The Growth Network Newsletter

Join the Linkedin group for School Middle Leaders Find out about Steps to Resilience Read / listen to ‘The Five Dysfunctions of an SLT ‘ Form or join a Resilience Community * Phones will be banned in schools. As the government said they would not do this, this headline was a surprise. The reason was that they were forced by other political parties to include it in the schools bill. Pepe Di’Iasio,...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * Fruit juice will be banned in schools . The DfE has announced new standards for school meals designed to increase nutrition and reduce salt and fat content. The standar...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * School exclusion numbers are falling. FFT has got ahead of the DfE in looking at exclusion data from the autumn term 2025. The headline is that exclusions are declining...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * The head of Ofsted has upset headteachers . Sir Martin Oliver thought that the best place to tell headteachers what he thought was, at a conference of headteachers. Nee...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * Schools will stock allergy pens and train staff to use them . Following the death in school of a 5 year old boy from an anaphylactic shock in 2021, schools will be requ...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour For those of you who wonder why you are doing what you are doing, James Clear says, it is all about creating the c...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * Inclusion is at the centre of the DfE’s plans for education published this week. Schools will be expected to publish an annual inclusion strategy as well as being measu...

Three things worth knowing this week if you are a school middle leader. This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * The DfE expects all secondary schools to have ‘inclusion bases’ in a statement which has ignited...

Teacher Tips is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . This week presented two interesting challenges. The first was a question from a leader, ‘What do you do to maintain your focus on Wednesday morning when all the pressure is...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . Three things worth knowing this week: * Teaching and curriculum remains an Ofsted focus . After the first 33 volunteer schools were inspected the results show some early...

Teacher Tips is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . To an overstretched teacher, working more hours than they ought to be at a level of intensity far beyond healthy limits, giving more of yourself may sound counter-intuitive....

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . * Suspended students should remain in school according to new Department for Education guidance. The valid concern is that students suspended for things like mobile phone...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . The three things worth knowing this week all come from my notes* of an insightful talk by Sinead McBrearty the head of the teacher support charity, Education Support enti...

This newsletter is brought to you by The Growth Network UK. For more information about how we can help you grow resilient leaders, improve wellbeing and prevent burn out for yourself and your school go to thegrowthnetworkuk.org . Happy New Year and welcome to the first three things worth knowing for middle leaders this year: * Develop your thick desires. This article is a brilliant one to begin th...

We often use the phrase, ‘you make all the difference.’ But to make that difference, it really helps to know yourself and the difference you can make. For years after becoming a teacher and a school leader I understood that I was good at certain things like planning and data but at the same time I knew I had a bad temper which got me into trouble and undermined other things I was trying to do. I w...

The end of the Christmas term is coming, you are probably tired and unlikely to process much detail very well so here are three things worth knowing which might make a difference to you in the next week: * Remember what went well this term . No question has received a response anything like as great as, ‘What would you do if you knew you would fail?’ The correct answer has a lot to do with focusin...

Three things worth knowing this week school middle leaders. * The gap between what we offer and student satisfaction remains high. Absence is still high nationally with only 93% of secondary students attending school so far this term. Why does this concern the average middle leader though? Two reasons, one is that you are probably seeing attendance dip as we approach Christmas and wondering if thi...

Here’s three things worth knowing this week if you are a school middle leader. * Ask your students, ‘Do you like coming to school?’ Culture is at the core of the Ofsted framework section on attendance and behaviour. There is not much change here from the previous framework but it emphasises that leaders should understand their cohort and have policies which are appropriate to them. The best way to...

* Deep dives are no longer part of Ofsted inspections. Mark Enser offers a helpful overview of the new inspection framework which now has: * six evaluation areas; leadership & governance; curriculum & teaching; behaviour & attendance; achievement; personal development & wellbeing and inclusion * a five-point scale to grade each and * no overall judgement The biggest headline for middle leaders is...

* Ofsted part 3 - Achievement . Again, the framework is not making significant changes. The most significant change is that achievement does not just mean exam results but also the wider curriculum including music, sport and the arts. Whether you are responsible for a subject, a cross curricular theme like literacy, an area of the school e.g. sixth form or enrichment should ensure that students ac...

Three things worth knowing this week: * We have less children . This NFER briefing puts numbers, consequences and strategies on the issue of the falling number of student entering schools. Primary schools have already felt the consequences of the decline and it is beginning to impact secondary schools too. What middle leaders need to know is that for every student who does not come through your do...

3 things worth knowing this week * Make a success list instead of a to do list - This was a simple piece of advice from the book The One Thing . A to do list is a way of getting things done with the satisfaction of ticking them off, whether or not they were important or useful. A success list, on the other hand is a way of identifying what matters in relation to your objectives and doing the thing...

The newsletter is taking on a new look. Each week I will be identifying 3 things worth knowing and summarising them in less than 3 minutes of reading or, for those who want to catch up in the car, listening. So if you know a leader with no time to read the educational news for themselves pass it on. 3 things worth knowing this week * The Disadvantaged White children you teach really are harder to...

Jo Howard gave some excellent advice about how to use a school holiday - it begins with binge watching in case you are worried. Last week we talked about working from rest, doing things in your holiday which build you up and refresh you for the year ahead. One way to do that is to use the relative calm of the summer to review the year gone by and consider what we want to achieve in the year(s) ahe...