In this episode we discuss tips, ideas, and strategies for protecting the wellbeing of headteachers – and other school staff – during Ofsted inspections. Our guest is Paul K Ainsworth, who has held director of school improvement roles in four multi-academy trusts in the last nine years and in that time has experienced more than 40 Ofsted inspections. We get Paul’s practical insights – both small ideas and more substantial advice – about how we can protect our mental health and wellbeing, and that of our school team, during inspection. We get lots of tips for reducing and managin ..read more

In this episode, three schools talk about the impact of the cost of living crisis and their work to support Pupil Premium and disadvantaged pupils. Our guests identify their key tenets of effective Pupil Premium practice and talk about specific approaches they are using in their schools. We delve into a range of strategies and ideas for addressing the consequences of poverty in the primary school, including tips for success and lessons learned. We hear about what is happening on the ground in our guests’ schools and the particular impacts they are seeing of the cost of living crisis and increa ..read more

This episode looks at using instructional coaching as part of your school’s approach to staff CPD and improving teaching and learning. Three experts discuss what instructional is and its core principles. We ask how we can best launch and develop this approach in our schools and how it can be used to enhance teachers’ knowledge and understanding of pedagogy while complementing whole-school CPD. We consider the discrete stages of instructional coaching and also hear case studies and examples from our guests of where instructional coaching approaches have worked well practice. The podcast touches ..read more

This episode looks at how primary schools can best support the education and development of pupils who use English as an additional language (EAL), including refugee children. The podcast features three experts and opens with each guest offering their three tenets of best practice for EAL. We discuss what primary school leaders can do to ensure effective whole-school provision for EAL pupils, including effective teaching and learning approaches. We talk specifically about how to support refugee and asylum-seeking pupils given the arrival in recent years of children from Afghanistan, Ukraine an ..read more

This episode looks at best practice for delivering phonics programmes and teaching early reading in the primary school. Two experts discuss how phonics supports early reading and what the high-quality teaching of early reading looks like in practice. We ask what a high-quality phonics programme should offer schools and how we can ensure maximum impact with the scheme we are using. How can we move pupils from learning to read to reading to learn and how can we instil and inspire a love of reading in our pupils to last a lifetime? Elsewhere, we ask what Ofsted inspectors look for when they judge ..read more

This episode offers crucial advice and lots of practical tips to help primary school headteachers – especially those new to post – to survive and thrive in the top job. We speak with three experienced school leaders who draw on their experiences and the ups and downs of their careers to offer their tips, ideas, and advice to others. We ask what our guests wish somebody had told them during the early months and years of their headships – a question that yields lots of quick wins as well as more in-depth, long-term advice. Our guests also describe some of the challenges they have faced ..read more

This episode of the podcast considers how school leaders can successfully navigate difficult conversations that often need to take place with staff, parents and others. We discuss common types of “difficult conversation”, some general principles for how to handle these discussions, and how we can best prepare ourselves and others for these conversations. We discuss the crucial role that school and leadership culture plays in creating the right conditions and thus taking the sting out of these conversations. We look specifically at handling difficult conversations with parents, including how sc ..read more

This episode discusses simple and effective ways of conducting high-impact self-evaluation in order to support and drive school improvement. Three primary school leaders discuss their tenets of best practice for effective self-evaluation. We talk about the self-evaluation cycle, what it should look like, and how it fits into the wider process of school improvement. The panel includes a practising Ofsted inspector and we discuss Ofsted’s view on self-evaluation and how we can meet Ofsted expectations for our self-evaluation practice. We also discuss how the Ofsted inspection handbook and framew ..read more

This episode advises primary schools on how to engage with the different statutory and non-statutory agencies working to support pupils, especially our most vulnerable. From local authorities, safeguarding, mental health and Early Help services, to community out-reach, mentoring support and more, we consider the range of bodies that schools need to engage with. We discuss how to create partnerships with positive reciprocal relationships and how to get the most out of key agencies at a time of stretched resources. We begin with some general principles for engaging with external agencies and ens ..read more

This episode identifies key aspects of effective and purposeful curriculum assessment and evaluation in primary schools, including ensuring it is not onerous for teachers and meeting Ofsted expectations. The discussion involves three experienced primary school leaders who offer us their tenets of best practice for how we can ensure our curriculum is high-quality and working for our pupils. How do we achieve consistency across the primary school? How can we be sure that our curriculum caters for a broad ability range and also our most disadvantaged pupils? How do we monitor the effectiveness of ..read more