Books for School Leaders

"Curriculum Simplexity" by Melanie Moore offers a practical, phased approach to primary curriculum development. This book provides a clear roadmap for busy school leaders, emphasizing collaboration and addressing key concepts like cultural capital and pedagogy. With its focus on leadership, it empowers schools to create impactful and locally relevant curricula. Highly recommended for headteachers and curriculum leads.

This practical playbook empowers school leaders to foster a culture of creativity by equipping them with a research-based framework.

"Empowered by the Human Design" by Katie Pagnotta offers a new approach to education.

A transformative approach to behaviour, shifting the focus from punishment to understanding and support.

A practical, insightful guide for school leaders seeking meaningful, long-term improvement.

Tiny Voices Talk: Educator Empowerment and Fresh Ideas

Struggling with the unique challenges of leading a maths department? "Leading Maths" is your essential guide.

Desirable Difficulties in Action," authored by Jade Pearce and Isaac Moore

Helen's book explores effective school leadership qualities, offering insights for impactful educational guidance

"SEND Huh: Curriculum Conversations with SEND Leaders" by Mary Myatt and John Tomsett

Discover key insights from 'The A-Z of Secondary Leadership' by Andy Hunter

Building Culture: A handbook to harnessing human nature to create strong school teams

"Leadership for Sustainability: Saving the planet one school at a time" by Dr. David Dixon

Huh - Curriculum conversations between subject and senior leaders

A Review of 'Tools for Teachers' by Oliver Lovell for HeadteacherChat

"Outstanding School Leadership" by Peter Hughes – Steering Education with Purpose and Vision

The (UN)HAPPY HEADTEACHER: Navigating headship and finding joy in the role

Written by Matt Bromley and Andy Griffith, The Working Classroom: How to make school work for working-class students offers practical strategies and tools to help secondary schools address the needs of working-class students, including by building cultural capital and designing more engaging learning.

HeadteacherChat review of Geoff and Margaret's Old School Book of Retirement Tales

This guide will take you step by step through the key considerations as part of your growth journey.

Well this book couldn't have come at a better time! We get asked a lot by school leaders about how AI can help them, and this book does exactly that! Packed with lots of useful tips and resources for how AI can help, but also, which AI system to use.

Effective teamwork leads to purpose, belonging, trust, learning, and, ultimately, high performance. When we better understand the nuances of how teams can thrive, we discover the real Power of Teams.

This is not just another book about how to be a good leader. You will hear from giants of sport, literature, art, film and music, and be guided by poets, philosophers, war heroes and Nobel prize-winners.

Daisy Christodoulou is a leading educational commentator with many years' experience of working with schools as well as in the classroom. In this new book, she tackles the ed tech debate, asking why it hasn't yet had the transformative impact on education that has long been promised, and evidencing the benefits it could still bring to schools.

An review of Emma's "Simplicitus," a handbook that bridges theory and practice in primary curriculum design.

This invaluable handbook explores how schools can design and deliver continuing professional development (CPD) that truly lives up to its name.

A review of Patrick Lencioni's seminal work that dissects team dysfunctions.

Education Exposed 2 follows on from Sam Strickland's first book, Education Exposed. The book is a pacy, punchy and forthright critique of how to drive the curriculum, behaviour and teaching within a school and the pivotal role that leadership plays in pursuing the halcyon dream. The book is neatly laid out, with each chapter identifying common curricular misconceptions, posing lots of key questions to consider and offering multiple practical ideas that you can take away. Every chapter ends with five key takeaway points for you to carefully consider.

The Wellbeing Toolkit by Andrew Cowley is a valuable resource for promoting wellbeing and resilience among school staff. It challenges myths surrounding wellbeing and offers practical strategies to foster a positive atmosphere. It emphasises the importance of understanding staff members, their motivations, and factors that affect their confidence. By implementing the book's strategies, school leaders can improve staff attendance and retention while reigniting teachers' passion for their profession.

Teachers can’t teach effectively if they’re demotivated and exhausted; and they shouldn’t they have to! A Little Guide for Teachers: Teacher Wellbeing and Self-Careexplains how wellbeing is essential to effective teaching, and gives teachers practical tools to take back control of the classroom. The Little Guide for Teachers series is little in size but BIG on all the support and inspiration you need to navigate your day to day life as a teacher. · Authored by experts in the field · Easy to dip in-and-out of · Interactive activities encourage you to write into the book and make it your own · Fun engaging illustrations throughout · Read in an afternoon or take as long as you like with it!

A concise review of an innovative guide offering time-saving marking strategies that not only elevate student performance but also inspire them.

Successful school leadership starts with you: who you are, what you believe in, and why you do the things you do.

Leaders With Substance is not a handbook. It sets out to change the way we think of leadership and school improvement. It is both a critique, a manifesto, and a call to arms.

There are no secrets to school improvement. There are no silver bullets and no magic answers. It is far less glamorous. It is a question of identifying numerous actions and applying effort 'day in, day out' to improve them.

