Education Leaders LIVE | March Reflections

0:00Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Welcome to education leaders live. Hey, Chris, how are you doing today? Good morning. I'm all good. It is a bright sunny, albeit freezing day in the shed here in Newcastle, but it's good to be online and some really great podcasts this week. Absolutely. Well, just to reintroduce ourselves for those who might be tuning in for the first time, this is education leaders life. So it's the live accompaniment to the education leaders podcast. My name is Shane Leaning, so I'm usually the host of the podcast that you might tune in week by week. And I'm based out here in Shanghai, China. How about you, Chris? I'm in Newcastle in the northeast of England and where the sun always shines, of course. I find it amazing that we forged a friendship and a partnership both workwise and personally, given where we live. It's pretty special. Would we meet in? Was it Bangkok originally? I was saying, I was speaking at the festival in

1:04Shanghai. That's right. That's right. Yeah, I love those, I love those little postcards. Just to know. I remember, I remember it well. And then we've seemed to meet at different points around the world. And we get to do this once a month, which is an absolute joy. So this show, you might be listening to on the podcast and in which case you're just having a listen and you're not listening to it live. But for those of you who are, you might be joining us on LinkedIn or on YouTube or on Riverside. It's wonderful to have you here. We get together on the last Thursday of every month to review the shows that have been happening through the month, but also not just for me and Chris to have a bit of a chat about the what's been happening. But for you to get involved as well. So I'm just looking to my left now. I can see we've already got some people joining us on LinkedIn. So it's awesome. And we've got some people on YouTube as well. So I'm just going to write a little note in the chat. Hi, everyone. Please feel free to ask

2:12questions here. And I'm going to send that and that goes live straight to you. So please feel free. Ask us some questions. Get involved. Actually become part of this conversation because that's what this is about. The chance for the community to explore some of those themes on the show. And what a month it's been for the pod. We've had a few things on the pod. We've had a bit of a celebratory episode where I introduced what's been happening on the show and kind of a little bit of the background behind education leaders a bit wider than what you may know from the podcast. We had the incredible Dr. Chris Baker on the show, just absolute joy. One of the only people which includes you, Chris, a score actually, who was in fact, I've got a bias for Chris's, who's been on the show twice. And this was an absolute knockout episode. Go back and listen to that if you haven't already. And also the latest episode as well, looking at professional

3:12professional development and how much of that works or doesn't work and what some of those challenges might be. So it's been a really good month. I wonder, Chris, like what's been stand out for you? Where would you like to start with this chat? Well, I guess before we actually get into that, maybe if people are listening online, they could drop us a message and just let us know where they are in the world because I find it fascinating that I'm here in Newcastle. You're in Shanghai and there's people everywhere sort of listening to this. I think it's so, yeah. If you are listening, I've dropped us a line. Let us know where you are. Be great to hear. So for me, when I listened to the podcast, I picked one up which I should have done for the previous episode of the live, which was the Selena Boyd one as well, about the Good School's guide. And it was really interesting listening to that, listening to your solo podcast and that of Chris Baker. There was some themes that ran through those, but I thought a good starting point would be to talk about where education leaders came from. And it's quite amusing because when

4:15I met you in Shanghai and you dropped that post card off, I kind of saw you as an established consultant doing what you did. And I was a little bit jealous. I was kind like so still in the corporate world. And there's as many of you that listen, we'll know that. That caused a little bit of tension for me from an academic integrity perspective. And I saw you doing this, this great work. And I thought you were the finished article you were established. Actually, as it turns out, you're only just started. Exactly what not. And you know, in your podcast, you talked about the fact that you were terrible when you got started, particularly around sort of these things. I didn't see that at all. What I saw was an established individual. So I'm kind of interesting is to where it all came from. What got you started? And how you clearly, when you start with something like this, you've got something to say, you've got a message to the team, and I think that that's clear with the education leader stuff. But there's a danger that if you have something

