With Dame Sally's particular experience of turning around a failing school, this guide will make for interesting reading for school leaders looking to improve their school's performance.
Headstrong: 11 lessons of school leadership
Synopsis
This book in based on Dame Sally Coates’ experience of turning round a failing school, Burlington Danes in West London, dramatically improving pupil performance and improving its Ofsted rating. Coates argues that a school is only as strong as its head teacher and advocates a back to basics approach.
Coates breaks down her success into 11 lessons for school leaders. Under Coates, discipline became a key factor in Burlington's changed fortunes: pupils were given an hour's detention if they were more than a few seconds late for the morning bell.
Pupil ranking makes up another lesson: each term, pupils were ranked from 1 to 180 and the rankings displayed publicly. But of the all the 11 lessons, she says that high expectations are the most valuable, and accordingly comes down hard on 'failing' teachers.