LIVE | Trust, Traction and Technology

Hello everyone, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to Education Leaders Live. This is the show to education leaders, the chat-topping leadership podcast for school leaders, just like you. Welcome to the show. I'm Shane Leaning.

I'm an organizational coach. I get to know the teacher's leaders and innovators making a difference around the world in my podcast. And in this special live edition, I'm always going to be joined by my co-host, Chris Skora, who's going to be with me and sessions to the podcast. You'll know that I do interviews and then share leadership tips and advice. And here, we're going to dig

into some of the most pressing educational topics, especially in leadership. What makes this truly valuable is it's not just about me and Chris, it's about you. It's about you joining in as well. So this is going to be the first of many. We actually had Education Leaders Live.

We used to have a setup a while ago. We used to run on Twitter. That was about a year ago. So this is a bit of a relaunch and it's all done within our Education Leaders community.

Now, what you will know if you're here live, you'll be able to see. We've got a video that we're sharing and you can also join in. So feel free to pop your hand up and you can join straight into the conversation when we get going. But I'm also going to release this as we're releasing this as a bonus episode on the podcast. So if you're listening to that replay right now, you're

missing out on a chance to unmute, share your experience and learn from leaders around the globe. So you don't need to worry for today, but what I'd like you to do is to go to educationleaders.live. That's educationleaders.live. There you can join the community.

It literally takes a couple of minutes to join the community. If you want, you can do it on your phone. You can download the app if you like. I'm going to share a little bit more about that later. And then you can get involved in our next live session in two weeks

time. When you register, you're not just going to get access to these live events, but you're going to get exclusive cheat sheets from the podcast episodes. There's a peer coaching community and we've got lots more plans. So let's dive in today. Chris, I'm going to see if this works

this time. Is your microphone working? How are you doing, mate? Great to see you, Shane, as always. The sun is shining. We've got the door open on the summer house where I work.

Gorgeous. It's actually also been lovely and sunny here in Shanghai as well for the week, which is a nice welcome change. Hey, this community platform is working. We had a little coming in. I think that was on my end rather than yours, but we seem to be good.

Excellent stuff. Well, that's fabulous. So Chris, for our listeners who are new, do you want to introduce yourself and then we can kind of kick into today's podcast? It's a tricky one to say what it is that I do because basically I talk about education with schools and colleges and school groups and things like that. I've got possibly one of the

best jobs in the world. I get shipped around the world to chat to people about education and see schools in action. I currently work for Century Tech and I'm their international schools manager. My focus very often when I work with schools is around school data.

I'm formerly a teacher and certainly not a data geek. So I think that's probably quite a nice perspective to come at data with because you see how it can be used and a big part of my mantra. We've spoken on the Education Leaders podcast about democratizing data and bringing that to the class. And I suppose that's a little bit of a focus of mine.

The fact is you wouldn't want your doctor not to be data led. You wouldn't want your pilot not to be data led. So really, you should probably be the idea of your teachers being at least data informed if not data led in schools and using it to support their work. I think it's an important thing if it's done properly. That's quite a big phrase,

by the way, done properly. Yeah, that does a lot of heavy lifting there. No, it's really good. And for those who are listening, go back into the podcast archives and you'll see Chris is one of the few people who's had two episodes on Education Leaders.

No favoritism here. Topics though, we did literacy and data. They're well worth checking out. Both recorded. I think my only episodes that are recorded from a British pub.

So Chris, today what we're going to be doing is two things really. I want to take a little moment to introduce anyone who's either tuning in live or coming in from the replay into the community platform because this is a brand new thing. And this is a space where we're kind of grounding ourselves for a bit. For any of you who've followed me and Chris for the last few months, we've been here there and everywhere with Education Leaders Live trying to find a home for it and the space. And we've experienced all the wonder and tech issues that's come about.

