When I embed directly with a school leadership team, I’m not there to hand over a shiny new strategic plan or run a workshop. To be honest, most SLTs already know exactly what needs to happen. The issue isn't a lack of vision, it’s that the endless firefighting can eat up all the time. 

I worked with a school recently that was completely drowning in student data. They had rows and rows of numbers on spreadsheets that looked brilliant on the surface, but told teachers absolutely nothing about whether the learning was actually impactful. It was just too bureaucratic and overcomplicated. I was invited in, binned what wasn’t needed, and built a clean, simple diagnostic setup instead. 

At another school, Inclusion was creating a massive amount of paperwork but was not creating better provision for the children who needed it. Everything was just too reactive, bogged down by endless provision maps and diagnostic labels that were impossible to track during the week. 

Rather than just looking for a quick fix, I re-engineered the whole thing so that provision had a better chance at being accessible by design.

Then there was a brilliant leadership team who realised their strategic plan had basically just become a nice poster on the wall. Everyone was working really hard, but they were all running in completely different directions and running on fumes. 

I sat down with the team, and we turned that abstract plan into a predictable but effective routine. The corridor chat died down because the infrastructure kept everyone moving together and there was a collective responsibility. 

Effective strategy only works when it stops being a static document and becomes permanent infrastructure that your team actually owns. When you stop piling on temporary projects and fix the underlying issues, the daily chaos slows right down.

Why are more school leaders engaging with Simpang? There is only one way to find out…. (just message and I will tell you).

Mike