Headship After Hours

Is teacher CPD actually improving classroom practice, or are we just collecting certificates?

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

- On-site school visit

- Detailed, school-specific report

- Follow-up strategy session

- Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin is joined by Angelica Celinska, Founder of The Voice of Early Childhood and Co-Founder of BookedIn, to explore what meaningful professional development really looks like.

They discuss why CPD should create better questions, not just provide answers, what schools can learn from early years education, and why relationships, belonging and reflective practice matter more than ever.

Angelica also shares a powerful personal story about being told not to apply to university — and why teachers should never limit a young person's ambitions.

Key topics: Teacher CPD, school leadership, early years education, reflective practice, research-informed teaching and professional development.

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelicacelinska/

• The Voice of Early Childhood: https://thevoiceofearlychildhood.com/

• BookedIn: https://waitlist.bookedin.online/

• BookedIn Conference: https://waitlist.bookedin.online/events/launch-2026

00:00 Every Child Is Unique
01:25 Meet Angelica Celinska
04:45 The Voice of Early Childhood
11:12 Relationships and Leadership
12:39 Making CPD Meaningful
17:06 Introducing BookedIn
22:01 Why CPD Must Go Beyond Certificates
25:01 What Schools Can Learn From Early Years
29:40 Research Into Practice
32:19 AI and Human Connection
40:05 Making CPD More Accessible
47:00 Advice for School Leaders

Staff workload in schools isn't always visible — and even the clearest school improvement priorities can fail when hidden work consumes your team's time and attention.

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

- On-site school visit

- Detailed, school-specific report

- Follow-up strategy session

- Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin is joined by Shawn Vanderhoven leadership researcher and author of Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World, to explore how school leaders can reduce distractions, create clarity and help staff focus on the work that matters most.

Drawing on research across education, technology and other sectors, Shawn Vanderhoven challenges a familiar leadership assumption: that doing more, moving faster and responding to everything will produce better results.

Instead, he argues that the best leaders create deliberate moments to pause, clarify priorities and protect the conditions needed for excellent work.

Paul and Shawn explore:

• Why staff workload is often greater than leaders realise

• The difference between activity and impact

• Why clear instructions aren't always understood as intended

• How to uncover hidden workload through the turn out your pockets exercise

• Why school improvement priorities compete with existing commitments

• How leaders can make difficult decisions about what to stop

• The importance of psychological safety when discussing workload

• Why giving staff permission to focus isn't enough

• How to protect deep work through sponsored monk mode

• Creating practical team house rules around emails, interruptions and communication

• Why productivity is a social problem, not simply an individual responsibility

• How school leaders can create the conditions for better thinking and stronger outcomes

One of the most important questions in this conversation is:

When you introduce a new school priority, what are you taking away to make room for it?

For headteachers, executive leaders and senior leadership teams, this episode offers practical ways to move beyond being constantly busy and towards building a more focused, sustainable school culture.

🎙️ Headship After Hours with Paul Collin — honest conversations about school leadership, clarity, culture and the realities of leading schools.

Guest: Shawn Vanderhoven
Book: Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World

link to his book https://www.pausebook.co/

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnvanderhoven?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios

Explore the guest's work and the leadership resources mentioned in this episode through the links in the show notes.

00:00 Why Clear Communication Isn't Always Understood

00:36 Introducing Sean Van der Hoven

01:30 The Research Behind Pause

03:25 Why Great Leaders Need to Pause

06:51 How to Identify Your Team's Distractions

09:09 Attendance and Leadership Resilience Check

10:35 Why Clarity Matters in Leadership

11:30 The Biggest Distraction: Unclear Priorities

14:49 The Picture Gap: When Staff Hear Different Messages

17:36 Turn Out Your Pockets: Revealing Hidden Workload

22:10 The Hit-or-Miss Priority Matrix

27:34 Why Schools Can't Do Everything

31:02 Sponsored Monk Mode: Protecting Deep Work

35:59 Establishing House Rules

42:16 How Great Leaders Multiply Intelligence

45:44 Sean's Advice to Headteachers

46:25 Why Productivity Is a Social Problem

48:43 Final Thoughts and Closing

School attendance problems aren't always caused by a lack of motivation. Sometimes they're caused by barriers that build up throughout a pupil's day.

In this solo episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin introduces the idea of attendance friction and challenges headteachers to look beyond attendance percentages to understand why pupils struggle to get through the school gate.

A pupil might be anxious about an unfinished homework task, worried about being late, struggling with transport or concerned about how adults will respond when they return after an absence.

