Can school leaders rely on Kotter's change management model?

A few weeks ago I wrote about the need for school leaders to be appropriately critical of educational and management gurus. One such guru is John Kotter, whose name is often found on lists of the world's leading management thinkers. But Kotter's influence is not just limited to business – last month, leading educationalist Andy ...

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Could coaching your teaching teams do more harm than good? It depends on what kind of manager you are…

 There is very little correlation between the time a manager spends coaching an employee and their performance, according to new research. In fact, it's been suggested that some very hands-on managers actually do more harm than good. These surprising findings came from recent research conducted by a research company, Gartner, and are reported ...

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Do academy chief executives need to be education experts?

Research shows that in a number of settings – such as hospitals and universities – there is a correlation between the 'expert knowledge' of the leader and organisational performance. In their 2015 paper, A Theory Exploring How Expert Leaders Influence Performance in Knowledge-Intensive Organizations, Amanda Goodall and Agnes Bäker digest research o...

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How to run a journal club in your school: top tips from research

 For any school dipping their toe into evidence-based practice, journal clubs may seem like an obvious activity to try. It gives teachers chance to engage with research and discuss their ideas, and how they might implement the findings, with colleagues in a supportive, environment. But what does the research say about how journal clubs work be...

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You don't need a school research champion, you need a team of champions – and here's how to build one

We are asking school research champions to do an impossible job. This isn't a poor reflection of the professionals in these roles – the job is simply too much for one person. There are three aspects to being a research champion: identifying and analysing data and research; linking up and exchanging ideas between professionals (from policymakers to ...

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