Never ceasingness…

Richard Spencer’s blog on education, schooling, leadership and trying to stay true to your north star…

It would not only be the training ground for the art of living, but the place in which life is lived, the environment of a genuine corporate life. The dismal dispute of vocational and non-vocational education would not arise in it. It would be a visible demonstration in stone of the continuity and never ceasingness of education. Henry Morris, 1925

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  • Never ceasingness…

    It would not only be the training ground for the art of living, but the place in which life is lived, the environment of a genuine corporate life. The dismal dispute of vocational and non-vocational education would not arise in it. It would be a visible demonstration in stone of the continuity and never ceasingness of education. 

    Henry Morris, 1925

    A blog on education, schooling, leadership and trying to stay true to your north star…

    10 Things That Work when Leading Teaching & Learning

    Over the past fifteen years, I’ve led teaching and learning across several schools – in different roles, contexts, and challenges. I shared these thoughts on the other platform a while back, and they seemed to resonate. I’ve updated them and will share them in three parts.

    Here are the first few ideas—things I’ve seen work. Some I’ve implemented deeply; some I’ve seen others deliver brilliantly. I have changed my mind; I will change my mind.

    1. Prioritise expertise. Reassure teachers that development of their subject expertise matters most. Give them time – on the calendar – with their teams to develop it. Build powerful networks across schools to support curriculum improvement. Limit lonely actors.

    2. Establish focus. Having whole school priorities for teaching and learning can be an important collective driver if used carefully and with domain-appropriate adaptation. Use evidence, build consensus, and choose four or five clear T&L focus areas. Promote them hard, support implementation, and evaluate regularly.

    3. Find your leaders. Look for your examiners, your bloggers, your mentors, your researchers, your future leaders. Know who is ready for challenge, who radiates energy, and who’s already doing the work you need others to see.

    4. Sample, don’t scrutinise. Want to understand the student experience? Sample it through appreciative inquiry. Talk to students, review work, explore what’s going well. Integrate as many teachers and curriculum leaders into the process as you can. Don’t audit books for compliance. That way lies mistrust and burnout.

    5. Eschew gimmickry. The best strategies don’t need consultants or expensive programmes. Don’t spend your budget on motivational speakers. Instead? Buy books. Fund collaboration. Let teachers learn from each other. Facilitate powerful professional networks and trust them to work.

    6. Appreciative inquiry. Frequent, low-stakes lesson visits. No grading. No clipboards. Just leaders learning from classrooms. When you spotlight great practice, trust grows and collaboration follows. If you need an appraisal policy, allow it to inform, not define, T&L work.

    7. Consistency is futile. Coherence is critical. We all have bad days and patchy lessons. Aim for coherent values and shared direction—not robotic uniformity. There should be no shame in failed endeavour at times. Create a culture where reflection and radical candour are welcomed, not feared. Trust professionals but challenge and coach them to improve.

    8. Coaching can be key. Coaching builds trust, agency, and growth—but it’s hard to track, takes time, and resists simple metrics. That’s why it’s brave leadership to commit to it. Do it anyway.

    9. Inclusion is everyone’s job so don’t offer it lip service. SEND shouldn’t be bolted on. Everyone should know more, adapt more, and work to remove barriers to learning—at both subject and whole-school level. Inclusion is expertise, not sentiment. Look for the barriers and build bridges.

    10. Share, all the time. Teach-meets, reading groups, inquiry projects, lab classrooms, monthly bulletins. Teachers should hear: “Your agency is great, but so is the capacity to do harm. So stop, collaborate and listen to each other”. Articulate sky-high standards.

    What would you add to the list?

    What would be your “big three” from this list? I’d love to hear how others approach this.

  • Never ceasingness…

    It would not only be the training ground for the art of living, but the place in which life is lived, the environment of a genuine corporate life. The dismal dispute of vocational and non-vocational education would not arise in it. It would be a visible demonstration in stone of the continuity and never ceasingness of education. 

    Henry Morris, 1925

    A blog on education, schooling, leadership and trying to stay true to your north star…

    Edinburgh by Lunch: Teaching, Leadership, and the Choices We Make

    I qualified to teach before I passed my driving test. I probably should have considered that before accepting my first job—twenty miles from home, in a town with no direct public transport. Fortunately, a generous and funny colleague took pity on me, driving me to work each day during my first year.

    Each morning, as we passed the junction with the A1, he’d nudge me and suggest: “Edinburgh by lunch?” We both knew we weren’t going to carry on up the road. But the idea that we could—that every day we were choosing to turn left, to go to school—has stayed with me. Robert Frost may not approve, but I still make that choice every day.

    This blog is about improving schools and building powerful communities. It’s not a manifesto, nor a step-by-step implementation guide. It’s not a memoir, and I’m not bearing witness to great national moments. It’s a narration of experience—mine—and perhaps a signposting of approaches that may resonate with yours.

    On the hardest days of school leadership, I sometimes mutter, half-theatrically, “I just wanted to teach poetry.” Of course, that’s disingenuous. I loved teaching poetry. But I also cared deeply about the decisions being made around me, about the voice I did—or didn’t—have in shaping them. I left the classroom because I wanted to be in that other room, where the so-called “big calls” were made.

    I’m at peace with that choice, though I still miss teaching. I miss the creativity, the integrity, the silliness, the gratification that comes from learning and laughing with students every day. Leadership offers different rewards—but fewer of those.

    I’m not a management guru. I’m not tethered to any one ideology, and I don’t hold court on educational dogma (though I’ll be unapologetically opinionated when the moment calls). I’ve made some strong choices and some poor ones—professionally and personally—as I’ve tried to make a positive difference in schools.

    I know what it feels like to teach five periods a day, every day, for eight weeks straight. I know what it’s like to lead a school when everything is going wrong—when the building is flooding or falling apart, when parents believe you’re making choices that harm their children. I’ve had to make excellent people redundant. I’ve been robust with the right people too late, or the wrong people too soon. I’ve disappointed staff, upset families, and second-guessed myself more times than I can count. And that’s often before the registration bell.

    I think these stories are worth sharing—not because they offer perfection or certainty—but because leadership is often only written about in two ways: either by theorists who have never lived it, or by true believers selling a singular method, one that must be replicated with fidelity to be respected. My evidence base is modest, but I hope my experience feels credible.

    What I share here isn’t meant to be copied. It’s meant to be useful. In the end, we all write our own stories as leaders. Mine has been shaped by favourable demography, fortunate circumstances, brilliant colleagues, and deeply loved people. I’m fully—and I hope appropriately—aware of how much I owe them. This is simply my account, shared in the hope it might help someone write theirs.