Individually, these may seem like small problems. Together, they can make attending school feel overwhelming.

Paul explores:

• Why attendance data doesn't always reveal the real barriers

• How small difficulties accumulate into persistent absence

• Why attendance letters and rewards don't solve every problem

• The importance of the school gate, reception and first lesson

• How to conduct an attendance friction audit

• Why vulnerable pupils experience school systems differently

• How school leaders can remove barriers without lowering expectations

• Why better attendance strategies begin with understanding the pupil's experience

A practical challenge for your SLT:

Choose five pupils whose attendance is declining. Map their journey from the previous evening through to the first 30 minutes of the school day.

Where is attendance becoming harder than it needs to be?

Because improving attendance isn't always about pushing harder. Sometimes it's about removing the barriers that make getting to school difficult.

Paul also discusses the Attendance Advantage programme and the Senior Attendance and Leadership Resilience Check for schools seeking strategic support.

Find out more through the links in the show notes.

🎙️ Headship After Hours with Paul Collin — practical reflections on school leadership, attendance and creating schools where pupils can thrive.

00:00 – The Attendance Problem That Isn't About Attendance

00:51 – How Small Barriers Become Big Problems

02:18 – Why Attendance Strategies Can Miss the Real Issue

02:39 – How to Conduct an Attendance Friction Audit

03:38 – Why More Letters and Rewards May Not Work

05:40 – Remove Barriers Without Lowering Expectations

06:26 – Why Vulnerable Pupils Experience More Friction

07:09 – The Five-Pupil Attendance Exercise

07:51 – Why Small Changes Can Improve Attendance

08:11 – Attendance Advantage: Finding the Real Barriers

What does great teaching actually look like — and are schools sometimes turning good ideas into rigid routines?

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

• On-site school visit
• Detailed, school-specific report
• Follow-up strategy session
• Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin is joined by Tom Sherrington, former headteacher, author, educator and creator of Teaching WalkThrus, for a wide-ranging conversation about teaching, professional development, behaviour, inclusion and what school leaders need to understand about improving classroom practice.

Tom explores the continuing influence of Rosenshine's Principles of Instruction — and what Rosenshine might think about the way his ideas are being implemented in schools today.

The conversation goes beyond individual teaching strategies to a much bigger leadership question:

How do we create enough structure for every child to participate without turning good teaching into a compliance exercise?

Tom argues that structure and warmth aren't opposites. In the strongest classrooms, clear boundaries can create the conditions for freedom, relationships and joy.

Paul and Tom discuss:

• What Rosenshine's Principles actually mean
• Where schools can misinterpret research
• Why implementation often becomes mechanical before becoming sophisticated
• Retrieval practice and instructional coaching
• Why inclusive teaching requires structure
• Behaviour, boundaries and relationships
• Why strict classrooms don't have to be fearful classrooms
• Oracy and pupil participation
• Checking the understanding of every learner
• Formative action
• What great teaching could look like in 2035
• Why professional development needs to move away from judgement
• Creating a culture of collective professional improvement

Tom also makes a powerful case for systematically involving every student, rather than allowing classroom participation to be dominated by the pupils most willing to volunteer.

For headteachers and senior leaders, this conversation is ultimately about creating the conditions in which excellent teaching can happen consistently — without losing professional judgement, relationships or humanity.

🎙️ Headship After Hours — honest conversations about school leadership and the realities of leading education.

Timestamps

00:00 – Why Discipline and Warm Relationships Can Coexist
00:58 – Introducing Tom Sherrington
02:34 – Tom's Journey From Physics Teacher to Headteacher
04:06 – What Are Rosenshine's Principles?
08:44 – Are Schools Getting Rosenshine Wrong?
13:10 – When Good Ideas Become Too Mechanical
17:42 – Why Inclusive Teaching Needs Structure
20:20 – Behaviour, Boundaries & Relationships
22:33 – Can Schools Become Over-Engineered?
26:51 – What Will Great Teaching Look Like in 2035?
28:09 – The Future Is Inclusive Teaching
30:20 – Why Oracy Matters
32:58 – From Formative Assessment to Formative Action
35:30 – The Ideas Influencing Tom's Thinking Now
42:18 – Tom's Advice to School Leaders
44:44 – Where to Find Tom

What happens when school leaders refuse to put a ceiling on what children can achieve?

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

- On-site school visit

- Detailed, school-specific report

- Follow-up strategy session

- Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin is joined by Professor Dame Alison Peacock, founding CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching, for a conversation about leadership, high expectations, research, school culture and creating schools built around possibility rather than limitation.

