SEND has rightly been reframed around 'inclusion' and the Ofsted toolkit echoes this approach through every evaluation area.

In this episode, we explore how leaders can ensure that pupils with special educational needs and disabilities are fully included in classrooms, learning alongside their peers, accessing ambitious curricula, and being supported through careful scaffolding, adaptation and high-quality teaching.

We delve into the common reasons why inclusive practice can feel strong in some classrooms — but fragile in others.

In this episode of The Leadership Lens, we move beyond principle and into practice and system design.

Drawing on evidence from the SEND Code of Practice, the Education Endowment Foundation, and cognitive science, this episode explores:

- Why inclusive SEND practice succeeds or fails at classroom level - The importance of teacher responsibility within inclusive systems

- How adult deployment can either support inclusion — or unintentionally undermine it

- Why Quality First Teaching is the most powerful SEND strategy schools have - What responsive and adaptive teaching actually looks like in practice

- How strategies like scaffolding, explicit instruction and flexible grouping support pupils with SEND — without lowering expectations

- Why sustainable inclusion depends on systems, clarity and shared understanding, not heroics

Throughout the episode, anonymised examples from real schools and trusts are used to illustrate how leaders have redesigned systems to strengthen inclusive practice and improve outcomes.

What will premium hub members receive?

For premium members, this episode is accompanied by a tried and tested SEND Audit Tool aligned to the renewed Ofsted framework, designed to help leaders evaluate inclusion at classroom, leadership and system level — not for compliance, but for clarity and improvement.

If you would like to explore premium hub membership, please click here:https://the-leadership-lens.mykajabi.com/premium-membership

Personal development is one of the judgements school leaders talk to me about more than any other — and often with the most uncertainty.

Not because schools aren’t doing good work.

Not because leaders don’t care deeply about children.

But because this judgement sits across everything.

Curriculum.

Safeguarding.

Character.

Enrichment.

Pastoral care.

And unless it has been deliberately designed, it can feel surprisingly difficult to explain — particularly in an inspection conversation.

In this episode, I break the whole thing down.

I take us back to the Ofsted School Inspection Toolkit and unpack what inspectors are actually evaluating when they make a personal development judgement — and then I walk you through how we’ve designed this in practice, and why we’ve made the choices we’ve made. Because once you stop seeing personal development as “extra things that sit outside of everything else” and start seeing it as a curriculum, everything becomes clearer — and far calmer to articulate.

In this episode, we explore:

- Why personal development is a stand-alone judgement, not incidental evidence

- What Ofsted means by a planned and coherent programme

- Why personal development must be taught, reinforced and sequenced

- How PSHE and RSHE form the taught backbone of personal development

- Why moral reasoning and understanding consequences need to be explicitly taught

- How safeguarding knowledge is revisited and deepened over time

- How character development can be planned, mapped and progressed - What meaningful assessment looks like without data or tests

- How protected characteristics and British values become curriculum, not compliance

- Why pastoral care is integral to personal development — not separate from it

- How leadership and careers education prepare pupils for life beyond school

This episode is about moving from “We do lots” to “Here’s our thinking.” Not to perform for inspection — but to design something coherent, intentional and defensible for pupils.

🎁 For premium members

Premium listeners receive practical resources that remove uncertainty and save time, including:

A full personal development curriculum map

Character progression statements from Early Years to Year 6

Half-termly mapping of safeguarding, protected characteristics and British values

Sequencing rationale explicitly linked to the Ofsted toolkit

Leadership language you can use confidently with staff, governors and inspectors

These resources aren’t about adding workload. They’re about helping you articulate what you already do — clearly and calmly.

✨ Explore the premium membership here:

👉 https://the-leadership-lens.mykajabi.com/premium-membership

Over the last few years, staff wellbeing has become one of the most commonly used phrases in education leadership. Yoga after school. Mindfulness apps. Staff breakfasts. Wellbeing days. And yet — teachers and support staff are still leaving. In this episode of The Leadership Lens, I talk honestly about why so many wellbeing initiatives fail to retain staff, and what actually makes the difference when it comes to keeping good people in schools. This episode was sparked by a comment I received this year: “Your school is outstanding — you must be difficult to work for.” That assumption stopped me in my tracks. Because in my experience, high standards and high staff retention are not opposites. In fact, they depend on one another. Across this extended episode, I explore what ten years of leadership in a complex, inner-city context has taught me about retention — not as a wellbeing problem, but as a work design and leadership behaviour issue. We talk about: - Why teachers don’t leave because they’re not calm enough — they leave because they feel trapped, ineffective, or morally compromised - How workload becomes unsustainable not through one big thing, but through hundreds of small, poorly designed demands - Why moral injury — not lack of resilience — sits underneath so much attrition - How predictable rhythms, clarity of communication, and fairness reduce anxiety more than any initiative - What actually happens when leaders remove work, protect time, and say “stop” - Why staff stay where they feel trusted, effective, and safe enough to be honest - How believing in people before they believe in themselves builds leadership capacity and long-term stability - Why micromanagement quietly drives good people out — and what to do instead - How calling out unhelpful cultural behaviours early protects staff dignity and trust - Why wellbeing isn’t something you give staff — it’s something you stop taking away This episode is not about being “nice”. It’s about being serious about professional time, dignity, and sustainability. If you’re a headteacher, executive leader, or trust leader who is asking: “How do I stop losing good people?” …this episode is for you. Inside the Premium Members Hub, I’ve shared a Staff Retention Audit Toolkit designed to help leaders move beyond wellbeing initiatives and take an honest look at: - Where work design is draining staff - Where predictability and fairness are breaking down - Where agency, competence, or psychological safety need strengthening - What can realistically change in the next 2 weeks, half term, and term It’s practical, leadership-facing, and designed to support real decision-making — not add another task to your list. Premium members can access the toolkit now in the hub here: https://the-leadership-lens.mykajabi.com/premium-membership