5:19to say that you end up sort of having a rant. And I'm wondering how you balanced, how you balance sort of being measured in your work and not having more with all of that kind of stuff. But where did it all come from? How did it start? Well, it's funny. Thanks for asking, Chris, because it's funny, actually, that that idea that you talk about of, you know, maybe seeing from the outside and thinking, Oh, this is, you know, kind of this guy is kind of just kind of managing to do it. And it's fully formed. And it's all there. And it's funny what the difference is from the inside to the outside. And it's like the LinkedIn effect, isn't it? Like everyone just looks like they're absolutely knocking out the park. And then when we actually get to speak to each other, everyone's like really challenging. And I think that can be a problem. And it's funnily enough. It's one of the reasons why I've tried as much as possible to share openly and vulnerably about the realities of of of what I do. Because I think there is a danger where we all kind of look to others. And

6:22yeah, and think that, but yeah, gosh, take it. Going back all that time now, which is I started, this education leaders brand started while I was in my previous role. So it was like a hobby. And it wasn't called education leaders, but then I've had two name changes on this podcast, actually. So it was called travel, travel, like I was trying to be clever with the thing, you know, like everyone does the traveled eating. And that was kind of what I launched as a podcast. It was like a hobby podcast, really, to kind of speak to different leaders. And then when it came to me, leaving the organization that I was in, and I was made redundant from that role, like they reduced the team. Well, there was no, they consolidated the team internationally down to their London office, actually. And we wanted to stay out here. So that gave me this opportunity, which I think is, I need to be transparent about because not

7:23many people get the opportunities to get a bit of paid time, you know, to to explore something. And that's what redundancy offered me. And therefore, it just made sense to go, well, can I build something off the back of this podcast, which had started to do do quite well, like surprisingly, it was started to get quite traction quite fast. And therefore, like the idea of kind of working around, like leadership working around those themes and working around, empowering schools to be able to lead change for themselves, which was something that I'd learned a lot over my career and felt passionate that we were getting wrong as a sector. Yeah, it just kind of, you know, I guess it just kind of felt right. If I was to think of those early days, though, I was total scattergun approach. And I'm glad I was, like in terms of you, I didn't know what it was going to grow into. And I thought, perhaps actually, I was like, well, I'll try this for a bit and I'll get a job if it doesn't, if it doesn't work. So I'll just kind of

8:25have a go and see if anyone wants to work on me and a few people are saying, come and do some training here and a bit of training there. And then things start to grow. And eventually, it started to narrow and I go, okay, get those focused in. And actually, I think it was about that time when everything rebranded to education leaders about a year ago is where everything started to narrow into like what it's become, what it's become today, which is still pretty evolving and messy if I was to be honest. Yeah, you know, and it's interesting because meeting you and working with you gave me, you were one of the people that sort of gave me the courage to make the jump out of the commercial world into the sort of freelance world. And there are days where my wife has cursed you for that. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah. That's fair, that's fair. I'll take that. It ebbs and flows. You know, we have good months and bad months and on a good month, she's she's quite fine with you, but bad months, she's maybe maybe a little sharper in my criticism of

9:27you, but it's, I think it's an interesting place to occupy and I think it takes a fair bit of courage, resilience and maybe even bloody mindedness to make that jump. And it's a tricky old place to be, but I think what you're doing is fab. And sort of, you know, looked at a lot of the stuff that you've done and I'm delighted to be part of it. Interested enough, you've got any book projects coming up? Am I allowed to see that? Yeah, yeah. Well, I do have a book coming up and I'm literally just in the last bits of conversation with the publisher now. So literally this week, which so I will be announcing that shortly, but there is definitely a book coming up based on cognitive load and leadership, which I'm very excited about that that'll be coming soon. Again, these kind of projects, I literally, I was just chatting with someone on on a call just now and I was like, when you're running your own business, all of a sudden things start to, you're to do list gets massive and you start to kind of like work on a lot of different things

10:31and it's easy to lose yourself. And so, luckily, I'm in a little bit of a glass box here, but glass is great like for writing on with whiteboard marker. So I've literally, you can't see it, but I've got a very messy glass door to my right, which has, I've just started to kind of map all the different projects on. And yeah, one of which I've just realized the book isn't on there. It's just, yeah, this is the problem. I keep thinking things. You've got a beautifully arranged bookshelf and a very nice vase as well. This is from what I can see. I do. I had to swing this back. Yeah, I did. I had help with it. But I think actually on a like, on a series, you know, I think with a lot, you know, a lot of people reach out to me now with that kind of same thing saying, Shane, I love what you're doing. I want to do it. Like, you know, so I can do this. And I think, you know, my advice right nowadays is kind of, okay, but

