Dear Friend,

I hope you are well. I have some interesting news to share with you.

Do you remember I was asked to go into that school that had been graded Requires Improvement? The academy trust gave me a huge pay rise of over 125k a year. They told me exactly what to do and how to do it. So I did.

I only taught for five years before becoming a super head so I used all of my teaching experience to try and turn the school around. As you know, 20% of the staff left in the first year. That was understandable. Dead wood. Too expensive.

To make things easier for staff, I introduced pages of non-negotiables and conformance and consistency policies. It worked in my last school, 200 miles away, so I was confident it would work here too. Granted, the catchment and demographics are completely different.

To my surprise, staff have had unions in complaining about my draconian management style. Since September, 6 teachers are on long term sickness absence and another 4 teachers are resigning at Christmas.

According to my PA, another 12 teachers are thinking of leaving before they are forced out or are too anxious to teach anymore.

Some say I don’t have what it takes. Some say I show no empathy. Some say I am only interested in data and don’t invest in building relationships with the staff or pupils. Perhaps they are right.

I found out last night

2017-19 Full blogs are now archived in the book ‘How Do You Think the Lesson Went?’

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