Alison traces her journey from the classroom to taking on her first headship in a school in special measures — and eventually to founding leadership of the Chartered College of Teaching.

One idea has remained consistent throughout that journey: moral purpose.

Alison shares why she has challenged assumptions about fixed ability throughout her career and why leaders need the courage to ask whether the language, structures and expectations within their schools are expanding children's possibilities — or quietly restricting them.

In this episode:

• Taking on a school in special measures
• Leading through moral purpose
• Why Alison challenged ability grouping and fixed expectations
• Research-informed school leadership
• Creating a genuinely listening school
• Pupil voice and democracy
• Oracy, cognition and learning
• Why potential shouldn't be treated as fixed
• Making school “irresistible”
• Attendance, belonging and anxiety
• Designing environments around possibility
• Why culture must include staff as well as pupils
• Holding high expectations without compromise
• The language adults use about children
• Why headteachers shouldn't carry leadership alone

Alison also shares the story of a young pupil who profoundly influenced her thinking about possibility and expectations — reinforcing her belief that when someone genuinely believes in a child, extraordinary things can happen.

Towards the end of the conversation, Alison offers a particularly important message to headteachers:

Don't think you've got to do this on your own.

Leadership can become isolating. Strong schools are built collectively.

🎙️ Headship After Hours — honest conversations about leadership, education and the realities of leading schools.

00:00 – Building a Listening School
01:00 – Introducing Dame Alison Peacock
02:12 – Why Alison Challenged the Status Quo
05:05 – Taking on a School in Special Measures
12:34 – Leading From Moral Purpose
15:38 – The Child Who Changed Alison's Thinking
20:24 – Why Schools Need to Listen to Pupils
23:11 – Oracy, Cognition & the Research That Matters
27:23 – Rethinking What Educational Success Looks Like
31:49 – How Would Alison Design a School Today?
36:21 – Why Belonging Is Foundational
38:08 – High Expectations Without Compromise
43:24 – The Language That Limits Children
45:54 – Alison's Advice to Headteachers

Does your school genuinely have an attendance system — or does one highly capable person quietly hold the whole thing together?

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

- On-site school visit

- Detailed, school-specific report

- Follow-up strategy session

- Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin explores a hidden vulnerability in school attendance leadership: personality-dependent systems.

Many schools have an attendance lead who knows the families, patterns, histories, anxiety triggers, sibling dynamics and which interventions are most likely to work.

That expertise can make the system appear strong.

But the more knowledge that lives in one person's head, the less knowledge belongs to the organisation.

And that creates risk.

Paul explores:

• Why an effective attendance lead can unintentionally become the attendance system
• The difference between individual expertise and organisational resilience
• Why knowledge needs to become shared practice
• How dependency appears in everyday school routines
• Clear attendance roles, thresholds and decision-making
• Why staff changes can suddenly expose weaknesses
• Protecting high-performing attendance staff from burnout
• Building systems that survive absence, turnover and pressure
• Creating shared professional judgement across pastoral and leadership teams

Paul also gives leaders a simple stress test:

Could a capable new colleague step in and understand enough of your attendance system within a week to keep it moving?

If not, you may have a highly capable individual — but not yet a resilient structure.

Strong attendance systems should be stronger than any one individual carrying them.

🎙️ Headship After Hours — honest conversations about school leadership, attendance and the realities of leading schools.

00:00 – Do You Have a System or a Person?
01:30 – When Efficiency Hides Fragility
02:18 – What a Resilient Attendance System Looks Like
03:33 – When Knowledge Lives in One Person's Head
04:29 – Building Shared Attendance Practice
05:01 – The One-Week Stress Test
05:54 – Turn Individual Knowledge Into a System
06:11 – Protecting the People Carrying Too Much
07:12 – What This Looks Like on an Ordinary Tuesday
08:35 – Test Your Team's Alignment
09:31 – Attendance Is a Whole-School Culture Issue
10:05 – The Question Headteachers Need to Ask

What makes a school somewhere people genuinely want to belong — and stay?

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

• On-site school visit
• Detailed, school-specific report
• Follow-up strategy session
• Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin sits down with Rob Connolly, Executive Headteacher of Harleston Sancroft Academy, to explore school culture, belonging, authentic leadership and what it takes to sustain yourself through the pressures of headship.

Rob has spent 15 years serving the same school community. Today, he leads an all-through school spanning nursery to Key Stage 4, having led the process of bringing previously separate primary and secondary schools together.

