Podcast

Intro

Welcome to you Sonia. You have travelled miles and miles to be with us and we are so happy to see you. You see schools from all over the world so just imagine how happy we are to see you here at Mayflower. We feel honoured to be chosen by you as a school worth visiting. We hope you enjoy your time with us today, and can't wait to find out more about what you think of our education system. Let's get started with this podcast. Here we go...

Q1

How was your journey down to Plymouth and what do you expect to see at Mayflower today?

Q2

Could you explain to us a bit about who you are and what you do for a living? We are told that you know loads about how schools run and what makes a great school. 

Q3

Let's be specific, what are the key characteristics and things that the BEST schools do, and how does this differ from those that aren't yet so great?

Q4

Who is your ultimate role model and leader of your dreams? Who inspires you to stay a learner?

Q5

We are positioned at the bottom left of our country. The West Country. This makes for beautiful beaches and stunning outdoor landscapes. It also makes it harder for us to walk out our school door and meet people from the city. How do you stay connected with people on all things learning and what could we do to stay in touch with the very best thinkers in education?

Q6

Mr. Sammels says that you have such a lovely way about you, and you are kind and caring. You have compassion. What advice would you give us as we grow into Secondary Students about how we lead ourselves with compassion and confidence?

Q7

Can you tell us what your vision is for education and leadership, and what does this look like for children day to day? How can we help this vision take shape?

Q8

What is the best piece of advice you have ever had? 
Q9

You travel a lot and work very hard. How do you stay topped up with positive energy and take care of yourself? Do you have any daily routines and rituals that you advise we think about trying? I like to...how about you?

Q10

We can see from your website that you are an expert in advising people how to have difficult conversations. People can contact you and you train them in this area. Could you share some top tips on how to handle difficult conversations and what we might do when we face tough times with people?

Q11

Sonia, this is a great chat. Could I ask you to imagine that you are the headteacher of the most aspirant school in the world. What would you do as a leader to achieve your goals? Step by step? What would you do first, next, then to become the best that a school could be and would your strategy change depending on what country you were working in?

Q12

Do you think that schools will always be places we come to or will there be a time when pupils could stay at home and work in a different way with teachers? 

Q13

What did you love most about your time at school as a child and how has this helped you to shape your values and become who you are today? and, What are you values and have they ever stopped you from taking on work in schools?

Q14

You are here to talk to us about what it takes to be outstanding against all odds, but what does it take to be Sonia, against all the tough times you must have, just like us all, and what are your goals for the future? How can we help you to achieve these goals?

Outro

 

Bio 

Hello, I’m Sonia Gill. I’m an educational leadership coach, author and the Founder and Director of Heads Up Ltd; we specialise in making Primary schools outstanding.

My mission is to make every Primary school in the UK outstanding; yes, in terms of Ofsted, but also in being centres of excellence in all of our communities.

I’m a qualified teacher, trained in Key Stage 2, but I’ve taught every age from reception to year 11 (reception teachers, I worship the ground you walk on because that’s the toughest year in my opinion). I wanted to broaden my experience and so I joined the prestigious John Lewis graduate management trainee scheme where my focus was all about great leadership and creating great teams. Throughout my time there I learnt a lot and I found my approach on leadership and teams combined with my passion for psychology (that’s my degree) and my skills as a class teacher led me to great success in the business world.

I always wanted to return to education and so Heads Up was born. Using the best from business with the best of education to support those who want to create great schools; Heads Up is all about supporting our educational leaders create the outstanding school they have always wanted to create.

I’ve worked with 100s of heads and senior school leaders, helping them move their school to outstanding, creating the school they’ve dreamt of leading but haven’t achieved yet.

And it’s from this work I’ve found two key insights:

Firstly, there is a qualitative difference in taking a school to good and leading a school to outstanding. Good is essentially a tick list, a tough one, of things that must be in place and happening regularly. But there is a bit of magic when it comes to outstanding, and that magic is all about creating the right culture.

Secondly, whilst heads and school leaders are really well trained and experienced in creating great cultures with children and wonderful classroom practitioners, what I’ve found is that many are not as well-equipped when it comes to adults and that’s because they’ve not been trained in the 3 core leadership activities needed to create an outstanding culture:

• Creating a compelling vision.
• Having successful difficult conversations.
• Developing your team’s skills quickly.

So I developed our ‘Journey to Outstanding’ methodology to equip school leadership teams with these skills so they can create a lasting and outstanding culture. If you’re interested in knowing more, take a look at what these courses can ‘typically’ look like. Why do I say ‘typically’? Well we know that your school is unique, so we tailor our courses to what is right for you, so we show here what works in most schools but we know one size doesn’t always fit all!

Sonia Gill