Introducing us

We are Jenny and Jude,  a pair of research driven, reading fuelled leaders based in an academy in the UK and we are committed to doing our best to turn our school and our classrooms into thinking spaces where learning takes centre stage. We are committed to bringing research and practice together in the real world, making sure it has an impact where it is most needed.

As one senior leader and one middle leader we have a wealth of expertise and between us we can connect the dots between the different groups of leaders, helping to ensure that everyone is coming at things from the same page. The alternative perspectives we bring to the same issues are invaluable for tackling leadership issues and whole school problem solving.

As part of this blog we will be sharing our thoughts and reflections on our experiences of leadership, research we’ve read and engaged with as well as anything else education related we think people might find interesting. We currently share a lot of our musings over our Tuesday morning coffee and geek sessions but we now want to put our heads above the parapet and share our musings to a wider audience. We’re big into lifelong learning and we look forward to getting feedback and interacting with others to help us develop our thinking and learning further.

The senior half of the duo

Hi, I am an assistant head teacher and PE teacher. In my spare time I play hockey and spend time with my husband and 2 lovely boys. A motto I have always lived by is ‘be the best you can be’; in doing that I strive to make a difference to children’s education and help them and the teachers I work with to do the same.

When I look back on my life it is clear now that it was PE and the support of two key teachers that motivated me to be better in life and influenced the way I think and approach teaching. The time those teachers took to build relationships with me guided me through some difficult times as a teenager. It’s not surprising therefore that I went on to become a PE teacher with relationships being the foundation to my approach to teaching and leadership.

Unlike many bloggers I haven’t written any books… but like many bloggers I spend a great deal of time reflecting and musing over different initiatives, new ideas or problems I face in school. Having completed a Masters a few years ago and recently becoming an SLE I am keen to become part of the movement of teachers and leaders sharing successes and failures that I continually experience to help others reflect on theirs. I realise we are part of something far bigger than our classroom or school and we live in a time where, through collaboration, we can help shape education across the country.

If on mastermind I would say my specialist subjects were curriculum, assessment, pupil premium, teaching and learning and enrichment. I have been heavily influenced by Heidi Jacobs and her thoughts of the fragmented system of education that the majority of schools operate in. I am a constructionist and therefore believe strongly that we learn from our experiences and feel this should be reflected in the curriculum and learning opportunities we give to students. Working closely with disadvantaged students means I fully respect and value the importance of an effective pastoral system but am no specialist and wouldn’t really want to be in the black chair with pastoral questions being fired at me!

The middle half of the duo

I am a Faculty Leader for Languages, leading a team of 5 lovely linguists who teach three languages across three Key Stages. I have been teaching since 2004 and I can honestly say I still love my job, even on those crazy busy days where there aren’t enough hours, my head is spinning and there is no more chocolate in my desk drawer!

I fell in love with words at an early age; that translated into a passion for reading and later a passion for French, hence the day job! I have always worked on the basis that there is no problem that cannot be solved by reading about it and I am never without a book (or several!) on the go. I lead our professional reading group at school and have been referred to as chief geek on more than one occasion, something that makes me very proud!

In my spare time I am studying for my Masters in Educational Leadership and am currently in the throes of writing my dissertation looking at the way middle and seniors make sense of change. I have discovered Weick’s theory of sensemaking since starting my MA and I love how these ideas link so well to the real world. Wicked problems and complexity theory also feature heavily in my thinking. However, what I find really interesting is how theory translates into practice and how does research actually change education for the better? My thought is that educational research is only valuable if it improves experiences and outcomes for students and that is what I try to incorporate into my daily teaching as well as disseminating it throughout school.

Some final thoughts

This is a space we have created to try to get all the different cogs in education working together; we will write about curriculum, assessment, research, behaviour, teaching, learning and CPD amongst other things to try to connect all those elements together. We hope to spark discussion and share ideas and we hope you enjoy reading what we write and sharing your thoughts with us to help move towards a shared goal – to make things better for the students we teach.

We often see on Twitter ‘all views my own’ and that really is what we are about. A lot of what we will put on here will be our thoughts and reflections, some will be based on literature and recent research, others will be based on our own experiences in school. They will all have in common the fact that they are solely our views, no one else’s.