11:34remember that, you know, try to remember that it does look, it looks, the grassland does look greener and it looks easier. And, and that a lot of what I'm doing is, you know, make a very little money for some months and a bit of more money other months. And sometimes you, you have no idea where, where your next paycheck is going to come in. And it's a literal feeling that. And sales is not a natural thing that educators lean into. Like, most of us haven't really had that experience. So you end up having to kind of work out systems for helping people to get to know what you do and stuff. It's just the whole build it and they show calm. Like, it's just, it's just such terrible advice. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And that's been something that I've often been, that I've been thinking about because those early days, like, I'll, I'll be honest, I always look, yeah, I did have a decent enough reputation that all my work came from just people

12:34getting in touch. I didn't do any outreach, just people asking. And that's like, amazing. But that's not a sustainable, not a business or anything. And you can't, you can't rest on that. No, not at all. But it's a great story. And I think it's, I love, like I say, I love the fact that it's built on a bit of vulnerability as well. So good on you for making that jump and, and being out there and putting in that space. And, and thank you from both myself and Mrs, or for helping me make that jump. Yeah. Let's move on because we're on the risk of perhaps being a bit self-congratulatory in that. Absolutely. Yeah, let's stop. I'm deeply uncomfortable. Let's talk about Chris Baker, Dr. Chris Baker, rather, he really should, I would vote for Chris to be in charge of education full stock. Go on, tell me why. What were you taking? Like, as I love this, I love this guy. I'm curious to hear more. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, he said himself up quite well by already sort of talking about Rob Caw's work and the poor proxies for learning and how that led into the sort of poor

13:39proxies for leadership. And I think there's a, there's a little bit of a theme that runs true across both of those. I know Rob, I know Rob's work very well and I've, I know Rob a little bit, is in the same part of the world as I am and stuff that I've been prompting to each other. And I just love the fact that they look beyond the obvious. And I think that the sort of, the UK particularly has an inspection model that looks at things very superficially and doesn't really dig behind what's going on with kids and really educating them. We look at those sort of superficial presentations. And I really like that. I've got a funny story about Rob Caw. And I've got to say that the work that Rob and Stuart Kind do at Evidence-Based Education is great. And we, Coru, we used some of their, their ideas, that idea of sustainability to build our touchpoint courses in which you've only recently gone live. And it's that idea of moving away from one-off training days and moving towards that sort of sustained development cycle. And I

14:43think that's a great plan. And I kind of wish Evidence-Based Education went quite as good at it, because I think people head there rather than to Coru at the minute. But the stuff that the day was fab, Rob Caw actually built a lot of the, did a lot of the sun and the maths and the stuff behind Kim, Kim Ridge evaluation and monitoring, which many of you, many of the listeners will have used Alice, Alice, Midias, that kind of thing. So he done a lot of work behind the scenes for that. And I was at the Bali Schools Conference and Rob happened to be there as well. And that was great. He was a great guy to chat to and have a drink with. And then we went into my session and I was introduced by a chap called Mark Barber, who's an unashamedly assailant. And he was a little generous with these introductions about my level of expertise, about what went on under the bonnet, but behind the sort of Kim stuff. And so I'm getting ready. I'm okay. You know as a teacher,

15:43that as long as you're a few pages ahead of the kids, you're probably okay. Well, I probably had more knowledge than the people in the room. That wasn't till Rob Caw walked into the room. I'm doing a presentation about the numbers behind Kim. I have never been so anxious as I was then about doing a session. The room was packed. Rob was good and I was a perfect gent. He asked all the right questions, going far enough to put me in a favorable light, but not going so far as to destroy my credibility. Well, it doesn't wrap up. Yeah, I bought him a few beers for that. He was a really interesting knower. And I love the work that they do and that idea that we look past what those immediate metrics that we assume make good teachers and good leaders and we look past those kind of proxies. Well, this is what I love. So like for listeners who haven't listened to that episode yet, it was all about poor proxies for leadership. Rob Caw's work was all about

