Teacher & Student Wellbeing: The Problem & How We Can Fix It.
Teaching is the best job in the world. I have no doubt about it. To have the privilege of each day walking into a room and being able to shape and mould the minds and lives of young people is…
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Read this if you want your staff or students to perform better
If your staff or students aren’t performing well, is it down to you? It has long been accepted wisdom that people perform better or worse in work and life in proportion to their self-belief. Henry Ford is reported to have…
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Which is most important? Character or Competence
(Or why 74 million Americans voted for Trump) Character or competence? I wonder what your instinctive reaction is… “Depends on the context” you might say? In a friend? In a teacher/ mentor? In a boss? In a political leader? Of…
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What COVID-19 is teaching us about Capitalism
‘Greed is good,’ stated Gordon Gecko in the film Wall St. He was describing an ideology that has long been held to be both obvious and essential to human and economic development – namely the ‘trickle down’ effect. Adam Smith’s…
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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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Getting 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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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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