Feb 15
I am currently adding another tool to my executive leadership coaching toolbox by training to deliver the Thomas International TEIQue test, which measures traits underpinning emotional intelligence. As with all psychometric tests, this test uses a series of questions to capture insights into ourselves, which we can use to articulate and understand ourselves; in many …
Feb 01
I have had such fun this past week! Genuinely! My kind of fun, just to be clear, involves engaging in uplifting dialogue with potential change-makers, with a view to making the world a better place; when I do, in whatever format this is, I come away energised, determined, positive, optimistic … what is not to …
Nov 09
One of the great delights in my working life is working with other professionals, to achieve more together than we could as individuals. Besides, with the right people it is enormous fun, as was precisely the case last Thursday, when the lovely Matthew Savage and I co-presented a session for school leaders at an education …
Aug 24
1.50am on Saturday 22 August was a momentous occasion for me, as I crossed the threshold from the age of 49 to that of 50. I had been looking forward with great eagerness, anticipation and enthusiasm for weeks to that precise moment, as I awaited the descent of omniscience and wisdom, in a Damascene-like moment …
Jun 29
I have had a week of feeling proud – proud of so many school leaders I know, who have risen with grit and resilience to the challenges they have faced, proud of my executive leadership coachees who have reached the end of their programmes and who are evidently stronger and more focused … proud – …
Jun 08
Last week, a fellow Light Up Learning Board member came across this 2016 article from The Atlantic, and I thought it was particularly apt at this moment to share it in our history, as we all try to work out how to move definitively away from systemic, ingrained racism in our world. Written by Paul …
Jun 02
Once Upon A Time, roughly 9 weeks ago, when everyone in the UK was instructed to stay at home, there was a mini (but nonetheless confronting) crisis in Edinburgh, when root ginger for purchase was nowhere to be found. ‘Sorry, not available’ were the words stamped across online orders, and even kind neighbours who ventured …
Dec 31
Stratford-upon-Avon has 4 million visitors a year, according to the taxi driver who took me (and my daughter) back to the railway station after a short post-Christmas break indulging in culture in the town of Shakespeare’s birth. It was, I must say, a fabulous trip; we had a great time visiting various sites associated with …
Nov 07
Do not be misled by the title of this blog; tempting though it is to write about the American presidential election, this short reflection is instead about an independent school in Thailand, which I have known about for many years but which I visited for the first time just this morning. Bangkok Patana School was …
Apr 05
Early on Friday morning I received a distressing message on Twitter from a former member of staff at one of my previous schools, alerting me to the news that was splashed all over the UK press, and on the front page of the Daily Mail: the inquest into the death of Georgia Willson-Pemberton. The coroner …