But we're really excited now to be kind of putting our new home in the new community space from Edge Escape where Education Leaders is actually the first independent community to go live on the Edge Escape app. So for any of you who haven't heard of Education Escape, they are doing some absolutely brilliant work. They're based in the UK, but they do work internationally. They've got a few different parts to them. One that they're mostly known for in the UK is they

run some of the biggest education media group, which is Schools Week and FV Week. These are newspapers really well regarded in the education sector. So they put a lot of really fantastic journalism into the world. They also run a lot of brilliant professional learning and professional development, including their famous Festival of Education, which has become, I believe it's like the biggest educational gathering in Europe now. It's huge. Chris and I have been to ones

around the world as well. They've got some international conferences. In fact, the one in Shanghai is happening in a few weeks' time, and Chris and I will both be there, which is really exciting. And they have just launched a new community platform just for educators around the world. And in there, there's going to be lots of stuff. It's

in development. It's kind of rolling out. And you'll be able to find it if you just Google EducationScape, or if you go to the App Store and search for EduScape, that's the name of the app, and you can download the app. And we have planted our community right within there.

So I'll do it. Would you mind, Chris? I'll share my screen, and then I can kind of just talk through. You probably appreciate me talking through the platform as well.

Right. So I'm going to do this. See our live streaming, by the way, from within the education leaders community platform. So we're not using an external tool. We're not using Zoom or anything

like that. It's in the community. So the only way you can get access to this live and get involved is to come into that education leaders community. And as I mentioned, you can get to that at educationleaders. So what I'm going to do here is I am just going to quickly share this tab. So this

is the education leaders community. And as you notice, it's just clicked into dark mode because I'm basically Shanghai, and it's evening here. But if you're all logging in in the day, you'll probably see a nice light mode. So here's the community. A few things. If you join

education leaders community, whenever you come into this, this will be your home screen, if you like. All this stuff that's on the left, you don't need to worry too much about. So you know, when you become a member of education leaders, you also become a member of education escape, which means that you will get access to all their brilliant resources, brilliant updates, and different communities that are going on in there. And I know that they've got a lot of specialist communities that they're going to be launching very soon as well, which is super exciting, dependent on what kind of specialism you've got in your school.

In the education leaders, it's pretty self-explanatory, but we've got a feed here where you can post in the feed, you can post links to articles if you like it very much acts like a bit of a social media. I'll also be posting cheat sheets. So here's this week's episode. It was episode 100 of education leaders with the brilliant Ross McGill. And I've posted

a little cheat sheet in there as well, which you can take, you can print out that gives you five tips straight from the episode. You can't get that anywhere else. So you can go and access that there. And then you're also able, you can see Chris there has been making a comment on this. Chris is a member of the member community. You'll also see things popping up sometimes like

whole, this was a poll done earlier in the week. How optimistic are you about integrating AI in schools? There was my vote, you know, predictably in the middle, trying not to cause a ruckus. Where would you put yourself, Chris? It's interesting because I'm actually speaking at

Cobras in May about this very thing, the moral imperative of AI. And actually, I think AI is coming whether we like it or not. So I think using it in, using in schools is something that we're going to have to do. And we've just got to work it out, make it safe, effective, and not sort of not let it take over our judgment as teachers. I love that. So you're probably more

on the optimistic side and taking it, you know, as little help. We've just had a, it's a tricky thing because I think it's inevitable because I think in that basis it's imperative rather than anything else. Well, yeah, that's that. So we've got this, you can see there's Matt, another member, he's added a comment there. So it's a community platform for you to kind of engage with,

to share your knowledge, to share your experiences. So that's all stuff that's happening on the feed. You can also see at the top of this feed that it's about our education leaders live. So I posted about that where you can kind of get information and go into the live session. When you're in the

app, you can actually see where we're live. You can see it's popped up live at the top there, and you'll be able to click in. If you have the app as well, you can get, you can choose to have notifications so you know when people are going live. So every two weeks we're going to do this education leaders live, but maybe there's going to be other little live pop-up sessions that we can arrange on different topics if any, if anyone wants to, and you can do that with the app.

So that's the feed. So then there's the events section just like this live. We can see that that's live now, but we've also in there, there's going to be opportunities for some free webinars like this. Also things, some paid options as well, some master classes that you might want to get involved with as part of the education leaders academy.

