“Leadership: Being, Knowing, Doing” is Stephen Tierney’s (Leading Learner) third leadership book, and SSAT will be supporting the book launch on 2 December at 7.30pm. You are all invited to the launch, further details of which will be made available shortly.
I have had the opportunity to read it, and would recommend it for all current and aspiring leaders. Its rooted in moral purpose, reflective practice and deep leadership experience. There is an interesting section on “what keeps you awake at night?”
I think we all know the answer to that at the moment. It is the call to say that Ofsted is coming, as you deal with Covid. At the Schools and Academies Show conference, Sir Kevan Collins questioned if this was the right time for Ofsted inspections to be taking place. He said: “I am not sure that this is the right time to do the kind of inspection we are doing. I do think inspection has a place within our system but there is something wrong in that people are frightened of it, there is something incorrect in that.”
Geoff Barton, general secretary of ASCL, said at the same event: “One of our members contacted us a few weeks’ back to say that they had received a bomb threat at the school that they took seriously, got the leadership team together and said ‘we have just had a bomb threat’ and the leadership team just said ‘thank God, we thought it was going to be Ofsted.’”
I confess to laughing, but it isn’t funny. At SSAT we have promoted the idea of an intelligent accountability framework in this country. Stephen Tierney is a strong advocate, and was one of our school leaders who wrote about this in the Redesigning Schooling Series: A vision for education – beyond five-year policy cycles pamphlet.
To be inspired about leadership and to enjoy Stephen’s leadership journey, keep an eye out for an update on details so you can join us for the book launch on 2 December.
