Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category

Honestly, how many hours have you wasted in this week, this month? How many meetings you’ve attended have been clear, focussed and prompt? How many have just descended into random discussion?

Follow the steps below and I think you can cut the time you spend in meetings by half. Imagine what you could do with all that extra time in your day!

How can I be a good leader? Teachers, academics and politicians have been trying to answer that question for as long as there’s been education of any sort. When it’s one of our leaders we’re critiquing, you often have 20:20 vision about their strengths and weaknesses. But when it’s ourself we’re looking at, that picture can get muddied and it can be difficult to get a clear view. So, whatever your leadership responsibility, do you recognise any of these traits in your leadership style? Checking those tendencies can make a dramatic impact in your abilities as a leader.

If you’re a new governor, particularly if you have had experience of working in schools before those first few meetings can be particularly daunting. Education can be like its own language sometimes that seems to take delight in describing the very simple through the most complicated collection of terms and acronyms possible. With that in mind, here are five top tips to help you hit the ground running quickly as a new governor.

Presenting an assembly for any teacher can be an extremely daunting task. Many pastoral leaders who spend a great deal of their time successfully dealing with managing behaviour in group or one to one sessions have many a sleepless night before “performing” in front of a whole year group. In some schools, the trend has been for form tutors and a senior member of staff to “manage” the pupils whilst the assembly is “delivered” by the presenter: an element of group management may well remain necessary, but this section of the course is designed to help you develop your presentation

When it comes to being a governor we all know that it’s easier to ‘support’ rather than to ‘challenge’, especially as the headteacher and their senior leadership team hold all the cards: they have all the information about how the school is doing, they know their way around the key educational issues.

Balancing full-time employment outside school and being a governor can often be a real challenge. I knew one governor who had to take half a day’s holiday for every meeting, just because they were always held at 2 in the afternoon, and another that was flatly told that no accommodation would be made for him whatsoever on pain of the sack. Ultimately not all employers are understanding about being a governor, but here are four ideas you can try to help balance your work and your governing:   1) Request Flexible Working Around Governing Body Meetings Unless you are a

Parents can become disengaged with school – this post looks at overcoming common barriers so parents can have maximum impact on their child’s education.

It’s the nightmare scenario. You pass by the newsagent, just to see the local rag’s billboard outside: “Your school in shock incident.” So when people write bad things about your school, how do you make sure you know about it first? Fortunately there’s an easy tool out there, that’s really simple to set up and free called Google Alerts. Essentially, every time your school name or a word or phrase of your choice is mentioned on the web you’ll get an email to let you know. Since Google also indexes sites like Facebook and Twitter you’ll also get notified if

An effective leader can motivate, communicate well and plan effectively.  The qualities that make a leader involve creating fresh possibilities and moving a team forward to develop what is needed in their role. The management of groups or teams within a school or college is very much dependent on the leader of the group. The qualities which make a successful school team leader include: The ability to provide clear directions by: • establishing goals and standards • communicating group goals • involving people in target-setting • delegating tasks with clarity The encouragement of open, two-way communication by: • being open

About two years ago I joined the governing body of an infant school. The school in question, it was fair to say, was on its knees. There was no chair, the school had half its complement of governors, an acting headteacher and some serious serious problems. Yet just a few years earlier it was a poster child for the well managed primary school. A very successful head, a respected chair of governors, good results in a poor area. The school was doing great, but succession planning was its undoing. It’s a sobering thought – as an active chair you could