What national education policy looks like from inside a school.
I lead a secondary school and write about accountability, disadvantage and the teaching workforce, reading national measures through the practice of a school. Every figure links to its primary source.
Secondary principal · FRSA · FCCT · Teach First 2003
Writing and tools
I checked every Ofsted report card. Results alone don't explain the gap.
A year of report cards read against deprivation and against statistically similar schools. The ceiling is open; the floor is tilted.
Ofsted Explorer
Look up any secondary school in England. Its report card beside its results, read four ways, including an open replica of the DfE and Ofsted similar schools model.
About
I run a secondary school in Nuneaton, and I write about what national education policy looks like from inside one.
I have led Nuneaton Academy, part of United Learning, since 2023, through a period of substantial improvement that is the work I am proudest of. Across my career I have led schools in both regional and national trusts, mostly in communities where disadvantage shapes the daily work, and that has taught me how much of a school's improvement depends on the system around it: how it is held to account, how it is supported, and how well it grows its own teachers.
Those are the problems I care most about. Accountability should be fair: measures ought to reward what matters, and context should sharpen judgement rather than lower expectations. Disadvantage should not decide a child's outcomes, and a real sense of belonging is part of how it stops doing so. And schools need more good teachers than the system currently trains and keeps.
I'm always glad to hear from school and trust leaders, researchers, policymakers and journalists working on the same questions.
Views are my own.