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