You'll also see at the top here, we've got another very informal chat spacing space called peer coaching here. Here's a very simple chat format. So if you've got something that's happening for you as a leader, well, here's a community online that is full of leaders around the world who might have answers to some of the challenges you're facing. So pop it in the peer coaching tab, pop your question, pop your scenario, and maybe let's see if we can generate a bit of peer coaching, a bit of peer mentoring around this. We've got

a community and we want to keep growing it and building it. And the great thing about having a dedicated space like this education leaders.live community is that there's no algorithm here filtering what you can see. So you might be on LinkedIn or you might be on Blue Sky or wherever you hang out. But sometimes we know you can post something out there and you can feel

like it's just tumbleweed because the algorithm just hasn't presented it in front of people or it's presented it in front of people, but maybe they're not the right people for this. In this community, you know anyone who signs up is working in leadership in some sort of capacity within education. So they've got a bit of a shared connection to you. So this peer coaching could be a cool tool. As we grow the community, these two tabs are going to be really

useful for you. There's a member step, which is pretty cool. It shows who's top members and kind of working out how it's defining top of the minute, probably by how much engagement I guess. But there's also a tool. If you go and update your profile in the app, and just

I really encourage you to do this. If you've got a profile, go and update it with your location and then this area can tell you who's near you, who actually is near you geographically. It might actually be useful to know who's in your area who might be able to work within support. And then of course we've got new members and it's great to see lots of new faces there that are joining the community. So that's kind of a brief overview of the platform.

And you can get to this totally for free, educationleaders.live. It's open to any leaders just when you come in, you'll have to answer a few questions and then you get in and you can start engaging. It's a free community because it's there for you. And what I'd really

like to do is to use this as a community space and grow it in response to what's on your mind and what would be the most useful thing for you. So you'll notice when you come into the community that you have to answer a question about what brings you here. And hopefully we can use a bit of that data and to see what's coming in, to start to craft an experience that's going to be useful. But at the core of this community is definitely going to be our live spaces, biweekly live spaces where we all get to chat on certain topics. Chris, I'm keen to hear your thoughts. What do

you think of the platform or like the partnership with Edgescape? I love the platform. I love the fact that it's focused on education leaders very specifically. There's also a few issues of principle about moving away from other platforms and in the current sort of global politics as it were. And I think that's probably quite

important too. I think education is a pretty precious thing. And I think that very often, particularly as you find your way into leadership, it can be quite a lonely place. You're expected to have answers. That's the nature of teaching very often, isn't it? And you sort of put that

pressure on yourself and to have a community as a sounding board, a place where you can explore ideas, listen to other ideas, look outside of your own school gates, I think is a hugely valuable resource. And apart from anything else, it's just nice to chat to other professionals, isn't it? It's as close as we can get to face to face other than actually being face to face. And I think that's really valuable. Yeah, I agree. Sorry, Chris. Highlight of my fortnight, I promise you.

I believe you. I believe you. Well, the nice thing is that I think it's a bit of a space for leadership geeks, if you like. I know not everyone will want to join such a community, but I think if you're in that space where you feel a bit geeky about some of the things that are going on in education or you feel that maybe you're having conversations in your school, but it's all about that kind of day-to-day practice. And you just want a space

to kind of step outside and just talk about leadership on a broader level of schools. That can be really hard to do in day-to-day school life because of the nature of the busyness of school. So sometimes this can be a nice little spot for you to kind of just pull yourself out and have a bit of a chat and a reflection. I think as well it's really important to remember that if you're passionate about education and you have ideas, sometimes it builds having a B in your bonnet or what have you, but actually education needs people like that to be out there peddling that message, moving things forward, questioning the orthodox.

Otherwise we end up in a really sort of static place and that's no good for kids really. We need to be really embracing that passion and that change and making that move forward for people. So fair play to all those leaders out there that have that work to do or that battle to fight every day as it were, moving people forward. So it's a great place to do that too, yeah, I agree. Well, I guess that brings us into, we usually have a theme or a topic

that we're going to cover each time. And today's is going to be what does a great community mean, but I think what can be useful if in each, we did a bit different today. We kind of did a bit of an overview of the platform, but it's nice, a nice way to start me and Chris were just chatting before is maybe to reflect on some of the headlines that education leaders might be thinking about the world around the world at the minute. And I can see, by the way, I can see JP, you're in here as a viewer, feel free. If you want to come onto the mic to chat about any of these things,

please, please do. In fact, you'll probably have to let us know JP, if you're able to request that, or if it can only be invite only, because I can see my option to invite you, but I'm not sure if it works, if it was the other way. That's interesting as saying, I'm not sure how to speak. So this is again, this is where it's useful to know. So I can add a speaker here, personalization,

which is useful, but I wonder if it can be done elsewhere. I'll put the request JP, there's no pressure at all to come into the chat. So Chris, what's kind of been on your mind? Have you seen anything in the headlines this week that stood out to you?

