This much I know about…how we will become a truly great school

I have been a teacher of English for 24 years, a Headteacher for 9 years and, at the age of 48, this much I know about how we will become a truly great school. I have spent the last month working hard on a document entitled, eventually, How we will become a truly great school. I've done the opposite of Twain/Pascal (I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead) and taken a long time writing a relatively short piece; it is a polished version of my last blog. How we will develop into a truly great school final version It articulates the case for us all to be great teachers and then attempts to garner the wisdom of all our staff members as we try to develop the school's structures to support us in our quest to be truly great. Outstanding, excellent or truly great? We spent over two hours at SLT meetings this week just on the semantics... I talked to my colleagues this morning and the main message was to focus on what really matters - improving our teaching - and ignore the chaos swirling around us. They had a hard copy of the document in their trays when they left the Hall, deposited, whilst I spoke, by Kate my PA. I'm happy for anyone to use the document as they wish...big thanks to Tom Sherrington - @headguruteacher - for the concluding creative thinking tale. Keep smiling! At the end of my short talk, I showed the staff this Smirnoff advert from 2002: [wpvideo CBoQU8Qt] When we have the answer to how we change our structures to become a truly great school, I'll share that with you too!