16:46poor proxies for learning like what we're looking for and just like, you know, kind of like, you know, a quiet classroom or a loud classroom or hands up or whatever it is that gives you a proxy for learning and it's not a useful proxy. And Chris has really explored, well, one of those poor proxies for leadership, do we look at the wrong things with leadership too? And I think one of the proxies you felt fell foul to it from a message you sent me earlier today, Chris. Oh, did I? You've got a coat. Yes, I did. Yeah. There's a uniform, Chris Baker talks about the uniform of leadership, how you feel the need to come form and establish yourself and look like a leader. And actually, you know, that's something that we do worry about. Do we do we look the part when we go to work? You might have noticed that my dress code has softened since I've moved out with the corporate world. Yeah, I'm a little more comfortable in my own skin with that. But yes,

17:50and he talked about the trench court and a kid asking him if he was the new headmaster and he said, well, no, but why? And he said, well, you're wearing a coat and it was the quenched headmaster. And I have a trench court in my ward. Do you have a trench court? No, I don't think I was ever like, yeah, no, I don't have a trench coat. Sadly, but I can visualize that coat. And I think probably I have wanted one aspirational exactly, exactly. But I never, yeah, I never made it to that, yeah, to that point where I got the, I got the trench coat. But is this funny? I love how, I love how a child pointed that out to Chris. Yeah, from the miles of babes as it were. I think there was an interesting one that he talked about about not being in your office. The head who has to be visible and out there and stuff like that. And I think that this really went to the heart of what leadership is. What are you trying to, what are you trying to do as a leader within a school?

18:51I noticed that there was a recent story in the news back here in the UK of a head that had his office on a really trolley and he used to walk down the corridors with it and do slough on the corridors and things. I've seen this on YouTube videos. Yeah. I mean, there's also a confidentiality issues that go in with that and the idea of being able to concentrate on something. I think that for me, I need to split my administration and my kind of interaction with people really. I can't be doing one of the other. I end up making a mess of both. And I kind of thought back to a school that I worked in and there were two different heads. One didn't have a computer but he was always present in the school and he deputies and assistants did the admin and there were occasionally accusations that this head teacher was lazy and then there was the the following head who was known as the arch administrator and unkindly but he did a lot of administration and he didn't do a lot of that being about talking to people and the accusations

19:56against that sort of lack of that lack of interaction and engagement were sort of made against that subsequent head. And I think that you can't get it right for all of the people but you've got to define what your role is as a leader within an organization and the first head did that quite eloquently and well. I thought I didn't hide behind the computer, went out and about. He had a ball of sweets on his desk rather than a laptop or a desktop machine which I thought was brilliant. It's funny though, isn't it? I guess this gets to the heart of it. It's very difficult to define what a good principal or a good head teacher or a good leader does because you will end up resorting to poor proxies for what that is because I know a leader who I worked for who was probably the most visible leader like walked the corridors day and day out like constantly seeing teachers and the school that that was in it was not the place for that because there were

21:02systemic issues behind the scenes that needed a leader to grasp, to manage up, to kind of sort out and to get working and so he had this kind of like veil of presence and yet he wasn't present in the task that needed to do and yet like and yet I've seen other leader who was not very present and self-admitted that they weren't very good at kind of like being in teachers classrooms and seeing people regularly and talking to teachers and yet they did more like this is one of best leaders that I worked with like did more for the school than I've ever seen a leader do in terms of working behind the scenes to make things better for the teachers, making things better for the students. So I always feel like it's like a bit situational and you've got to be able to you can't just lean on your box of what works for you before as a leader or what you've seen before. This links into Serena Boyd's episode, the sort of storytelling one

22:06in us from the good school's guide and they visit schools and they find out about what it really is the schools don't pay them their deal with sort of an evaluation of the school if you like and they're the one of the core principles that she talked about was not starting with the head or what have you. You're starting with the parents and finding out how they felt and ultimately that to me is the test of leadership. It's how the people around you feel in terms of whether it's the students whether it's the teachers whether it's the parents whether it's the wider community around your school. It's about how they feel towards the choices that are made within your organisation and I look at this thing it is tempting to get drawn into that kind of the great man syndrome I think Chris Baker refers to it as in that episode that we're looking for one person to carry the whole thing and I wonder if the role of a leader should just be to set the

