Frank and Stan Chats

Timing is very important in ensuring we get the right guest at the right time. In the world of Frank and Stan Chat much of this is down to luck. Today's edition is a good example because the night before this edition Co-operative UK, the organisation that Rose Marley is CEO won the Business of the Year Award at a glitzy Manchester venue. Rose is a great guest because she raises important points fo...

After a break of five weeks to recharge the batteries the two long time friends are back for their 5th academic year. This week's chat focuses on the problems some schools and the government have encountered regarding aerated concrete. A week when the Secretary of State for Education swore during an interview with ITV, when some schools returned their building survey questionnaires to find the DfE...

A rather personal Frank and Stan Chat for Frank this week as he has invited a good friend of his son, Chris Murphy, as the guest. Chris chose not to follow the path many of his friends followed when they left secondary school and College finally ending up at university. Chris chose an apprenticeship through a sprinkler installation business and this has enabled him to progress to be a Director of...

Another great guest this week as Frank and Stan Chat about Artificial Intelligence (or at least Nihad Celic does), the Secretary of State believes headteachers should provide one of the most expensive taxi services in the country and the honesty of a footballer revealing his mental health challenges. The section on AI is worth watching alone as Nihad explains how the emphasis on knowledge is curre...

This week Frank and Stan Chat with clinical psychologist Dr Gill L'Anson about her work on leadership and how the pandemic has affected the wellbeing of senior leaders. Gill brings her research and insight to bear on the issues of the week. She stresses the need to draw on 'the best psychological knowledge we have to help improve things..... and we need to be much less polarised'. Stan chats about...

This week the two gents chat to James Eldon, Principal at Manchester Academy, a member of the Headteachers' Roundtable and advocate for the thinking around the recently announced MBacc. The chat begins with Stan reflecting on the power of Ministers in ordering or demanding that Ofsted inspects a school where a story about a student identifying as a Cat ran wild in newspapers recently. James consid...

This week our chat needed a quick change of plan. The planned guest was unable to join us but fortunately, Lucy Trueman Founder and CEO of TruemanChange Ltd was available. Having been a guest three times previously Lucy knew the ropes so we just ploughed into the weekly education chat. Stan considered the events in parliament and how he felt that a clearer sign of collective responsibility across...

Following a week's break Frank and Stan Chat is back with Debbie Clinton as their guest. A former secondary school Headteacher in the NE, ex HMI and former CEO of a multi academy trust in the Midlands Debbie now supports a variety of schools around the country. The chat takes place following the resignation of Boris Johnson, the announcement by Ofsted that they are tweaking their school inspection...

A fascinating guest this week and a focus on her Doctoral thesis into the uniqueness, or otherwise of Ofsted reports. Rebecca considered how language in the reports led to subsequent improvements in outcomes, were there any emerging trends, any influencing factors that affected language or impact and within the area for improvement were there any particularly effective or impactful phrases that dr...

This week Shaheen Myers, Deputy Director of Learning for Leeds City Council joins the guests and highlights issues around mental health and wellbeing for senior leaders. Stan chips in with thoughts about Ofsted while Shaheen considers the impact of variability within inspections on the confidence and sense of belonging for senior leaders. Frank shares some research he's undertaken on how schools a...

This week the two gents are joined by Eddie Czestochowski, founder and Managing Director of Cell Pack Solutions Ltd, a battery manufacturer based in the North east. In addition to having a busy working life Eddie is also a keen chess player and is encouraging children and young people to begin playing the game. Whether it is opening a chess club in a local library or going into schools to teach th...

When we started Frank and Stan Chat in May 2020 we never imagined we would get to episode 5 but here we are at edition 150! And we are breaking new ground by having the brilliant Russell Harvey, the Resilience Coach as our guest for the third time. No other guest has managed that....yet! This week Stan wonders whether the Speaker of the House of Commons is actually a supply teacher. Russell then c...

We are fortunate to have many amazing guests on our weekly chat. This week we are joined by Prof Jackie Carter from University of Manchester. It is a thoroughly enjoyable chat. Jackie offers some amazing insights into her own education journey and how these have influenced the work she undertakes with undergraduates. She strongly believes that tech and digital industries needs to include greater d...