Yeah, I was quite interested in the Dimbleby lecture from the former England football coach, and that idea of masculinity and how it's reflected in schools and how we address that. And whether it is a problem, whether it's not. And I think that question, I think very often the lectures and things like that have a very clear perspective that they're peddling. But I think that within leadership, it's often worth picking some of those ideas up and just applying it to your own circumstances in it, your own circumstances may be different. And certainly we're operating

around the world here on this platform. So we'll have schools that have very, very different contexts and perhaps different scenarios that they face and cultural attitudes as well. So that's quite an interesting perspective. And I think it ties in with how do we deal with masculinity and the sort of changing face of boys identity within schools. And I think back to my bringing and I

think about the education of my own children. My daughter asked me a little while ago, daddy, is it all right if I go to the girls school? Because I don't want boys to be, I don't like having boys in class. And there's an awful lot in that question unpack if you think about it on a fairly philosophical level.

That's a tricky question to navigate. I'm not going to ask you how you responded to start to judge your parenting, because I wouldn't have a clue how to how to respond to that. But it is, it's so it's very topical at the minute. And there's the new Netflix series, which everyone is talking about, which is adolescence. Hi, JP. Welcome. Welcome. That's working. You can hear me

again. All good. Absolutely perfect. It does work. Yeah. And there you go. I don't know. Have

you seen any news of this adolescence or have you watched it yet? This new Netflix series, which is just taken everyone by a bit of storm. It only was released last week on Netflix. It's already the top of the charts around the world. Have you heard about it? No, just that it's hit

a nerve, but I haven't seen anything of it yet. Yeah, me neither watch the trailer. And I think me and Emma have said it's weekend watching for us this week. My wife was about watching it. We've got a young son and she's got to be nervous about watching

it. You know, it's quite often the only TV slot we get is lasting at night after we've put the kids to bed and stuff. And she doesn't want to be anxious before she goes to sleep. And I think it probably does ask some questions that like leave you anxious as a parent perhaps.

Yeah, that's interesting. That was just saying it's interesting there as well, Chris, because you're saying that you only get the chance to go on and watch something. It's almost like when we were growing up, maybe things were scheduled and now everything's, you know, you pick out asynchronously and you might binge a whole series all at once. And does that happen with learning as well when you've got access to this kind of content?

It's all or nothing. Wow, that's a question and a half, isn't it? And actually, you know, the model that we have within teaching is still pretty sort of 18th century, isn't it? And it's largely speaking, it's built up because of administrative piece rather than broadcasting.

Yeah. You know, rather than sort of cognitive engagement. That's a really interesting thing. How do you manage the mood of 25 kids all at the same time?

And if they're not in the right way, how do you do it? Sounds like a good provocation for another episode soon as well. Like maybe that's another question, but it's interesting how it's all connected. And for me, like, what stood out. And I don't want to comment too much on until I've watched that series.

Because in fact, it's winding me up that I haven't watched it because it is all over Blue Sky and LinkedIn. It feels like every other person is posting about this adolescence at the minute. And I'm jealous I haven't watched it. But seeing some of the commentary, it speaks to a lot of the hidden spaces online where young boys are spending a lot of time at the minute. And that's outside of those traditional places where, you know,

young boys might have used to hang out on the football pitch, a cricket ground, the street outside, you know, around the bins in the back garden, around the parents, or if it was playing games, it was with another, you know, with another friend, you know, together. And now these online spaces that are not just game playing, but, you know, community spaces that are largely unsupervised, it's kind of a bit of a, it sounds like it's been a bit of a short wake up call for many perhaps. I wonder if we're trying to fight the wrong fight in some senses with it though. There's an inevitability, the change, that behavior amongst youngsters.