The conversation explores:

• Why Rob believes people must come first
• Building school culture intentionally, every day
• Why relationships can't be reduced to a leadership strategy
• Recruiting the person, not simply the CV
• Bringing primary and secondary cultures together
• Creating curriculum continuity from Early Years to Key Stage 4
• Belonging, trust, respect, care and love in schools
• Holding high expectations without losing humanity
• Protecting culture when leadership pressure increases
• Staff retention and investing in people
• Why leaders don't need to have every answer
• Finding an identity outside headship
• Why sustainable leaders sometimes need to slow down

Rob also shares a powerful lesson from more than two decades in education:'

“Lead who you are. Teach who you are.”

This is a conversation about creating great schools without losing sight of the people inside them — including yourself.

🎙️ Headship After Hours — honest conversations about school leadership and the realities of leading schools.

Chapters:

00:00 – Building Community Through Relationships
01:02 – Meet Rob Connolly
03:10 – Rob's Journey Into Headship
07:16 – Putting People Before the CV
08:57 – The Challenge of Leading an All-Through School
13:16 – How Do You Actually Build School Culture?
18:41 – Protecting Belonging Under Leadership Pressure
23:56 – High Expectations Without Losing Care
26:09 – Finding an Identity Beyond Headship
27:44 – Rob's Advice to New Headteachers
29:46 – Lead Who You Are

The first 10 days of the school year can reveal an enormous amount about your school culture, leadership and consistency.

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

• On-site school visit
• Detailed, school-specific report
• Follow-up strategy session
• Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin explores what strong headteachers do differently at the beginning of a new school year — and why trying to launch every priority at once can actually weaken your start.

Behaviour. Attendance. Teaching. Safeguarding. Systems. Vision. Values. The improvement plan.

They all matter.

But when everything becomes a priority, staff and students can struggle to understand what matters most.

Paul explores five leadership principles for the first 10 days: creating simplicity around a small number of high-leverage behaviours, purposeful leadership visibility, recognising what is working, listening without constantly changing direction, and responding calmly when the first inevitable wobble arrives.

You'll hear practical questions for headteachers and senior leaders around:

• school culture and consistency
• behaviour expectations and routines
• attendance
• leadership visibility

staff alignment

• recognition
• communication with families
• responding when systems are tested
• building credibility with staff and pupils

The goal isn't to win the entire year in 10 days.

It's to establish the conditions that make the rest of the year possible.

Because school culture isn't built by how strongly you launch. It's built by what adults repeat once the launch is over.

🎙️ Headship After Hours — honest conversations about school leadership and the realities of leading schools.

00:00 – What the First 10 Days Reveal
01:21 – Why September Gets Overloaded
02:08 – Strong Leaders Create Simplicity
04:59 – Why Adult Consistency Matters
05:55 – Visible Leadership With Purpose
07:00 – Recognise What Is Working
07:53 – Listen Without Losing Direction
08:43 – How Leaders Handle the First Wobble
09:34 – 5 Questions to Ask Before the Year Begins

What if challenging behaviour isn't simply a discipline problem — but a sign that a young person doesn't yet feel safe, connected or regulated enough to learn?

Most heads aren't short on effort when it comes to attendance.

The harder truth: so much of it often rests on one or two people — and when that's the case, it never feels steady, however hard everyone works.

That's the work I do. I run a funded Senior Attendance & Leadership Resilience Check for headteachers and trust leaders in complex schools.

It starts with a short strategic assessment. For eligible schools, it opens into a full process:

• On-site school visit
• Detailed, school-specific report
• Follow-up strategy session
• Practical leadership tools for a clear 90-day plan

Typically valued at £1,000 — currently funded for eligible schools.

Apply here → https://atrejwhi.formester.com/f/hwL9GCyin/

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin is joined by Neil Moggan, founder of Future Action and author of Time to Rise Up, to explore trauma-informed practice, behaviour, relationships, mental wellbeing and the role movement can play in helping pupils regulate.

Neil shares his own journey from PE leadership into trauma-informed practice, including how changing his approach helped reduce send-outs in his PE department by 95%, while attendance and predicted grades for some of the most challenging pupils also improved.

Paul and Neil explore:

• Why safety and connection come before learning
• Trauma-informed approaches to behaviour
• Why relationships should sit at the heart of school improvement
• Movement as a tool for regulation and belonging
• Supporting pupils with ADHD and additional needs
• Maintaining high standards without re-traumatising young people
• Staff regulation and teacher wellbeing
• How leadership pressure can affect relationships with pupils
• Practical strategies schools can use to create calmer environments
• Why belonging matters for behaviour, attendance and learning

Neil also explains the Rise Up approach and shares practical examples of how movement, inclusive activities, stress-busting strategies and relationship-led practice are being used across mainstream, specialist and alternative provision.

