The 80:20 Rule!

How do we create great schools for every child, every young person and every community? Personally, I passionately believe that the answers lie in creative learning organisations built on beautiful systems, deep research, intelligent accountability and the importance of discipline and character. 

A four week plan to change your life!

There is so much negativity in the world at the moment. Everywhere you look things are problematic. However, I was reading a report on great companies in the Guardian and it's true that the key to great schools, great teams, great organizations and great families is to engage, switch on and keep switched on the people we love, care about and those who who work with us. Everyone tells me that it simply doesn't work like that, but here is a four week plan to change your life!

Cutlers 'Made in Sheffield' Project

I had another great day yesterday at Hillsborough College in Sheffield with colleagues from the four schools who are working together on the Cutlers 'Made in Sheffield' Project!

Every School a Great School!

We need to ensure that every school in this country becomes a great school.

Happy Sunday!

It's been a glorious sunny day here in Yorkshire... 

How to Stay Positive!

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 cheerful, 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 XXXX...

The Curse of MIGRAINE!

I should have known it was coming. I should have known why I was feeling strange...

Practice makes Perfect!

Malcolm Gladwell argues that it is practice that makes perfect...

SORRY!

Rob Spence contacted me to tell me that I had got the quote wrong. It wasn't Nelson Mandela but Marianne Williamson. "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

"Who would like this £20 note?"

I found this story as I searched the internet the other night and realised that it was an important message for a lot of people facing opportunities and challenges in an uncertain world...

"A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a £20 note. In the room full of people, he asked. "Who would like this £20 note?"

How to Live Long and Prosper!

I was re-reading some research gathered on more than 1,500 children who were about 10 years old when they were first studied in 1921. This study has been used to create the most comprehensive longitudinal evidence for how to live long and prosper. As I have said for a long time we simply need to be persistent, disciplined and work hard for as long as we possibly can, stay connected with friends and colleagues and volunteer and give to others whenever and whatever we can.

FACT: There is no such thing as genius!

"If educators invested a fraction of the energy they now spend on trying to transmit information in trying to stimulate the students' enjoyment of learning, we could achieve much better results."

Csikszentmihalyi

HAPPY SUNDAY!

"That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest."

Henry David Thoreau