A comprehensive review of Stephen Tierney's book that delves into the essential elements of leadership in education—Being, Knowing, and Doing—supported by real-life examples.

An actionable guide that addresses 'baked in' educational failure by providing proven strategies and case studies to bring success to every student. Ideal for school leaders and educators in mainstream and special education.

Our in-depth review of My School Governance Handbook by Al Kingsley

"Leadership with a Moral Purpose - Turning Your School Inside Out" by Will Ryan is a thought-provoking and inspiring book that challenges traditional approaches to school improvement. Ryan, drawing from his extensive experience as a teacher, headteacher, and local authority adviser, offers primary school leaders a refreshing perspective on leadership, emphasising the importance of moral purpose and authentic engagement.

This practical handbook offers a month-by-month guide to the curriculum, assessment, progress, and leadership over the school year. It provides a clear, comprehensive, and coherent structure to the academic year helping school leaders to prioritise their time and workload, supporting them and their team to work as efficiently and effectively as possible.

The Nine Pillars of Great Schools examines the commonalities between the most successful institutions and demonstrates how to transform a good school into a great school.

An exploration of Parklands School's transformation into a haven where love fuels academic excellence and personalised support.

In this researchED Guide to Assessment, Sarah Donarski brings together chapters by Dylan Wiliam, Tom Sherrington, Alison Peacock and many others to consider the debates, critique the strategies and find solutions that not only better the progress of pupils but also assist the wellbeing and manageability of workload for staff.

Providing a roadmap to improvements in staff morale, workload management and wellbeing.

The CRAFT approach of assessment for learning is a strategy that can be applied at a subject level and at a whole school level to assess student learning from across the Key Stages.

If we do not ensure, first and foremost, that our teachers are happy, healthy, well qualified, highly motivated, hard-working, well-trained experts, they cannot be their best for their students.

The book discusses two opposed models of school improvement: the deficit model (which assumes problems are someone's fault) and the surplus model (which assumes problems are unintended systemic flaws). By aligning ourselves to a surplus model we can create a system of Intelligent Accountability.

Book Review: "They Don't Behave for Me" by Sam Strickland

My Secret #Edtech Diary by Al Kingsley: Headteacherchat's Book Review

Every year thousands of research papers, guidance documents and educational aims are published on pupil mental health and wellbeing. Many of them offer insightful ideas and theories, but what is often lacking is a clear route for busy classroom teachers to apply these findings. A focus on wellbeing is here to stay, but what does it mean? How does it apply to the curriculum? And what is a teacher's role? This book critically explores the importance of being a research-informed teacher, assesses some of the key health and wellbeing areas that class teachers can directly affect, and offers practical advice on how to do this. What do we think? This is a great book, full of useful tips on how to support pupil wellbeing with case studies, points to consider, discussion points and lots of information from supporting individual children to evaluating whole school approaches to wellbeing.

If there is one thing that school leaders need to get right, it is school culture.

The Headteacher's Handbook by Rae Snape

Written in the context of an education system on the edge of a crisis, with students burning out, staff walking out and schools under increasing pressure to singlehandedly provide the social care so many young people desperately need, Lighting the Way argues that schools stand on the threshold of a new way forward. Angela uses her wealth of experience to show school leaders the path to being torchbearers, leading children with purpose, staff with integrity and the community towards wisdom with practical strategies, optimism and guidance.

The Teaching Life is for anyone who wants to make the most of their time in education, for their students and for themselves.

From influential Executive Headteacher Nick Hart comes Impact, a practical framework for improving outcomes for children in both primary and secondary classrooms, helping them thrive and succeed.

Full of experiences from teachers, headteachers and inspectors, as well as Garvey's own personal experiences, this is not a book to be missed for anyone looking to journey towards teaching excellence.

Practical, concise and easily absorbed in one sitting by busy teachers

Insightful, captivating and authentic, Mandy suggests fresh and practical new ideas and opportunities to strengthen your school and teachers, better equipping them to support their pupils.

What does it take to thrive in one of the most pressurised leadership roles in modern times? What is the real story behind the men in the football hotseat who shape the dreams and ambitions of millions?

Enhancing Wellbeing in Our Primary School: A Review of Adrian Bethune's Book

"Wayfinder: Leading Curriculum Vision into Reality" by Matthew Lane is an invaluable resource for educational leaders navigating the treacherous waters of curricular transformation.

A comprehensive review of Tracey O’Brien's book that delves into the critical aspects of school inspections.

Written under the guidance and with the support of Dylan Wiliam, Kate Jones writes about five formative assessment strategies in action in the classroom, with a foreword from Professor John Hattie.

Have you ever felt like workplace politics were distracting you from doing your job? Ever been lost for words in a difficult conversation with a colleague? The Emotionally Intelligent Teacher is a unique guide to managing your emotions in order to enhance teaching, boost wellbeing and combat power struggles in schools.

The Behaviour Manual - An Educator's Guidebook offers over 100 strategies, approaches and teaching methods that will help any school, leader, middle leader, teacher, ECT or ITT to pro-actively lead on behaviour.