Helping you to put your staff first

I never imagined I would write a book – or half a book! When writing about education became such an industry, I said I would only write if I felt I had something worth saying. When we wrote Putting Staff First, I was still not sure anyone apart from my mum would read it; it remains a source of joy and surprise that so many have.

When John and I first talked about the idea, we were both fed up with the binary debates in education and the willingness of some to dismiss the opinions and experience of others simply because they thought they sit in a different “camp”. I’d love to say we have changed that – but we haven’t.

We offered our blueprint with humility and plenty of self-doubt. It isn’t, and never has been, an attempt to tell other leaders what they should do; we do not know better or best. It has only ever been an alternative to some of the toxic and destructive models and debates that have come to prominence in too many schools over the last 15 years.

Year after year, we collectively wring our hands that not enough people come into teaching and we are almost inured to the fact that one in four new teachers have left the profession by the end of their third year. Putting Staff First is simply an attempt to show another way; a sustainable model of leadership that draws people in, not pushes them out. After all, nobody has ever found a more effective way of transforming the lives of disadvantaged young people than putting them with a great teacher every hour of every day in school.

Since the bright sunny day early in lockdown when I sat with the first copy of the book in my hands, I have met and spoken to hundreds of teachers and school leaders who have read the book or heard some of the ideas. I have come to realise that all across the country there are hundreds of leaders who lead “blueprint” schools or trusts, or want to develop them. The toxic model of school leadership is on its way out and competition, if not dead yet, is life limited.

Leaders who want to lead ethically and put staff first have never been a strange minority; we have just been too quiet and left the stage to others. Through this website, I hope we can support more leaders in really practical ways to put staff first and create sustainable school cultures in which children and adults thrive. The resources are free and we want to connect great people together to support each other.

School leadership has become much harder since we wrote the book. Covid-19 existed only in bats or pangolins, we had never contact traced another person, online learning was alien to most of us, the cost of living was more bearable and none of us had heard of RAAC. It is more important than ever that we connect, support each other and refuse to compete. We both hope we can help to make that a little easier, by helping you put your staff first.