It is great to have weekly chats with colleagues who know each other well and feel safe chatting about things. There is a higher level of trust and respect. This is certainly the case for this week’s chat with Stephen McMullan.
Stephen worked with Frank as one of the most senior colleagues at the Coop Academies Trust when Frank was CEO there. He became a Senior HMI with Ofsted and then followed in Stan’s footsteps as a senior officer at Wakefield MBC.
The chat covers a recent report from the Youth Endowment Trust that suggested some young people were scared to attend school and the worrying reasons. Stan considers his recent contact with his GP surgery and why effective leadership is so important and Frank considers the outcomes a recent evaluation he undertook of the latest batch of MAT Summary Evaluations by Ofsted.
The chat ends with a discussion about The Hungry Caterpillar and a video of Stephen reading this to his Wakefield colleagues when he left the Council earlier this year. We are delighted to reveal that we have a copy of that video and it is at the end of our chat. Enjoy!
Frank Norris and Stan Johnson have been friends since 1995. Both have had successful and lengthy careers in education. Frank was a very senior HMI with Ofsted for 11 years and was CEO of the Coop Academies Trust for 6 years.
Stan was seconded to Ofsted for a year and then returned to headship before working as a senior adviser with Lancashire LA. He has latterly led a successful education consultancy in the North West. Prior to Covid-19 the two colleagues would meet in Manchester for a pint or two but the pandemic put an end to that.
On 1 May 2020, they recorded their first video chat as a way of recording their emotions and reactions to the pandemic. After putting the video on Youtube as a safe place to store their discussions they realised that some followers began to appear and were interested in their leadership perspectives. Now, with over 170 weekly episodes and usually an eminent guest joining them, they have a growing and increasingly influential following.