23:07tone and then let's let everything else kind of follow it's not its own path but kind of almost have a life of its own if you're like you know empowering those people and I'm drawn back to that work of Steve Munnby that kind of distributed leadership rather than delegation I know we've been working on delegation earlier this week so I'm sorry about that if that goes against that but this is in my intensive program by the way for anyone who's really good really good I'm a big fan of it you should sign up but the point being that actually if you can have a team of people that are empowered then they can bring those different facets to it rather and leaning on that one the great man syndrome that Chris Baker talks about in his episode yeah yeah I definitely at least lean towards that type of leadership but then I guess there's always the other side of like well what if you run a one-form entry school and you haven't got a deputy or other leaders

24:07you just kind of got a team of teachers you might you know you might need to kind of be a bit more on the ground and kind of doing some of that that work as well and I think it speaks to the idea that yeah there are so you need to look at your situation in front of you and work out I think coming back to your original point what is the definition of my role and do I understand the definition my role and then even more importantly than that to the people who I serve understand the definition of my role and have we agreed that we agreed that together that can go a long way to stop in this tension between this them and us mentality that can come up I think as well he touched on something else about the idea of that need to be busy you're expected to be busy all of the time and I think that leadership is a is a is a creative craft in in many respects you need to to have time for things to percolate you need to approach stuff when you're maybe not

25:08harassed I think about my best moments in leadership and they certainly weren't when I was under time pressure and I think about my worst moments in leadership and they were when I was under time pressure trying to get stuff ticked off the list yet we gravitate towards that busyness because that's what sort of expected for us you know we we rock up to work in a trench court and we look busy and we have guilt don't we we have guilt when we're not we're not busy and it's funny like yeah I I look at even just like if I looked at leading my own business over the last two and a few years like at the times where you know I have made some of the best decisions as a leader have been at the times where I felt like I had space and I kind of gave myself that permission to have that space and yet we just constantly you can think when you're in a school I remember that time when I'd be sat in my office and going I've just cleared my emails and stuff and then like you're just looking at your projects and then what should I do now and then you have this

26:10intense guilt someone's gonna come along and say look at Shane he's just not doing anything he's not busy and yet like that's insane because as a leader you need that time to think and you need that time to strategize you need that space to be able to make really good decisions for those people you serve if you're just like that leader who is like never there never in their office because they're constantly here there and everywhere then when you're actually having that chance to think about how you lead that and that that I that position is not sustainable long-term you know see burnout and burnout is an issue amongst school leaders particularly amongst teachers and we're starting to see it amongst youngsters because that that philosophy is percolating down into the classroom level yeah every every lesson counted that that was probably the first incarnation of that being sort of foisted upon the students um best well in the world I think it's important

27:11that kids get to school and are there for that for most of the time but every now and again and kid is not in a position to go to school for whatever reason and they're well-being or their state of mind needs some healing or needs a little bit of space and they need to be out of the kind of pressure cooker that maybe they find themselves in at school I think that's true for us all to do our best thinking my best thinking happens when I'm out for a walk with the dog row and when I'm sat in the office that kind of thing yeah it's interesting because I think like to kind of bring it all to not one of my bigger reflections on the episode was that the idea of poor proxies for leading is so useful but then as Chris and I touched on slightly how do you define good proxies like useful proxies for leadership it's a very difficult thing to start to look at right well that was that was kind of where I was drawn to that Selena Boyd episode it is Selena Boyd isn't it I've got yeah Selena ship brilliant this is last month's episode we

28:16didn't get a chance to chat chat about it last month but yeah check it out Selena Boyd brilliant yeah and it was that kind of idea just about how people felt around you and within your school and it's that concept of school culture belonging engagement and and I think ultimately that's got to be the test and that that context is going to differ from one place to the other you know what are people actually after what was where's the value in what you do and how you set the tone and I think one of the dangers is that we've been tempted into promoting good administrators into leadership roles and good administration is an element of leadership it's necessary but it's certainly not sufficient and it falls along way short of preparing people for real leadership and the genuine leadership that autonomy to make decisions be responsible for them stand by them when they go wrong take credit for them when they go right it's very rare until you're actually in the top job we talked about that this week I've got to run this past someone before I get

