Leadership Seminars

The Turnaround School and Sustaining High Attainment - My Story
The lows and highs, the joys and tears of taking on a forgotten school. If our school stories were made into a reality tv series we'd be accused of exaggeration... let me share mine.

We'll explore:

• Conscious leadership
• on to values
• Staying true to you

The turnaround school

• setting the scene
• when to say
• when and how to say no
• servant leadership
• apreciative enquiry
• building a community with culture of belonging solidly embedded into the core
• growing stronger together
• toughness, empathy, compassion - strong back, soft front
• big wins and small wins
• reflective practitioners
• teaching from the soul
• the how
• maintaining momentum
• taking care of self
• celebration

Alison Kriel, Associate of Independent Thinking

• Developing practice with professional imagination
• Leading creativity in a concrete system
• Promoting pedagogical discernment
• Storytelling and learning: the research into how narratives can support progress and attainment
• Embracing enactive practice
• Encouraging great oracy across the curriculum
• Let’s Say – a motivational invitation
• People/Place/Problem as a boon to creative practice and placing learning into contexts
• Imaginative acetates – how curriculum intent is implemented creatively using practical examples
• Moving from engagement to investment in learning
• Towards a curriculum of empathy, contribution, and compassion
• So what? Now what? Reflections and conversations

Relational and Restorative Practice - Creating a culture of Unconditional Positive Regard
Relational and Restorative Practice is not about replacing traditional behaviour management systems. It’s certainly not about being soft or turning a blind eye to poor behaviour. Unconditional Positive Regard is not about creating culture with no responsibility where pupils aren't held to account.

Being restorative is about elevating the culture of a school so people are pulled in, not pushed out, about fostering a greater sense of community and about encouraging a willingness to act in the right way for the right reasons. Although its roots are clearly in restorative justice – as a way of repairing the harm done to the community and relationships within it – restorative practice has the bolder ambition of proactively developing the sense of community and seeking to increase the quality of the relationships across the school and, from there, into the wider community.

Unconditional Positive Regard is about developing a culture of acceptance, empathy and genuineness - caring schools that have relational and restorative practice at the heart of all they do.

So, how do you change the culture of a school? One classroom at a time. Where do you start? In the one you’re in now.

Dave Whitaker (Wellspring Academies) and Mark Finnis