KristianStill

BELONG - RESPECT - ASPIRE - ACHIEVE

New for 2017

Two terms A year into the role of Headteacher, I have learnt more than I had expected. It is a real privilege to have responsibility for a school, it's staff and students (equal first). I write...

Cultural capital

A continuing line for leadership enquiry - how school leaders develop cultural capital, through promoting Character Education, values and virtues within a school to staff, students and parents. Students in Year 7-9 were explicitly taught...

Staff performance

Each year I research and tackle an education issue to refine and broaden my thinking. Back in 2014, I started investigating the negative consequences of graded lesson observations as a contributing measure to Performance Related...

About Me

I don't wish to waste your time, so let's cover the essentials. My Linkedin profile provides a professional overview, experience, qualifications, honours, awards and endorsements. This blog has provided a professional record of my teaching...

Teaching

It’s your school

By Kristian Still 5 Sep ’17 5 Sep ’17 0

Commuting is my time (apart from a handful of scheduled phone calls), predominantly podcasts, occasionally an audiobook. This week my commute has been filled with “It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy,” a loan from one of our Trustees. First published in 2006. Captain Abrashoff reflects on the management and leadership techniques that .... Read more and bookmark.

Teaching

Always learning

By Kristian Still 25 Aug ’17 26 Aug ’17 0

Post exams, the final weeks of August sees the annual “welcome to the profession” and “best advice” posts and tweets. I often share the “#movemeon” publication – a collection of crowd sourced and curated suggestions covering (activities, behaviour, classroom management, environment, feedback, getting better, organisation, staffroom and technology) from .... Read more and bookmark.

Headship

New experiences – results day

By Kristian Still 25 Aug ’17 25 Aug ’17 0

This year, I was accountable for our results. It does change things. It was, as I am sure, many experienced Head teachers will attest, an anxious and exciting time. It was also necessary to find a balance. Balance between my role as Head teacher and that of husband and father (it just so happened to be our 10th wedding anniversary on the 11th and it is always my son’s birthday on the .... Read more and bookmark.

Teaching

Learning Outcomes

By Kristian Still 10 Aug ’17 11 Aug ’17 0

Look, there are numerous reflective educators out there with an opinion on the importance of, and use of learning outcomes/aims/objectives. These range from dismissive to advocacy. For the record, I do think that clearly defined destinations promote students engagement, as much as ambigious destinations hamper it. I also think that “modelled work” and “success criteria” .... Read more and bookmark.

Teaching

Canvas-ing design ideas

By Kristian Still 10 Aug ’17 13 Sep ’17 0

I’ve said it more than once, RSS (and here) is a fantastic and much under-utilised recourse. Feedly, my agregator of choice. This week, on the back of the InstructureCon (Canvas conference), the Canvas blog signposted three Canvas Network’s Educator courses. I decided to dip into Course Design Lab: Add Flair to Your Canvas Course by Gerol Petruzella (Mass. College of Liberal Arts) in an .... Read more and bookmark.

Teaching

Stumbling to success

By Kristian Still 1 Aug ’17 1 Aug ’17 0

Winston Churchill once said ‘success is stumbling from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.’ If you are not prepared to risk failure, and not resilient enough to cope with it, you will not achieve success” Jill Berry c/o Caroline Spalding .... Read more and bookmark.