Character Education
In education today, the system forces our teachers to look intensely at their pupil’s academic results, to identify weaknesses which needs to be improved on to allow for their intellectual strengths to be amplified. When this becomes the main focus [...]
Two Challenges Teachers Face
Global events, our personal life experiences and our early childhood environments have a direct impact on us. Some of these life events can be small, whilst other larger events can have a far-reaching influence throughout our lives. These experiences on [...]
Leadership in Schools
What does an authentic leadership school look like? A good example of a school that has embedded a leadership culture throughout the whole school is Fair Isle Primary school in Scotland. Leadership is an integral part of everyday life in [...]
A Flawed System that Punishes our Schools
If you asked any headteacher in the UK who the most important stakeholder in their school is – they would unanimously reply; the pupil. They wholeheartedly believe that the purpose of their school is to provide the best possible education [...]
Things that Matter Most in Education
We seem to have lost sight of the purpose of education; our schools have become exam factories within a system that judges schools on the basis of their position in league tables. The child has become a thing from which [...]
Why Leader in Me?
I’ve been involved in education for almost 30 years and have seen many initiatives arrive with huge promise only to fizzle out and completely disappear a few years later. The first Leader in Me school was started by headteacher Muriel [...]
Living and Modelling the School Values
What are your school values? Some of the usual suspects are; respect, trust, integrity, responsibility, self-discipline, compassion, perseverance and tolerance. Many schools are proud of their school values because they are meaningful to them and the collaborative effort it has [...]
Leader in Me is now a CASEL SELect Program
We are very proud to announce that Leader in Me is now an approved CASEL SELect program for schools.. Leader in Me (LiM) is a whole-school transformation model and process developed in partnership with educators and offered through United Education Group. Leader in Me empowers [...]
Why are Newly Qualified Teachers Leaving the Profession?
According to The Guardian – July 2017, almost a quarter of teachers who have qualified since 2011 have left the profession. This made me think about the ‘why’s’ and thought I’d share things from my perspective, a teacher, in my [...]
What Children Need to Thrive
Good academic results in school or university will no longer guarantee employability or a successful career. Family life is also facing ever increasing pressures with the influence of technology, reduced family time and the lack of strong positive role models [...]
Bosses’ bible teaches screen-fixated pupils how to strive and thrive (Sunday Times)
They worked for corporate titans and now the leadership techniques taught by a bestselling American business guru are working for British schoolchildren. The high-powered world of building relationships, achieving goals and completing personal mission statements has arrived in UK schools, [...]
Leader in Me
I am writing this whilst flying from Phnom Penh to Saigon, it's a 40-minute flight which allows me to reflect on my travels. I’ve had the luxury of bonding with my 18-year-old son Elliot in Cambodia and Vietnam for 10 [...]
Be The Change
This summer half a million teenagers are taking Michael Gove’s new tougher GCSE’s that are big on rote learning and memorising excessive volumes of facts. Course work has gone and teaching to the test has reached epidemic levels. The harsh [...]
The Dutch Golden Mean
One of the major differences between Dutch and British schools is that we focus much more narrowly on academic achievement. Imbedded in the Dutch psychic is the golden mean philosophy that emphasizes the healthy median of moral behaviour. It warns [...]
How to Improve Mental Health in Your School
Why did Holland rank first in the world in the 2015 PISA study for the emotional well-being of their children in schools? And, why does Holland have more Leader in Me schools than any other country in Europe? The answer [...]