I was housemaster of the school in China. And I used to collect the phones in in an evening so that the youngsters weren't on their phones at night. And very quickly, I found out that you could buy fake iPhones on Taobao. Youngsters were handing in fake phones. I had no idea

that there was such a thing as fake phones. And it was only when I found youngsters playing on games on their phones late at night after bedtime that I realized you could buy fake phones on Taobao. And I think that that fight is maybe quite a difficult one. I think really, the only way to positive outcome is that concept of education and building those values amongst the young people, rather than trying to prohibit something. Because then it just becomes

more alluring to young people, particularly. And that's a well-won battle that all the people have lost time and time again, I suspect. And yeah, quite how you do that, what should I just yet? It speaks to understanding as well, Tobi. Yeah, I think the incentives have shifted so much as well, haven't they? You know,

you're talking just that you can't just use the stick there, right, Chris? That's what you're saying. You know, you need some kind of carrot in terms of children understanding the benefits of something. And the problem is, I mean, like, you know, growing up, we knew what it was like not to have the internet constantly on. We knew what it was like to have to follow a schedule.

Rather than be able to really do it. Right. So, I mean, this is generation now, which, you know, they've just never known anything else. And, you know, it's hard to start to tell someone that the water that they're swimming in is getting more and more polluted, because how could they possibly notice or see that? And that is what it feels like now, isn't it? There's just this

overwhelm of everything, whether it's content, whether it's just blue light, or, you know, screen time and the inability to just switch off and disconnect. One thing that we've been doing a lot in our context is really promoting these opportunities to kind of get away from the devices. I'm just trying to remember the number, is it limitless? Limitless is the program that we've been participating in. And we just went to visit a new site in China. It's been

going on in Australia for a while. And you hand in your phone at the beginning, basically to your parent at the airport. That's it. You don't see it again for another week while you go away and do this project. And for many kids, this is the first time since they were two,

three years old that they haven't had a device in their hand constantly or just a few feet away. And that is an extraordinary thing to imagine for us. I think that that might be the first time that's really happened. Where in the world are you, Chip? Gosh, I was just saying I

would really struggle with that myself. Like I was just like, and that's a worry and reflection, you know. You recently did it didn't you, Chris? That's why you did a digital decent.

Yeah, we went camping last year. And there was no signal on the campsite. And yeah, you were anxious. But by the end of the week, I was probably more relaxed than I've ever been in the last 20 years, perhaps, because there was just zero. You have to leave the campsite

to get signal. And what we found was that the kids got grumpy about their tablets on day one and two. And then they were playing football and baseball and going and feeding the llamas on days three, four, five, et cetera, et cetera. And that was, you know, we're actually sitting down chatting to me and my wife rather than sort of driving Minecraft or what have it, what have you. And it was lovely. And yeah, there's probably lessons to be learned,

but it's a difficult one to try and push back against, isn't it? Funnily enough there, we recently got a rescue dog. And that's been a really big help because we take the dog out very regularly. And that's downtime. You know, the kids come out with that and their focus is on

the dog and there's no digital stuff. And it's lovely. And that's a kind of that's a way that we found to find a little bit of space in the day. And that's awesome. I think everyone's

looking for those kind of offline opportunities now, aren't they? Like, and how that can be, and how it can just be seen as just a novelty as well. Like, how can you like weave it in? It's not just about, you know, doing a wild thing, but how do you weave it into a lifestyle? But

also I think with the boys thing, it's about how do we become, you know, as adults, how do we become more aware of the world that's all been exited within? Because I think this is what can catch people off guard sometimes is not like realizing what you could see technology, the technology in a technology space looks like, or what that looks like when they're on the Xbox chatting with the friends, not really fully realizing what the online narrative is, you know, especially with your boys at the minute. And just to add to that, actually, if I can, Shane, I think there's a sense here of, I think, I don't want to be that guy, that old, funny, dirty guy, you know, that says, Oh, it used to be a certain way, right? But there is something here. For sure, there is. I mean, Jonathan Haight pointed that out so

clearly in his recent book, you know, in the anxious generation about how we just let tech companies come in and just kind of decide where our attention goes. And the thing that keeps coming back to me at the moment is that we used to just default to board. That was our default position. Nothing to do. Okay, you get bored, and then you work out what you're going

to do. Now you're bored. And that's not really an option for kids nowadays. You know, there's an endless array of things constantly clattering for their attention, and not just, not just loudly in kind of a one dimensional way, but in a really incredibly sophisticated way that it's designed using the science of learning and cognitive science effectively to hijack their attention and build, you know, neural pathways and reward patterns from a very early age.