Every now and again Frank and Stan are able to invite a colleague who has gained a national profile and provides a broader insight. This is such a week. We were delighted to spend 35 minutes or so chatting to Ed Dorrell, the Director of Public First and former Deputy Editor of the TES. Stan gets things moving by referring to a recent NFER report that explains how senior leaders are having to cut i...

Ofsted trying to salvage some reputation from a miserable and depressing few weeks/months and the Deputy Prime Minister resigning are all announced just hours and minutes prior to this week's recording of the Frank and Stan Chat. So, clearly alleged bullying, safeguarding and other inspection related issues are covered. There was also enough time to reflect on how leaders manage their teams and ho...

This week the two gents chat to Maeve Birdsall and Jasmine Priestley again. They are joined this time by Claire Clithero. All three guests are strongly influenced by Reggio Emilia philosophy. This approach was developed in Northern Italy and continues today. It is an approach to teaching, learning and advocacy for children and in its most basic form, is a way of observing what children know, are c...

This week the two gents chat to Adrian Gray, a former senior HMI, who led the Challenge and Analysis Team at Ofsted when Frank was leading on school, Early Years and ITE Frameworks. Adrian was always looking for particular issues that had not been detected before. This made him very useful in identifying weaknesses in Frameworks and their delivery. He is a historian and geographer and has produced...

Carolyn Eyre is a safeguarding consultant who worked for the trust Frank led. Her guest appearance had been planned for months but it is timely as it follows the recent publication of the Ofsted report at Cavendish Primary School. The chat considers how safeguarding requirements have changed over the past decade and why variability in the approaches of inspectors makes it difficult to determine in...

This week with Stan away Frank undertakes the chat with Susan Breckell, a regular guest on the show. The guest is Anne Morris, Founder and CEO of Yipiyap, a longstanding tutoring organisation that employs students on gap years to work with pupils in secondary schools and Colleges. Anne explains how Yipiyap has grown and how it remained positive despite some setbacks in getting accredited to the Na...

The latest guest on the Frank and Stan Chat is Jonny Uttley, the CEO of The Education Alliance. The gents have been trying hard to secure Jonny as a guest because he is noted for his principled and value laden approach to leadership. The chat starts with Stan reflecting on the recent death of Bill Tidy, a longstanding cartoonist who worked for The Mirror. Jonny then considers the possible impact o...

A very special and important Frank and Stan Chat this week. Following the recent publication of the Annual Report from Headstart, the support network for senior school and trust leaders, the gents chat to key members of the organisation, Ros McMullen and Peter Crockett. These colleagues have played crucial roles in establishing, developing and maintaining Headrest and offer quite worrying and at t...

This week the two gents chat to Zaitoon Zukhari, a former Science teacher who has now become a leading educator for digital education within her trust and also for Google in the UK. Zaitoon explains how she led the transformation of learning and the introdcution of digital devices for pupils and students across the trust she works for. We havent forgotten the popular 'What's caught your eye?' slot...

This week's Frank and Stan Chat is slightly different. The two gents have invited Dan Worsley, a children's author who previously worked in a Blackpool primary school, to return for a chat in the build up to World Book day in early March. The chat has been created to enable schools who cannot secure an author to find out how they come up with their ideas, how they develop them and how many times t...

When we started the Frank and Stan Chat in May 2020 we never envisaged anything more than two ol' educationalists chatting about issues that caught our eyes recently. Now, after 136 editions we have to pinch ourselves when we consider how lucky we have been to have so many brilliant guests joining our chats. This week is no exception and we were blown away with the issues considered by Mel Ainscow...

This week the two gents discover the world of Ancient Civilisation and how it is becoming increasingly popular together with the teaching of Latin. Peter Wright from Blackpool 6th Form College explains vividly how he is exciting a wide range of students and encouraging more and more to study his area of expertise. The chat is truly an education for Frank and Stan as both have a shallow understandi...