29:18sign off for it that kind of idea and it's yours you can make the decision but make the right one if it goes wrong it's your fault you're you're going to be pill-read for it's sort of idea I think that we need a slightly healthier approach to that that distributive leadership within an organization for it to work and then then you can set your proxies but until you do that when you're carrying it all yourself concentrating it in one place it's never a good idea yeah I agree and it's a good segue actually so Chris you mentioned like the intensive leadership program that Chris is currently on the program with me we've got 18 leaders from around the world doing it an intensive leadership program looking at 10 core leadership levers that are really quite human levers at their heart in fact not thinking about high-level strategy and how do we make this big kind of strategy but how do we do those human interactions and this week we were talking about delegation and distributed leadership and looking at those different levels and together we

30:21really it was really interesting because we really unpicked the idea that there is subtlety in how you ask things and and and there can be such a gap sometimes between what you think you've asked someone to do and what they've received and it's it's so interesting how a lot of delegation can kind of fall apart and you think you're trying to distribute leadership and then you get frustrated that people are not taking it on board or doing it in a way that you were hoping that it would be distributed and so you end up taking it on yourself and actually it needs a little bit of kind of like looking at well how have I delegated how have I looked at the right level of delegation and have I made it explicit in the exact way that would have been useful it was really interested here participants this week kind of pulling apart like oh do you know what I can see why that that might have fallen apart for me and why that delegation didn't work because I've not quite made it clear one of the most powerful tools that I put to use as a teacher was I get my

31:25kids to write me a school report at the end of the year now some of it was a little bit some of it was abrasive some of it what were the age of you but I used to teach a lot of six form but I also saw GCSE so they were they were that age old enough to be rude certainly yeah yeah I would not do that to a room full of teenagers yeah but you know what that that process it was like the equivalent of it sort of teachers 360 feedback and you got insights to things that you would have never seen yourself and I think I think Chris Baker talked about it that that idea of opening yourself up to that feedback and you look at the work of evidence-based education and they sort of one of the things that they talk about in their framework is 360 feedback which is a very widely understood concept now it's an interesting one that if you if you are able to open yourself up to that you can then

32:25start to turn what might be a difficult relationship into something developmental because it gives you somewhere it gives you room to give something where perhaps you'd have just got frustrated and pushed harder so I kind of really like that idea and yeah it's it's not it's not a comfortable process particularly if you're the the vanguard of that doing that in your organization and you're the first one but equally it's not necessarily that comfortable at the other side giving that feedback and I think if you can normalize it and start that process and get that rolling it's hugely hugely valuable and and yes there were things that kids said to me about my teaching that upset me and things that that made me laugh apparently I type too loudly but that was one thing you know there was loads of kids said that was they was that that was a thing I love it I type too loudly um I'll tell you what my fear used to be Chris like when I was teacher do you remember there

33:28was like a website and I'll forget the name it was something like rate my teacher yeah I was absolutely terrified I did get I don't I hope that website doesn't exist anymore but like I remember I was just like I think that was like one of the most terrifying prospects for a teacher to go now yeah that unfiltered any student can write their teacher from any school they were there was also an incident at one of my schools where um one of the kids had done a website about the head teacher outlining the fact that he was a vampire I mean they've done this amazing that have crawled on Wikipedia and everyone everyone in this school are parts of the principle in question firmly quite amusing creativity top top marks for that absolutely yeah okay um I think the next one was one that you did about cpd so that was this week which um for context yeah I put like a little survey out on LinkedIn a few weeks ago just to saying you know what's the impact of workshops

34:35usually that when people come into your school and host a workshop what's usually the impact around a hundred people put it back and only one person said it was impactful only one the rest of them said it was either total waste of time or just it was nice at the time and had no impact later one person and and I'll be honest I can see who it was it was a person who delivers training in that book so I think we could discount that in the survey gone you whether you like it or not I was making a voice with our people who go into schools yeah what what did you know which got me just interested and then someone mentioned the teacher development trust report I love the stuff that teacher development trust I think they've just become part of the chart college actually they've merged yes have which is an institution the chartered college yeah very very good although

35:37sad to see the tdt lose its independence in that way because I just love what they do but uh yeah I'm sure exciting exciting things ahead but yeah got me down that path and think looking at some of their research that they've put together but yeah be curious to know what you took away from the episode which was just out this week yeah the thing that I took away I think he said that there was was it a billion pounds being spent on teaching training and cpd yeah well over half thought it was engaging but useless which that's a lot of money being spent on something that's useless um so I guess there's a question in this forming um where does the responsibility lie and what are the barriers to to that training actually having an impact is it is it the trainers is it the people that are delivering that stuff um what does their responsibility finish it a particular point and there's a responsibility incumbent on teachers and so forth to pick that up and run with it and I think one of the interesting things that I

