Product reviews for The Birmingham Book

Chapter 12 is a go-to for all educationalists from teachers to leaders as it inspires and is part of the book that is the phoenix rising from the ashes of the Trojan Horse debacle.

Colin takes us on a roller coaster of a journey, sequencing the historical political contexts from Labour’s high investment and equally high accountability to Gove’s vision of leadership encapsulating low investment and high accountability with ‘corporate management’ approaches to educational leadership. Amazingly well researched, Colin has collated the historical and present-day theories of school leadership from all angles. He then brings all these vividly to life though citing the lived narratives of exemplary school leaders he has worked alongside in the urban Birmingham context. He sums up what works simply as ‘a combination of adaptive leadership and pragmatic interpretation of government education policy from a secure base in the community, driven by a passion for Birmingham’s children’.

Colin rightly stresses the unique challenges these leaders face and analyses their commonality of moral purpose, values and character – ‘quiet leadership at the heart of the moral compass’. The matrix of the three characteristics is key for any aspiring or established leader. Best of all, Colin has distilled the experiences of the urban leaders into ten wise takeaways for the ‘survive to thrive’ journey. These are the valuable diamonds of wisdom (deliberate pun intended!) such as ‘roots to grow and wings to fly’ and ‘YNWA’ (you never work alone) and the superb UNICEF RRSA as a framework for a diverse, equitable and inclusive curriculum.