New interview! It's with Danny Cowley. He discusses:- - ideas that he took from his successful teaching career to football management - values that are important to him - how he worked with the whole community at Lincoln Thank you so much @dancowley1 leadershiprelay.weebly.com/d…

The huge effect month of birth has on likelihood of making it as a top footballer From Fink Tank by @Dannythefink in Times

Ah, love this! 💛 Thank you for tuning in, genuinely grateful. 🫶 Catch-up quickly, another special #NCFC guest episode coming out this Wednesday! 👀

A tough away day. We go again next year. ‘Post School Trip Interview’

Have rightly read so much about Pep and his positive impact. Here is what Sir Bobby Robson had to say about him after managing him during the 90s. What a great judge! @ground_guru @mcfc_lads @StevenMcinerney @GuardiolaTweets

Everyone talks about the lineage from Ferguson but Robson is hardly ever talked about despite the huge influence he's clearly had on some very important coaches.

It’s on.

British tennis never seems to improve! No male players left in the main draw on day 3 of the French Open 🎾

EUROPA LEAGUE was never the dream. Not because I didn’t want it. Because if I’m being honest, I never thought it was possible. What kid would? Especially when 12 years ago I was playing non league football in the Ryman Premier and Conference South, just trying to stay alive in the game. What kid dreams about Europe when, two weeks into the off season, his dad has to tell him he’s been released by Watford F.C. over the phone? I was heartbroken. My dad looked at me and said: “What are we doing tomorrow?” To which I replied with the words he’d drilled into me my whole life: “We’re training, Dad.” So we trained. Every single day. My dad emailed every EFL club asking for an opportunity. One club replied. One. That was all I needed. An opportunity. @WealdstoneFC and @wwfcofficial , I’ll always be indebted to you. Then came the move to @SunderlandAFC . A massive club. A massive opportunity. And I couldn’t wait to prove myself. But 45 minutes into my debut… hooked. “Rabbit caught in headlights. Waste of money. Get rid.” Then came the Championship. “He’s not good enough for this level.” Then the Premier League. “Let’s give him a debut and then get rid of him.” I understood the doubt. I’ve faced it my whole career. And truthfully, you doubt yourself too at times. But I’ve always tried to live by one mindset: Outwork your doubt. You don’t always need to see the full journey. You just need to take the next step. Then the next one. And then another. Even when social media tells you you’re not good enough. Even when the voice inside your own head whispers the same thing. Keep working. Keep learning. Keep showing up. Because sometimes the places you end up are bigger than anything your younger self could’ve ever imagined. To any young player reading this, don’t put a ceiling on yourself too early. You genuinely have no idea where this game and life can take you. And to the boys… thank you. You removed the glass ceiling I’d placed on myself. What a team. What a club. What a fanbase. Sunderland… rocking all over Europe ❤️🤍 And in the words of Granit Xhaka: “This is just the beginning.”

