HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

ALWAYS REMEMBER The most significant and important influence in anyone's life in terms of their learning, their achievements and their successes is their mum!

CELEBRATE AND BE POSITIVE!

I have found the 'The Keys to Success'...

• We all need to be positive;
• We all need to celebrate; and
• We all need to shout about the great things colleagues are doing. 
• We all need to share;
• We all need to network; and 
• We all need to learn from what works. 

Let me know if I can help you on your journey to OUTSTANDING!

TAKE CARE OF THE THINGS THAT REALLY MATTER... ANYONE FANCY A COFFEE?

After another interesting week I have been thinking about the things that really matter and remembered this story which always makes me smile...

REMEMBER THAT SKILLS MATTER!

"The principal goal of education should be creating men and women
who are capable of doing new things... 

men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers."

We all know that autonomy is important because it develops ownership, responsibility and trust but there seems to me to be a huge contradiction between the freedom and empowerment for headteachers and schools and the command and control mentality the DfE is imposing on schools.

SHEFFIELD SENIOR LEADERS

I was in Sheffield yesterday talking to a small group of senior leaders from Sheffield secondary schools about the Cutlers' Made in Sheffield programme and how we hope it will develop over the next three years.

AND REMEMBER TODAY...

"Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.”

Wilfred Peterson

STAY PASSIONATE, POSITIVE AND ENTHUSIASTIC!

So many people tell me that they find it hard to manage the stress and the pressure and ask how I manage to stay so passionate, so positive and so enthusiastic. It's easy if you know how and if you have the right attitude and the right tools and strategies to manage the DfE, OFSTED and all the other XXXX.

WHATEVER YOU DO... STAY POSITIVE!

“If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't! If you want to win, but think you can't, It's almost a cinch you won't. If you think you'll lose, you're lost; For out in the world we find success begins with a fellow's will; It's all in the state of the mind. Life's battles don't always go to the strongest and the fastest, But sooner or later the colleague who wins is the colleague who thinks they can.”

I met with an old colleague this morning who asked me how he should deal with a challenge he was facing.

CULTURE BEATS STRATEGY AGAIN!

If you read the McKinsey Report, analyse the PISA data and listen to people like Ken Robinson it is increasingly obvious that, while recognising what has been achieved in great schools we are still not doing enough to ignite and inspire our children to become brilliant learners.

A GREAT SCHOOL FOR EVERYONE!

I have been arguing for a long time that we must create great schools at the heart of every community so that everyone can have what people have told me is simply a dream; great outcomes for every child and young person...

IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING!

We are challenged all the time to do better, and to do it faster and more efficiently and more effectively... challenged to do what many people would say was impossible....

PUBLIC SERVICE!

"My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honour is to be earned, not bought."

Margaret Chase Smith

OFSTED NONSENSE!

I heard an OFSTED inspector talking about the strength of the inspection process earlier this week after the whole OFSTED process had been heavily criticised by one of the think tanks.

CULTURE BEATS STRATEGY EVERY TIME!

I am not sure why it is but a lifetime of working with schools has shown me time and time again, that culture beats strategy every time!

AND REMEMBER, CULTURE ALWAYS BEATS STRATEGY!

Headteachers and governors already understand that no-one will be offering increased public expenditure over the next decade and that the era of plenty is well and truly over.

REMEMBER, NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

Many people I know share this compelling vision of a great school where every young person is a reader, writer and counter by eight, a brilliant little learner by eleven and becomes an independent learner following their own personalised learning programme through secondary education and on into college, university, the world of work and adult life.

ANOTHER WEEK WITHOUT BROADBAND!

It has been another frustrating week spent in coffee bars and anywhere else where I can access the internet… I am sorry that the blog has been so quiet for so long but hopefully BT are coming to connect me next week. I'll believe it when I see it!

THE ARTS MATTER!

"I would like to propose that we let the imagination take its place at the heart of learning, and that we create a climate in which it can flourish.We need discovery; making; doing; exploring; creating; critical thinking; seeing; hearing; experiencing. Children have to be introduced to the arts in every form.”
Michael Morpurgo