36:41I remember from working as a teacher and particularly as a school leader is that there was definitely a reluctance to engage with research there was active skepticism around research and there was active skepticism around trainers and and what they were offering I guess that drove me towards a question why is that the case why are teachers cynical about the training that comes in and why are they reluctant to use it because most teachers want to do the best for their kids in their classrooms so where where does that barrier happen where does it occur and I sort of wondered what is it I wonder if you just if you just ease back on the workload a little bit and gave them that headspace that we talked about earlier that was important for leadership important for youngsters important for any kind of creativity if you just ease back on the workload a little bit which is clearly a resource decision would you be able to then create the higher level of engagement from

37:42that that training and support or not or maybe there's something more fundamental that I've missed um in that whole process I think you're right and I could bang out bang on about this all day I literally just did a keynote last week um in front of the load of PD leaders um about this very topic about like why so much of you know I talked about it about why teachers have the rolliest dies of any sector I think like because like because teachers have seen it they've been there they've done that they've seen the trainer come in they've seen that the leader who said hey we're going to do this new thing and it's going to be great and it's turned out not to be great or it's left the school within two years like most change fails I think all of that kind of leads to this kind of fatigue but I thought you're like first point was really interesting Chris like and it's something that I've had a few arguments with a few people about actually which is where does the

38:43responsibility lie when a trainer comes into your school to deliver training for impact of that training now the people at I've had arguments with would say on a trainer level well the trainer can't hold any responsibility because they're not there to implement it so it's not fair to hold the trainer responsible agreed but there is a problem with that in that that means that we have developed the system where trainers don't feel accountable for the results in the schools and are not held to any standard or account there's nothing there's nothing to regulate in trainers by the way in in schools and things like that so and therefore there are definitely a great many consultants trainers companies that with good intent definitely with good intent but have managed to get themselves into a position where they're going into many different schools charging a heck of a lot of money a billion pounds has been spent across the UK and that's just

39:48the England that's just England tiny little England and not actually having a long term impact and yet they keep rolling it out in the same and same again so from my perspective I do think it's a shared responsibility I do think there is an ethical responsibility for providers to at least gather data of how impactful their programs are by going back to the schools and see and being vulnerable enough to ask two years later what's happening with that like and if nothing happened logging it and making changes to the way you implement or the way you collaborate with schools I think for example something I do with schools that I made a strong judgment call to to do is not just doing one-off workshops with schools switching off one-off workshops and you know I might only have one face-to-face touch point with a school still but I always make sure that the way we plan that before is very in depth and it means that I've got as

40:53much access to their community as possible and that it has followed up with some sort of coaching relationship or something where I am directly invested in making sure this implements over time with you I feel like more CBD providers need to be taking this approach with schools and it's interesting one of the things that we offer with one of our courses is we go in and do do a workshop with senior kids first you often hear the criticism if you're going called to do some CBD at a school well that's all very well but it wouldn't work here you know because you're not familiar with their context and that's an entirely valid perspective to take because it's very difficult to know their context before you go here so part one of the things that we offer is we sort of book in the workshop and the first one is with the the selection of senior kids so we use that to sort of help support the kids with a set of frameworks and a lot of it's around

41:55digital literacy and responsible use of things like AI etc in their studies well from that we're able to glean what they're using stuff for we're able to understand the perspective of the youngsters in their school and that perspective is not something that even the teachers might necessarily know and we can then bring that context forward into the CBD and the support that we offer we offer the schools and that that's been a nice way to work that because it's allowed us to contextualise what we're doing it's quite a flexibility to do that and maybe you move away from that sort of very static model of CBD that we need to go through excellent and it can sometimes feel a little bit woolly when you're putting that out there as a project proposal because they're like well what will we do in part two and you're like well depends a little bit on what happens in part one I guess it can be uncomfortable for schools yeah totally and and often the people signing off on that are on are we looking to sign off on a little bit of an unknown yeah so yeah from a sales

