I’m regularly pointing out to School Leaders that language is the primary driver of any culture, including a school culture. Every word spoken by any stakeholder in your school is a vote for the kind of culture they are creating. And yet, it’s still commonplace for staffrooms to be considered exempt from cultural contribution, as…
The Age, 5 August 2022 The sudden closure of the Colmont School in Melbourne’s north sent an understandable shockwave through the devastated community. It would be genuinely heartbreaking for students and parents to so instantly be separated from peers and teachers with whom they had long-standing relationships. For the teachers, who try so hard in all locations…
I’ll admit it. Before I knew there was a better way, I said it to likely more than one student who I’d followed through with on the threat of a lunchtime detention. What were these fateful words? They were “Now, you sit there and have a good hard think about your behaviour.” The problem starts…
I’ve chatted with quite a number of School Leaders recently about the support they deliver to Teachers at both ends of the career spectrum. Generalisations about these teachers are almost never completely (but always a little bit) true. But I have noticed that nobody is arguing with me when I say that the most support…
A little reminder to School Leaders today that the occasional glance at your policies – and I’m no “policy brain” – to check for gaps is good leadership practice. What you should be looking for is gaps between your policies (documents that I’d call promises of conduct) and practice (what’s actually happening in your school).…
Two types of organisations/teams seem to be speaking a lot about culture lately. They’d be schools and sporting teams. And while reading a book call ‘Belonging’ by Owen Eastwood recently, in an attempt to improve my own work as a leader, I stubled across a sporting example of culture that has genuine relevance to schools.…
As we continue to strain and struggle to provide educational normalcy with our students, many teachers are telling me that they’ve noticed something rather disturbing about them. They’re reporting that there appears to be very little gap, or none at all, between impulse and action in our students. The impulse comes to swear and they…
The tools and resources that work best are fit for purpose. Cages, for instance, are useful for caging things that can’t slip between the bars of the actual structure. That’s why they work well for tigers, but not for ants. In the end, you can build your cage with gold bars, you can plaster your…
It’s one of the least enjoyed parts of being a Teacher or School Leader … the call to let a parent know that their child has screwed up. I dreaded it. At first, it was because I knew that the response from the parent was likely to be negative and defensive. And, in my early…
There’s an ancient adage around teaching that “the kids who least deserve your love and kindness are those that need it the most”. Mostly, it’s a reminder to bring the best practice in our hearts to each and every one of our students. But it’s also because it works. In the equally ancient ABC model…