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Happy New Year and welcome to the first three things worth knowing for middle leaders this year:

* Develop your thick desires. This article is a brilliant one to begin the year with. It contrasts thin desires with thick desire. A thick desire is one that changes you in the process of acquiring it, a thin desire is one that does not. A thick desire could be something like learning calculus whilst a thin desire is something like checking notifications. The article concludes, ‘The person who checks their notifications is, afterward, exactly the same person... But the person who spends a year learning calculus becomes someone different…’ This is a perfect example for a new year’s resolution of learning something new or letting go of an old bad habit. Both are things more easily done in community so think not just about which habits you want to cultivate this year but also about who is going to help you do it.

* New Ofsted reports focus more on inclusion and less on curriculum. As the reports from the first schools inspected under the new framework are published we conclude our overview with a look at leadership and governance. As this newsletter is particularly aimed at middle leaders, it is important to note that leadership includes all leaders in the school not just SLT. The framework asks if schools:

* enable every student to thrive

* are raising standards to improve the lives of all students

Notice that the words every and all focus again on what Matt Bromley calls ‘the golden thread’ of inclusion and disadvantage throughout this framework. How is this to be achieved? Matt suggests 8 key considerations:

* Have a strategic plan based on the needs of your community

* Manage your area to enable your team to work effectively

* Make decisions in the best interests of all students

* Use self assessment to understand the strengths and areas for development in your area of responsibility

* Provide appropriate professional development for your team

* With your line manager ensure you understand the contribution you and your team make to the effectiveness of the whole school

* Engage with parents by contributing to communication and engagement when opportunities arise

* Support staff wellbeing through strategies to reduce workload and improve effectiveness

* Focus on the process not the result The energy-output curve. Last term I posted one of my favourite questions on LinkedIn, ‘What would you do if you knew you would fail?’ The answer is to focus on the process and enjoy it. Sahil Bloom makes a similar point about focusing on the process and not the result in order to do our best work. He tracks what he calls the energy-output curve (below) which says that our enthusiasm for a project is greatest at the beginning and the end (think of a school year or a student you are working with pastorally). We begin enthusiastic about the new project and end with excitement at seeing the result. The energy dips in the middle when we face the slog (let’s call that January). The temptation at this point is to give up, perhaps not on your lessons or career but maybe on putting in as much effort as you were previously, because the result seems too far off and therefore unattainable. However Bloom argues (with evidence behind him) that focusing on the quality of what you are doing today will, in the end deliver the results more effectively than focusing on the results you hope to achieve. What is the point? Focus on doing a great job today and let the results look after themselves.

Thanks for reading this newsletter. For more information about how to put these ideas into practice for yourself and your school visit us a thegrowthnetworkuk.org or follow us on LinkedIn.

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