The first few days as a leader of a new team can be daunting, as you plan how you want to set your expectations, build your team and eventually lead change. Here are ten tips to help: 1/ Accept feeling you are an impostorImpostor syndrome is a deep feeling that you are not enough, despite … Continue reading Ten tips for new leaders
Leadership lessons from planting trees
It's taken us years of having a garden to consider planting a tree. We finally summoned up the courage last spring, partly to hide the gap of the big maples that the neighbours behind us took down a few months ago, and partly because we wanted to experience the joy of watching trees grow, season … Continue reading Leadership lessons from planting trees
Finding your mentor
A mentor is someone who sees more ability within you than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out. Bob Goshen. Who would you call, beyond your family, to share good news or to ask for advice or to share a difficult situation at work? Right now, many of us are writing plans for … Continue reading Finding your mentor
How to write your SEF (reflections on school self-evaluation)
Each year as a HT I would - sometime between May half term and September 1st - pull out my old SEF from a cupboard or laptop folder, and summon up the courage to rewrite it. Yesterday I met with five experienced current and past school leaders and, with a pile of our school’s SEFs … Continue reading How to write your SEF (reflections on school self-evaluation)
A positive way of giving a negative message
The way you treat people is what they become. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. When we sit down with a teacher after observing their lesson, we think carefully about all the myriad elements we might choose to feedback. And mostly we know to only select the one or two elements which are helpful for them to work on right at … Continue reading A positive way of giving a negative message
10 tips for more effective one-to-ones
Image - Gregor Cresnar One to ones are quiet, focused collaboration time for employees and bosses to connect. It’s their time, not yours. Kim Scott - Radical Candor We can all point to memories we have of great and terrible line managers we’ve experienced, and the shape of the clumsy boot-print or lifelong inspiration they … Continue reading 10 tips for more effective one-to-ones
Mountains
Mountains are the cathedral where I practice my religion. Anatoli Boukreev.I like walking in mountains and spending time in them. I am drawn back by a kind of gravitational pull every month or so, even to those I’ve climbed before. I’ll head off on a Saturday morning alone or with a close friend or one … Continue reading Mountains
The paradoxes of teaching
A paradox is an odd or self-contradictory statement which has about it the ring of truth. (Greek – para = contrary to; doxa = opinion). Maybe it’s the natural cynic in me, but I enjoy looking for paradoxes at work. It offers a sideways look and alternative perspective to the daily grind. What seems at … Continue reading The paradoxes of teaching
Small is beautiful – 10 ways Trusts can support small schools
How do we support and celebrate our smallest schools in challenging times? In our family of schools we have a large number of brilliant small schools. Fourteen of our forty-three members of the Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust educate fewer than 150 pupils. And so, while we definitely don’t pretend to have all the answers, here … Continue reading Small is beautiful – 10 ways Trusts can support small schools
To do or not to do
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. Marie Curie We all use to do lists. For food shopping, reminders for our children, holiday packing and of course at work. From the back of an envelope to a computer screen, this most simple of reminders seems to … Continue reading To do or not to do
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