So that's, that's what we're dealing with here. We're not just not dealing with some kind of random cacophony. It's a very orchestrated, targeted attack on our attention by a kind of late capitalist system. You're absolutely right. And it's not just youngsters that face that,

you know, there's this idea, even within education specifically, that we've got to be productive all of the time. And I think that we often miss that idea that a bit of downtime, a bit of space, where you're not actually doing anything, just thinking, just, just letting those notes. It's possibly one of the most valuable things that you can do, particularly in education, you know, that, that space to switch off and let those thoughts find there that sort of settle into a pattern in your head. It's huge. And, you know, whether that's

taking the dog out, whether that's having some downtime from your machines, going to the gym, whatever the particular thing is, that downtime allows those thoughts to take shape in a way that they wouldn't otherwise. But it's very difficult to measure that. So I think that we've probably been a little bit nervous about letting that happen because it's not measurable, it's not quantifiable, you know, all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, great, great point there, Chris. I'm really glad you, you brought that up,

because it's something I've been thinking about for a little while. And there's a couple of people I've found that's been really useful with it. Daniel Kahneman, I think, you know, with the kind of type one, type two thinking, you know, this, this kind of thought reaction, intuitive thinking, which is actually based in cognitive development, rather than just literally your gut. But then also, there's Guy Claxton, great book called A Hair Brain and Tortoise Mind. And he really strongly advocates for that this idea that,

you know, taking the time out to be in your tortoise mind space is the most powerful thing you can do in terms of developing your creativity and just like pressing the reset and thinking divergently. But how often do we make the time for that now? That's why mindfulness is so popular, I guess, in schools, because it's the space where you really get a chance to actually do that now and be protected from that assault on your attention. Brilliant point, Chris, thank you.

I faced some resistance when I was academic head when I created Tudor Time and didn't give any tasks or jobs or work to do in Tudor Time. It was like, just go and talk to your duties. Just have the conversation. And if someone's in need, seek them out. Just have that kind of casual,

comfortable time, which isn't designated as anything. We'll start to bristle at this idea of unaccounted time that's on the payroll in a sense. And actually, it was one of the best things that we ever did, because what we found was a lot of the problems worked their way out in a really informal, low-key way. And we were able to see things that we wouldn't have otherwise done if we'd been trying to rush through a task, however banal or otherwise it was, and we were able to build that trust with those people. So even those conversations that weren't

high stakes developed trust with the youngsters so that when there was a high-staged moment, that youngster was able to come and talk to you because for the last six months, you've been talking to them about their football team or whatever it happened to be. What their interest was. And suddenly you have that trust and they were able to open that door when things were a little bit tricky for them. And that downtime is vast. It's huge in terms

of what it does. And I know myself personally, a lunch break going for a walk is massively valuable to me. These are huge things that you almost have to remind yourself and push yourself to do in a world where it's like temptation to swipe through videos in every moment of downtime. Gosh, this is fantastic. I really appreciate this conversation. And this is exactly what these

live spaces are meant for, a chance to just surface ideas, surface thoughts that are currently playing on people's minds. And for anyone who's tuning into this replay on the podcast or the replay in the community, if you go to educationleaders.live, then you can join in this community and then come along to these so that like Jean-Pierre, thanks for joining in today. It's just such privilege just to have people kind of popping by. Me and Chris will be here. Maybe sometimes just

Chris, sometimes just me, depending on where our schedules are. But there'll always be one or two of us here just to kind of facilitate a bit of a conversation with whoever fancies joining. So I'd love to kind of round this off and ask, the theme of today's was going to be about community and what makes a great community. I'd be keen to know like, well, we've got you, JP, and then you can get up and finish your dinner or it's nearly bedtime for me. I don't

know what bedtime is in your place, but like just before you leave, what do you see as a great community to you? And then hand it over to you, Chris, and then maybe we can wind this conversation up. Thanks for rounding off with a really simple, small question there. Yeah, I have a little time to think about it. No, but I mean, it's a good question because it's

a tiny one. It's one that a lot of people have been asking at the moment. I mean, obviously, you're asking yourself this at the moment as you start a virtual community and as people move away, as Chris mentioned earlier, from ones that are becoming increasingly polluted and transitioned to new ones. Blue Sky, I think, is picking up a lot of traction now and so on. But I think

