HAVE YOU READ THE DFE PAPER ON THE LATEST PISA RESULTS?

HAVE YOU READ THE IPPR NORTHERN POWERHOUSE REPORT ON EDUCATION?

JUST DO IT!

The challenge as always is how we do it. We need to work together to share ideas and strategies and to continue to think team and to build co-operative, collaborative approaches that inspire young people to really understand what they are capable of, to dispel the nonsense about genius and to help them reach their extraordinary potential. It's important that we all understand that colleagues in schools across the country are already releasing the magic and have transformed the learning landscape through the powerful use of collaborative school improvement approaches and through using brilliant programmes like Every Child a Reader, Every Child Counts, Musical Futures and Learning Futures. We all know great schools that have created a culture of excellence built on passion, persistence, self-belief, determined, focused and deliberate practice and hard work. Great schools where this is balanced by a focus on compassion, equity and a belief that every child can achieve and can be successful!

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!

Throughout my working life, people have told me that things are impossible!

IT'S EASY TO BE CRITICAL!

I am struggling to balance the negative, destructive and short sighted approaches and outpourings from the DfE and OFSTED, with the outstanding things I see every week in ordinary schools where ordinary teachers working with ordinary young people, are achieving extraordinary outcomes.

SKILLS MATTER IN CREATING BETTER LEARNERS AND BETTER WORKERS!

Employers continue to argue that we can only realise and release the potential of our children and young people if they are better prepared for life and work in the twenty first century. In recent years we have made considerable progress in raising standards and in improving the educational attainment of our children and young people, but the pace of change remains insufficient and the focus on skills has been limited.

PLEASE READ THIS: WHAT WORKS BEST IN EDUCATION: THE POLITICS OF COLLABORATIVE EXPERTISE

In the previous paper, 'What Doesn’t Work in Education: The Politics of Distraction', John Hattie argued that the aim of schooling is for every student to gain at least a year’s worth of learning for a year’s input. He further argued that many policy-makers and systems are persistently drawn to the wrong kind of education interventions – distractions that do not help us realise this ambitious aim. Hattie argues here that we need instead is a defensible and compelling narrative that leads to long-term, coherent and focused system-wide attention on student learning. He calls this territory ‘the politics of collaborative expertise’. Its premise is that there is differential expertise across our schooling system and that there can be wide variation within schools. At the same time, there is a remarkable spread of expertise that can be identified, nurtured, esteemed and brought together to reduce this variance. The aim of this paper is to begin describing what a model of collaborative expertise would look like and what we need to get done to make it a reality. 

READ THIS: 'WHAT DOESN'T WORK IN EDUCATION: THE POLITICS OF DISTRACTION'

This report is the first of two linked papers by John Hattie on what doesn’t work in education, and then on what does. In this paper he describes the confused jargon and narratives that distract us from the most ambitious and vital aim of schooling: for every student to gain at least a year’s growth for a year’s input. He outlines the policy responses commonly used by systems aspiring to be in the world’s ‘top five’ for education and argues that these responses are ‘fixes’ that fail to address the important questions, and so are unlikely to make a difference, despite costing many billions of dollars. Such responses are part of what Hattie calls the ‘politics of distraction’.

LESSON TWELVE!

Listen to those you work with and those you serve...

LESSON ELEVEN!

Be flexible, responsive and adaptable...

TRY SOMETHING NEW!

We must create a culture in our schools, our hospitals and our care system where we break down the walls and the barriers which limit creativity and stubbornly maintain the status quo and limit our opportunities to make that step change in outcomes. We must try new things and network, learn and build on the real excellence in the system and challenge the systems and hierarchies that nourish and perpetuate the irrelevant, the second rate and the simply dreadful.

LESSON TEN!

Learn from everything you do...

LESSON NINE!

Be open, honest and genuine about successes and failures...

LESSON EIGHT!

Develop and support communities of interest...

JUST DO IT!

This Sunday, think about what you have done in the last week to challenge the culture of 'can't do', to cut out the rubbish, to knock down the walls, to focus on the things that really matter and to do the things that will really make a difference! We can all make a real difference, so what is holding you back? …just do it!

LESSON SEVEN!

Develop cooperative and collaborative approaches...

LESSON SIX!

Have high expectations of everyone...

LESSON FIVE!

Focus on standards, discipline and behaviour as the keys to success...

LESSON FOUR!

Constantly search for talented people to learn from...

LESSON THREE!

Constantly search for excellence to share, network and learn from...

LESSON TWO!

Be relentlessly positive and optimistic and yet realistic...

LESSON ONE!

Be driven by a mission with values and beliefs that focused on fairness, inclusion and equity...

THE TWELVE KEYS TO BRILLIANT LEARNING!

It has been another great year working in Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster 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.

THE HECKMAN EQUATION!

At the heart of the Cutlers' 'Better Learners, Better Workers' approach is a recognition that to be successful young people need skills, behaviours and character traits alongside knowledge and understanding and that we need to develop a curriculum entitlement that develops all of these.

WHAT WORKS!

I have spent the last forty years in this crazy profession searching for the extraordinary; looking for what works and trying to understand why some things don't work!

HARD TIMES AND TOUGH ISSUES REQUIRE BOLD, BIG AND BRILLIANT SOLUTIONS!!

Whether it is care for the elderly, unemployment in young people, concerns about special educational needs and inclusion or the underachievement of looked after children; hard times and tough issues require bold, big and brilliant solutions... anything to shake things up and challenge the status quo.

BE HAPPY!

Happiness appears to be connected to seven things: relationships, contentment, security and money, health, transcendence and fulfilment. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope that everyone who reads my blog has a happy, healthy, safe and successful 2017 and that it brings you and those you love and care about, peace, fulfillment and all the things you really, really want. Most importantly love what you are doing and simply be happy! And always remember that when it comes down to it the only things that really matter are faith, family and friends!