Thinking
Reflections on curriculum, leadership, inclusion and school improvement, drawn from many years of working alongside schools. Some are observations. Some are questions worth sitting with.
An inclusion strategy should be more than a collection of interventions or a description of existing provision. These five questions help leaders consider who may be at risk of being left behind, what barriers they face and whether the school's actions are making enough difference.
Read the five questions →An inclusion strategy should be more than a collection of interventions or a description of existing provision. These five questions help leaders consider who may be at risk of being left behind, what barriers they face and whether the school's actions are making enough difference.
Read moreMost school improvement starts with data, documentation or a development plan. This piece argues that it should start somewhere else entirely — with pupils, and with what their experience reveals about the quality of teaching and curriculum around them.
Read moreAdaptation is one of the most misunderstood words in education. It is not about doing less. It is not about a separate worksheet. It is about understanding what a learner needs in order to access the same ambitious curriculum as everyone else.
Read moreForgetting is not a failure of teaching. It is a feature of how memory works. The question is not whether pupils will forget, but whether the curriculum is designed to help them remember.
Read moreThere is a version of school improvement that begins and ends with data. Attendance figures, attainment scores, progress measures. Numbers that tell you something happened, but not what it means or what to do about it.
Read moreComing Soon
Each episode takes one idea and follows it for five minutes. The kind of thing that is worth thinking about carefully but rarely gets the space it deserves. Concise, direct and grounded in what actually happens in schools.
What does great adaptation actually look like?
Why pupils forget — and what that tells us about curriculum design.
The danger of comparing SEND pupils with imaginary expectations.
What inspection conversations should really sound like.
Data starts the conversation. It should not finish it.
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