where I am now, when you ask me that question, where I'm now, I'm thinking a lot about scale and I'm thinking a lot about traction. Okay, so what I mean by that is in terms of traction, I'm thinking of what's as an individual, we know that broadcast just doesn't work anymore. We know that you can't sit in a room and have 30 students there and just kind of divulge the secrets of the universe from a textbook and unpack your kit from Surrey. And that's that. There was a certain kind

of social structure that used to support that. And it's just not the way it is anymore. And I'm glad of that, frankly. But I also figured that presents obviously a huge range of challenges go with it. And so we really need to be mindful of what Chris mentioned earlier, this idea of

you're doing your 50% and what's the invitation for the children to come and meet you there in the learning. And that will be different for every child. So for me, community is about offering that sense of belonging, that opportunity for engagement, that's that's real, it's authentic, it's meaningful. So children can really see a pathway for themselves and how they develop and learn and grow together, and not just children, but also the adults in it. And one thing that

I often think about as well, it's how do you align that, you know, how do you make sure that we're not doing completely different things as the adults than we would be expecting for the children? Why are we putting all our energy into giving them the best learning experiences and forgetting to do it for ourselves? That just doesn't make any sense to me. Those two things should be hand in hand, we should actually have exactly the same development and learning models.

GFP, that's a whole different thing that is, I'll jump with you about that and talk some more. I'd love to. So that's the traction part for me is that belonging, that engagement, that personal sense of, you know, really, what am I going to do here and where am I going to go with it? And the scale part, what kind of speaks to what I just mentioned is just that, you know, at all levels, whether it's classroom level, whether it's school level, whether it's you're working in an organization of multiple schools, a trusted national curriculum environment, you know, any of those things, you should be able to read the, you know, kind of see the threads all the way through them. And that's all about good leadership, you know, a really clear

vision of where you want your learners to be going. And, you know, what do you care about and prioritize? You can't do everything. So a community has to decide what they care about and what's right for them. And there will be no right answer. There's no one size fits all,

but you really need to have those conversations. And that requires trust and safety. So yeah, you gave me a tipsy question and I hope I've tried to give you some kind of answer of what I'm thinking when it comes up. I just love your answer and well-articulated as predicted and sorry to throw that on you, Jamie, but that's brilliant track to do.

Scale, trust, yeah, these are really important things to think about. Sorry, Chris, you've had a bit of a release and you've been able to think about it. Yeah, well, I'm largely going to sort of echo a little bit of what we've heard there, but I'm going to take it on a slightly different line. The trust thing is a big part of what I see as being important. And I think that often we get bogged down

looking at communities and trying to have shared values or a shared direction. And I think that's a dangerous route because we then close our minds to other ideas and other perspectives. And I think for a community to really work, we've got to have a way of sharing different ideas and disagreeing in a respectful fashion. And I think that if we can bring that to bear, whether that's in a school or on a community group or what have you, that allows us to test our ideas a little bit, subject them to scrutiny and create a level of reflection.

And I think that, you know, you just need to watch the news, the politics, that unpleasant event in the White House the other week where views are really polarized. And when there's a difference of opinion, it's straight to very angry responses. And that need to dominate and that need to be right. There's very rarely a moment of genuine reflection goes on. And you look, you look at our own politics in the UK.

It's adversarial, you know, one shouts at the other and tells the other that they're wrong and they say that they're right. And they've got to prove that they're right. And actually, a much healthier response would be, well, okay, yeah, that actually you've got a fair point there. And maybe I could reflect and change that and do that slightly differently, but maybe this is working quite well. And I think if we can

create a community where we don't get angry with each other for disagreeing, and we're able to build in those different perspectives and create an environment of trust where you're able to explore those ideas, then that really is the way to an effective community, a great community. But I think that even in schools, and maybe I was guilty of this too, when I was in school leadership, you know, did I always embrace the opinions and ideas of those around me as fully or as openly as I could? Or did I seek ways to kind of close off those avenues for dissent? Because I didn't have time for it. Even if I had the perspective and the viewpoints,

it was six o'clock on a Thursday evening, and I had to go and make sure that my students were going down to dinner in the dining hall. And I don't have time for this discussion. Do we need to think a little bit about that as well, and how we manage that and how we take on dissent and disagreement and embrace the opinions of many rather than the few? It's a little bit utopian. I'm a consultant, I sit in a shed at the bottom of my garden in Newcastle,

