AND FINALLY FOR NOW!

I don't know about you but I need a rest and the time to think, to reflect and to recharge the batteries. So the blog is going quiet now for a few weeks and I'll see you again in September to continue to release the magic!

ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW!

"All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sandpile at Sunday School. 

"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets...

"So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it’d be easy, they just promised it would be worth it." Unknown

After another extraordinary year where I have learnt so much from so many talented people I still passionately believe that the answers to all the problems we face lie in developing learning organisations built on deep research, coaching, learning leadership, beautiful systems, intelligent accountability and the importance of discipline and character.

HAPPY SUNDAY... HAVE A GREAT BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY!

 I can't send you all flowers, here's the next best thing.

ENJOY A REST BUT PLAN FOR THE FUTURE!

It's the end of yet another academic year and I am sitting on another train heading off across the country. Exciting times ahead... especially for those of you heading off on holiday.... but we need to use the Summer to recharge the batteries and reflect, think and learn. Next year will see the pressure increase as we see another wave of new Academies opening alongside even more of Michael Gove's Free Schools. As always the changing landscape provides us all with opportunities as well as challenges.  We must ensure that all our provision continues to improve as we strive to create world class education not for some but for for every child in every community... whatever it takes!
Chris

THINK TEAM!

It's Saturday and I had another hot and sleepless night. And thinking about the challenges and the opportunities we face it's important to remember that we are all part of a team, part of a complex jig-saw puzzle where your piece of the action doesn't exist in isolation but connects to and creates something bigger and more important... a family, a community, a country, one world. I have worked with and been part of some great teams in Sheffield, Leeds, York, North Yorkshire, OFSTED, Wolverhampton, London Borough of Merton and Leicestershire and thinking about teamwork I found this story on the web and thought it might make you smile...

A VISION FOR LEARNING!

And finally we come to the end of another academic year and what a year it has been. Another year where we have faced an onslaught from our friends at OFSTED who are visiting our 'satisfactory schools' and ratcheting up the bar and rightly focusing on leadership, teaching, data, outcomes and progress. At times like this I often ask myself why do we do this and what are we trying to achieve together and I am constantly reminded that we should...

"Devote yourself to loving others,

devote yourself to your community around you,

and devote yourself to creating something 

that gives you purpose and meaning."

Morrie Schwarz

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BUILD BRILLIANT?

It has been another great year working in Sheffield, Nottingham and Guernsey and whatever happens next we must continue to tell and share our stories; success stories, learning stories, stories about developing understanding, stories about real people and real places.

A PASSIONATE ENTERPRISE!

Education is a passionate enterprise built on the interaction between human beings: teachers, students and parents. We know that we can't make anyone learn; learners, teachers, headteachers and schools have to be active in their own learning and unless they come to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, and how they might deal with them, they will never make progress.

SOME IMPORTANT LEARNING POINTS!

Spending time with colleagues recently made me think about the challenges we have faced and the difference we have made to children's lives. I have been so incredibly lucky and had some amazing adventures working in Wolverhampton, North Yorkshire, York, Leeds, Nottingham, Sheffield and Guernsey with some simply incredible people.

THIS SATURDAY BUY SOME MARBLES!

It's a glorious sunny Saturday here in York with soaring temperatures and blue skies. In the hurly, burly chaos that is our day to day existence, where we constantly rush from here to there not noticing the important things, we all need to be reminded about the things that really matter. Remember that Saturdays should be special days spent with the people you love and care about.

I found this Saturday story in my night-time searches across cyberspace. It made me stop and think and I thought you might like it...

"Let me tell you something, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of "a thousand marbles."...

WE CAN ALL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

I love this story...
"While walking along a beach, a man saw in the distance what looked like a boy dancing....

TOM PETERS 'SEVEN STEPS TO SUSTAINING SUCCESS'!

Here’s the way I like to put it, which I label “Seven Steps to Sustaining Success”:

• You take care of the people.
• The people take care of the service.
• The service takes care of the customer.
• The customer takes care of the profit.
• The profit takes care of the re-investment.
• The re-investment takes care of the re-invention. 
• The re-invention takes care of the future.

(And at every step the only measure is EXCELLENCE.)

The obvious point: Developing people comes first.
It is the “That without which there is nothing ...”