Search Results for: I'm a teacher, get me out of here

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Joe Kirby

*** * * Learn from unsung heroes *** *** *** *** How can we improve our school leadership? All 160+ essays I’ve written online over the last 10+ years are on this page. All are free. *** What do we … Continue reading →

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Problem-solving: Viviane Robinson and the Shoulders of Giants

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Joe Kirby

What can we learn from the life’s work of one of the giants of school improvement research, and over forty years of her studies of school leaders? Viviane Robinson is to school improvement research what Daniel Willingham is to the … Continue reading →

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How Athena sees the world

Posted on February 25, 2023 by Joe Kirby

How can schools best work together? A question on the minds of the best school and trust leaders I know. And it’s part of the reason we started Athena. Athena is a learning trust, a family of schools, that we … Continue reading →

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Flawed School Improvement Plans: Black Swans and Grey Rhinos

Posted on May 6, 2023 by Joe Kirby

Every year, the world’s school leadership teams look to create a school improvement plan for the year ahead.  What can we learn from the school improvement plans we’ve made each year, in the past? What have we prioritised? How did … Continue reading →

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Taking feedback well

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Joe Kirby

As school leaders, we need feedback from staff on how things are going; we can’t be present in that many hotspots, CPD sessions, lessons or conversations. But it’s hard for staff to be fully honest when their jobs, livelihoods and … Continue reading →

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Difficult conversations, HiPPOs and giving feedback well: brave-kind, open honesty

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Joe Kirby

Not to avoid or to bypass – not to see them as difficult, but as honest, open conversations – is both brave and kind, and can bring both trust and improvement. ‘Challenging colleagues directly is the aspect of my job … Continue reading →

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Essays

Posted on September 1, 2018 by Joe Kirby

*** How can we improve our schools and our leadership? http://<div style=”background-color: #000001; color: white; padding: 20px; border: 1px solid #bedbe5; text-align: center; border-radius: 10px;”> <h3 style=”font-size: 84px;”>✉</h3> <h3></h3> </div> Here are the 100+ essays I’ve written and shared online. … Continue reading →

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I’m a teacher, get me out of here

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Joe Kirby

  Francis Gilbert describes his experiences of being a new teacher in a tough school with vivid candour. He agreed to let me share some extracts from the book, which is well worth reading. In a primary school I visited in … Continue reading →

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Three Assessment Butterflies

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Joe Kirby

Winston Churchill once said ‘success is stumbling from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.’ Looking back now on assessment in our first year at Michaela, I can now see what I was blind to then: we stumbled and blundered. What mistakes … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Teaching | 9 Comments

To Miss With Love: Summer Term, & OFSTED

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Joe Kirby

In the final blogpost of a three-part abridgement series (first here and second here), Ofsted inspect Katharine’s school. A fight occurs during the inspection… Summer Term Monday 28 April Ms Desperate, Furious’s foster mother, marches into my office and sits down … Continue reading →

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