and I have to do this stuff so I can come up with these lovely ideas and so on, without necessarily having to implement them in a busy environment. Well, I think you speak to something really important actually at the end there, Chris, in that, as we mentioned right at the beginning, school leaders are super busy in the busyness of day. And actually, maybe a part of a community like this or a community outside is to give you that bit of space to dream in that way outside of the confines of your school walls. For me, what I was hearing is that a community would be, wouldn't it be wonderful if the aim of the community was to help you to listen and to be listened to? And in that space for

you to listen in ways that you're not able to listen throughout the busyness of the day because of all that stuff. So to really listen and tune in to what other people are thinking, but also to be listened to because how many times have you worked with a school leader who said, this is the loneliest job in the world? And this would be a space to be listened to. For me, that would be a wonderful purpose for a community.

From the mental to the human spirit, to be listened to, to be heard. What role can you play in that? Yeah, you're absolutely right, Chris. I mean, there's nothing deeper and at the same time more surface level. It goes all the way through, doesn't it? All the way through,

right to the core of your soul, just being listened to and heard. And I think you mentioned something in there, Shane, that actually speaks to me a lot about what leadership is as well, in that sense of protecting a space, taking responsibility for people, and not necessarily enclosing people and making them do a thing. But just providing that kind of bubble or that safety net so people feel that they can, what you were saying, Chris, voice opinions that are likely to be respected and heard and have that sense of being able to share things. But at the same time, the outside world is going to assault whatever you want to do and a community has a purpose.

It has a goal for existing, right? Whether it's to learn or whether it's to the environment or whether it's to make sure that the roads are kept clear or whatever it is. And you need leadership to do that. You need leadership to craft that space and make sure that everyone's able to do their work. Yeah, you talked earlier about the differential between how we sort of

behave as adults and how we treat youngsters. And you would never dream of going into a classroom today and saying, right, this is what you've got to do because I say so. That just wouldn't wash with youngsters today. You've kind of got to win the day within that community. You've got to

embrace those kind of, encourage those kids to have input into the class, regardless of how good or bad it is. You've got to listen to that and bring that on board because they're on a journey. Why is that any different with the adults that we work with? Well, it isn't any different. It's exactly the same. So we should be winning the argument. We should embrace

those talents, making people feel as if they're part of that community. And I think that's hugely important, but we're maybe not as great at that as we are with youngsters, perhaps. For some reason, we default to command and control, right? I don't know why that is, but once things get to a certain number of people and things get certain level of complexity, that seems to be the thing we default to. And I don't know what the answer is. I don't

know why. Yeah, well, I think that's probably the extent of my input on that. Yeah, I've got questions. Whilst we're still online, I'm in Hong Kong in April and visit schools and things like that. It's great to catch up. Look me up on the phone. Wonderful. Perfect. The power

community and connecting people. And there's an example. Well, let's bring it into a close of this Education Leaders Life. Thank you so much for those who are listening in.

We just got a small group of us on the live stream, but I know many more will be listening into this on the replays, either in the community where you can watch the full video replay or on the podcast as a bonus episode, Education Leaders, the way you're tuning in. If you want to come next time and join in, just like JP, and join me and Chris for another discussion, do come along. It's educationleaders.live. It would be just wonderful to have you here. But

thanks JP for joining us today. This is what makes this community so valuable. Super happy to have you here. So just to remind you, if you're listening to this and you're just thinking, oh, I wish I could have had a say. I just desperately needed to butt in there on one of those topics. Then

you absolutely can. Next time, there's no filter. Just go to educationleaders.live.

You can be prompted to join the community. Then once inside, you'll have access to those future live sessions, but also some cheat sheets based on the Education Leaders podcast, peer coaching community, and everything else that's going to come. These live sessions happen every other week. So mark your calendars, come prepared to unmute, share your experiences, connect with leaders from around the world. That's what this is about. Now I'm going to try something,

Chris. We haven't rehearsed this, but I'm going to say, Education Leaders Live is hosted by me, Shane Leaning, and me, Chris Skora. Perfect. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If we

don't speak before, see you here in a couple of weeks time.