One example comes from a specialist school where physical holds for one cohort reduced from 50 in Year 5 to 10 in Year 7 after the development of a Rise Up Sports Sanctuary and personalised regulation strategies.

The central message is simple:

Help children feel safe. Help them regulate. Then create the conditions for them to learn.

🎙️ Headship After Hours — honest conversations about school leadership, attendance, culture and the realities of leading schools.

00:00 – Safety Before Learning
00:18 – Introducing Neil Moggan
05:58 – What Is Trauma-Informed Practice?
08:58 – Movement, Regulation & Belonging
10:53 – The Rise Up Approach
17:34 – What This Looks Like in Real Schools
18:28 – From 50 Physical Holds to 10
21:08 – Why Relationships Matter in Implementation
23:25 – Education, Belonging & Human Connection
24:47 – When Leadership Pressure Changes Relationships
27:32 – Did Schools Get Behaviour Wrong After Lockdown?
29:06 – Staff Wellbeing & Self-Regulation
33:59 – One Simple Strategy Leaders Can Use Tomorrow
36:19 – Neil’s Advice for School Leaders

What happens when a young person wants to learn — but the traditional school environment simply isn't working for them?

In this episode of Headship After Hours, Paul Collin is joined by Hugh Viney, founder and CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy (MVA), to explore online and hybrid education, school attendance, SEND, emotionally based school avoidance and what happens when we begin designing education around the needs of the child.

Hugh shares the story behind Minerva Virtual Academy and why growing numbers of families began looking for alternatives when their children were struggling with anxiety, neurodivergence or the demands of mainstream education.

The conversation explores:

• Why some pupils thrive outside a traditional classroom

• SEND, anxiety and barriers to school attendance

• Emotionally based school avoidance

• The four barriers some children experience in mainstream education

• Making the school fit the child rather than forcing the child to fit the school

• Online, asynchronous and flipped learning

• The role of one-to-one mentoring and pastoral support

• Using engagement data to identify when pupils need help

• Maintaining academic expectations alongside wellbeing

• How schools and local authorities can use alternative provision

• Whether hybrid schooling could become a mainstream option

• Why online education doesn't necessarily mean isolation

Hugh also challenges one of the biggest assumptions surrounding virtual education: that learning online automatically means less community, fewer friendships and weaker outcomes.

For some young people, he argues, removing barriers associated with the physical environment can actually allow them to engage, build relationships and rediscover confidence in learning.

About Minerva Virtual Academy

This episode is supported by Minerva Virtual Academy (MVA), a DfE-accredited online school working with young people for whom traditional school attendance may not currently be working.

MVA works with families, schools and local authorities to provide an online educational pathway, including live teaching, independent learning, mentoring and pastoral support.

For school leaders considering alternative or complementary provision for a young person, further information about Minerva Virtual Academy can be found at:

Minerva Virtual Academy: www.minervavirtual.com

About Hugh Viney

Hugh Viney is the founder and CEO of Minerva Virtual Academy. After founding Minerva Tutors, Hugh launched MVA in 2021 as an alternative educational model for young people who may not thrive within traditional mainstream schooling.

In this conversation, Hugh shares his perspective on the future of virtual and hybrid education and why he believes alternative models should increasingly be viewed as a genuine educational choice rather than simply a last resort.

Connect with Hugh Viney on LinkedIn.

🎧 Headship After Hours — honest conversations about the realities of school leadership, education and building better systems for young people.

00:00 – Why Some Children Thrive Outside Mainstream School
01:50 – About Minerva Virtual Academy
02:10 – Introducing Hugh Viney
08:19 – Why Minerva Virtual Academy Grew So Quickly
11:38 – SEND, Attendance & School Avoidance
13:09 – Why Families Look Beyond Mainstream School
15:22 – What COVID Revealed About How Children Learn
18:57 – Making the School Fit the Child
19:52 – The Four Barriers to Mainstream School
24:20 – The Power of One-to-One Mentoring
27:19 – Technology, Learning & Human Connection
33:18 – What School Leaders Can Learn From MVA
34:44 – Can Online School Lead Pupils Back to Mainstream?
37:22 – The Future of Hybrid Schooling
39:12 – The Biggest Myth About Online School
41:10 – Belonging, Happiness & High Expectations