43:00respect if it's it's quite hard but from an educational perspective I think that's absolutely gold yeah and it's what it's what we're doing the classroom in the end so like we should be experts in this and yet we still have these radically different systems I mean this is my pet peever I talk about all the time isn't it that we we have these great processes and that approaches to pedagogy in the classroom and we get better and better at them and then we get into leadership and we forget about them and we bring a sort of 19th century model to the way we approach it and it blows my mind that we can't translate from one to the other yeah but there we go well that's a whole a whole conversation in itself listen Chris this has been this has been a great conversation and all the episodes we've talked about we will link to in the show notes so if you're listening on the bonus episode that's part of the education leaders podcast go and check those previous episodes out I think you'll enjoy some of those conversations but Chris before we kind of finish today what I'm

44:04curious like what are you looking forward to over the next month or have you got any reflections or thoughts as we look ahead yeah I've got some work going on with you which you you know about I'm going to leave it to you as to how much of that we do or don't disclose but that's really exciting for me yeah I've got some workshops with parents over the next few weeks some worried concerned parents a bit of sort of joint well-being stuff with with parents and children focusing on the idea that yes your exams are important and yes you've got to work towards them but when you get into the exam well the biggest asset in the room is you not the amount of cramming that you've done on what have you and actually there's a balance to be had one of the themes that I've seen over the last year is a lot of students getting very angsty in their approach because it's all very high stakes and I think that some of that stress that teachers and schools feel is maybe being passed on to kids and where maybe stealing a little bit of children's piece of mind from them in

45:06the in the process and we maybe need to look at that a little some do some work with some families on that which is quite rewarding work it's really meaningful meaningful work and it's yeah it's great to hear and yeah I've got a few things where we'll be finishing up this first cohort the education leaders intensive which is going to be really nice we've got some good work ahead with that and some nice work with schools also got some incredible podcast episodes coming up like I've just looking to the side here like because next week I've got the most incredible episode with Meg Lee in the US on the science of leading the science that we're thinking about the size of learning but the science of leading and how we can use some of our knowledge of the science of learning to think about that and then we've got some also some phenomenal guests come up that we've recorded I record these podcasts like three months sometimes four months in advance and I'm just

46:07sitting on like this treasure trove just wonderful conversations desperate to get them out so yeah stay tuned for some absolutely awesome conversations and on that note there is a far lesser podcast that's available on various streaming platforms and that's the Coru podcast we've had a little bit of a shift that a little bit of a shift and it's being recorded tomorrow with my good friend and colleague Kaley Leisure it is Leisure because she's married to an American and it always makes me once when I say Leisure or a little leisure and she'd forgive me for saying that I'm sure but we talk we've sort of shifted it from a news roundup which was a little bit passe to a research roundup so we're sort of digging in some of the sort of current research education in education and talking about where it applies is it is it useful stuff and so on and so forth so there's a little bit of that going on recording that tomorrow I have a far quicker turnaround on the Coru podcast um but that's because it's a little less I'm a bit further behind on my journey than you

47:12in that respect I can assure you well also if you were doing news and research roundups but they were like four months out of date I could probably be a bit of a problem too well there is an attitude and where can people find that Chris okay Coru Education.uk is probably your best bet you can look us up on YouTube you can look us up on Spotify or on LinkedIn and it's just Coru Education no dots and nothing like that Coru Education.uk these modern web addresses they're confusing the hell out of people because one of my websites is education leaders.co that's like the opposite right. You got you got my code did you? eggs that you got the UK and do check that out I love it I follow you on YouTube that's where I mainly see um you and Kayleigh pop up and I just uh love your reflection so I'm looking forward to the next research digest as well that's gonna be awesome. Yeah your Kayleigh's great as well she's based in the Czech Republic another friend that's a million miles away you know. There you go I love

48:17that. Well thank you so much for tuning in today I think today sadly we had a bit of a tech issue on LinkedIn but it seems like it's been streaming just a black screen maybe people got the audio but we will repost this out there make sure it's out there and uh so you can you can watch on YouTube if you want to watch back or you can listen on the on the podcast but Chris thank you it's been great reflecting with you today I really appreciate this. It's a highlight of my monthly so I promise you great to see you sheen. Absolutely and I will see you at the end of April. Excellent take care. Take care bye bye everyone. Bye now.