"A ten-year-old started screaming about a wave no one could see—and 100 people lived because her parents believed her. December 26, 2004. Mai Khao Beach, Phuket, Thailand. Christmas holiday. Perfect weather. The Smith family walked along the sand on their first overseas vacation together. Then Tilly noticed something wrong. The water wasn't behaving normally. ""It wasn't calm and it wasn't going in and then out,"" she later recalled. ""It was just coming in and in and in."" The sea had turned frothy—""like you get on a beer,"" she said. ""It was sort of sizzling."" Any other ten-year-old might have thought it strange. Tilly knew exactly what it meant. Two weeks earlier, her geography teacher Andrew Kearney had shown the class footage of the 1946 tsunami that devastated Hawaii. He taught them the warning signs: sea receding unusually far, frothy bubbling water, ocean behaving strangely. Tilly was watching those exact warning signs unfold in front of her. She started screaming at her parents. ""There's going to be a tsunami!"" They didn't believe her. They couldn't see any wave. The sky was clear. The beach was calm. But Tilly wouldn't stop. She became more insistent, more frantic. ""I'm going,"" she finally said. ""I'm definitely going. There is definitely going to be a tsunami."" Her father Colin heard the urgency in her voice. He decided to trust his daughter. By coincidence, a Japanese man nearby overheard Tilly use the word ""tsunami."" He'd just heard news of an earthquake in Sumatra. ""I think your daughter's right,"" he said. Colin alerted hotel staff. They began evacuating immediately. Tilly's mother Penny was one of the last to leave. She had to sprint as the water began rushing in behind her. ""I ran,"" she recalled, ""and then I thought I was going to die."" They made it to the second floor with seconds to spare. Then the wave hit. Thirty feet tall. Everything on the beach—beds, palm trees, debris—was swept into the pool and beyond. ""Even if you hadn't drowned,"" Penny later said, ""you would have been hit by something."" The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed over 230,000 people across 14 countries. Entire beaches in Phuket were wiped out. But at Mai Khao Beach, not a single person died. Because a ten-year-old girl paid attention in geography class. Tilly was hailed as the ""Angel of the Beach."" She received awards, spoke at the United Nations, met Bill Clinton. Her story is now taught in schools worldwide. Her father Colin still thinks about what could have happened. ""If she hadn't told us, we would have just kept on walking,"" he said. ""I'm convinced we would have died."" Tilly still credits her teacher. ""If it wasn't for Mr. Kearney,"" she told the UN, ""I'd probably be dead and so would my family."" Two weeks. One lesson. One hundred lives. That's the power of education.

I’ve put a load of my most popular files together in a Dropbox folder. Let me know if you’d like the link. Can I also ask that you share this post pretty please 🙏 (as it seems the only way to get anything seen nowadays!). 😊

A couple of years back, I thought most schools/teachers said they wouldn't publicise Ofsted findings on social media/banners etc. There seem to be seeing a number of schools doing this. What changed? Is my recall wrong?

Can anyone ask Gemma Collins if Sports Premium has been confirmed for 2026-27, please

Why public humiliation of a young analyst should worry us all ~ @loulangdown trainingground.guru/louis-la…

You could argue Cantona is massively underrated in the eyes of the modern Premier League fan.

Hi @Rovers you seem to keep plastering our faces over your emails and whats app are we entitled to a free season ticket as payment please thanks 😅

Best wishes to all those celebrating the life of the wonderful #TimBrighouse. This list is still the thing that has the most impact on my teaching career, how I want teachers to be and how I run a school.

Looking for a book to share with someone and found this. Still stand by this list. Good leadership is about being human. Giving back as well as taking.

We need to talk about @Ofstednews Inadequate. When I first saw the story of head teacher, #RuthPerry, I was reluctant to share or talk about it. The story is tragic. There are several other similar stories. It brought back so many #mentalhealth memories for me; something few people understand unless they have lived it. In 2017, a school I loved was graded inadequate. Once, the top 10% of all schools nationally, and sitting in the middle 40% for progress 8. We also helped the school achieve its best-ever exam results in 150 years; two years in a row. It wasn't good enough. The whole process was a farce. It continues to be so for many others; stories filled with contradictions and failings. I recorded the whole process on audio and have never published the files. I now believe I should; the audio is a jumble of emotions. However, the ramblings expose the highs and lows of a painfully outdated process. I still have the lead HMI's etched in my memory. I recall (clearly) the damage it had on the leadership team around me, and the 'superhero' MAT team that flew in to save the day. I don't think I will ever get over it. It leaves me with this pointed question (few who have lived it can give me an articulate reason) Why should teachers choose to work in a challenging school if it means it could lead to the end of their career? I do listen to policy-wonks and government advisors, but few have any clue of the consequences a poor Ofsted can have on your professional and personal life. As a result, I've spent the last 7 years researching every avenue possible that questions the validity of grading schools. To have any trust in the reliability process after 1.5 days is - at least from a one-word adjective is ludicrous. Over the next week, I WILL be talking about Ruth Perry. I will be talking about the validity of grading schools. I will be talking about the failings of Ofsted. Again. I make no apologies for it. I will dig into the legislation. I will share every petition. I won't rest until grading is reformed, and I will spend a great deal of time researching a sensible alternative. teachertoolkit.co.uk/2018/04…