Category: CEO’s Blog

I attended a conference (which I rarely do these days) up in Manchester last month, and one of the keynote speakers was a very distinguished and highly-regarded Mancunian CEO from a trust based in the North West.  He opened his talk by stating that he increasingly thought of himself at events such as this as “a 60 year-old grumpy uncle at a 21^st birthday party”. What he then spoke about was his world-weariness and cynicism, but also his sense of mild disapproval with the direction of travel he witnesses in so many areas. 

This is a sentiment that I can, at least sometimes, sympathise with and share.  It only takes around 30 seconds of exposure to “Love Island” or similar on television for me to feel a little disconnected, and irritated.  Far from being particularly “high brow” in my cultural leanings, I just think we can do better – and perhaps we should seek better for the young people in our lives too.

I’ve expressed the above not out of a need for catharsis or an attempt to judge, but as a way of framing something that I want to share in this month’s blog.

Almost five years ago, I featured in my blog the writings of Carl Sagan (“Pale Blue Dot” – July 2021), and I return to his work here. I stumbled across a classroom discussion between him and some American college students which, from the hair styles and the fashions, I would date at around the late 1980s.  It was a film clip short enough for me to transcribe its contents here below:

“How much science and technology, for example, do we see in the mass media? Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column.  How many have even a weekly science column? Why is this? 

How much science do you see on television?  When somebody wins a Nobel Prize, do we ever get a coherent explanation of what he won it for?  What was this discovery that was important enough to win a Nobel Prize?  Well, the basic sense of television is that the American people are too stupid to understand. That it takes concentration, and therefore in the quest for small differential advantage in the competition between the networks, that it will be a means of losing ratings to spend time explaining what science is about. 

Short term advantage for the network company – long term disaster for the country.”

(Carl Sagan calls out mainstream media)

Sagan made those comments when the United States, like the United Kingdom, had a comparatively modest number of national networks, all of which could expect millions of viewers to tune in and all of whom (unlike the UK) relied on advertising revenue to survive and prosper.  He himself hosted the most popular science-based TV show in America (“Cosmos”, 1980) that brought astronomy and cosmology to the masses through stunning visuals at the cutting edge of what was possible at the time combined with Sagan’s man-in-the-street style of clear and engaging delivery.  The original thirteen-episode series can still be streamed, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. 

Today, the clamour for viewers’ attention is even more manic, with mainstream media competing with each other, with cable and internet channels and social media formats such as TikTok and Instagram for the time, and marketing potential, of a global audience.  In such a world, is there still a place for the hour-long science show?  In an age where composers of new music are advised that their introductory “hook” should be no more than five seconds long to avoid Spotify listeners skipping to the next track, is there still space in our attention for the next “Money for Nothing” (intro time: 2 minutes 4 seconds) or “Bat Out of Hell” (intro time: 1 minute 55 seconds)? 

We do still see the occasional documentary make it big in the ratings.  As national treasure Sir David Attenborough celebrated his 100^th birthday last month, his work can still command millions of viewers in Britain and beyond.  Programmes such as Life on Earth and Blue Planet remain popular, thanks to a combination of public broadcasting and the engagement and photogenic magic that worked also for Carl Sagan.  However, even though broadcast at peak viewing times Planet Earth III had fewer viewers than I’m a Celebrity….

As I look to what our children and young people will be watching and listening to, I have the excitement of knowing that there are new discoveries to share with them via new media channels and with amazing new filming techniques (drone footage, microscope cameras etc.) tempered with a concern that the plethora of alternatives will turn their heads, their attention, and their wallets toward other, more easily consumable media product. 

The removal of access to mobile phones in schools may help young people to embrace and concentrate upon the world immediately around them and, in so doing, should help kindle the spark of curiosity for our understanding world and our universe that is inherent in every child.  Of course, beyond school we all can play our part in supporting our young people to navigate between the real and the deep fake, the substantial and the froth, the beneficial and the harmful. 

Carl Sagan died in 1996.  I’m sure he would have been astonished at the inventions, innovations and discoveries humanity has accomplished in the last thirty years.  However, were he alive today, I’m not convinced that he would retract a single word he said to those American students back then.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mike.

I am intending to keep this month’s blog about Mental Health Awareness Week relatively brief.  There are two reasons for this.  First, I claim no authority or expertise on mental health, how to maintain a positive state, how to diagnose, treat or support mental health challenges clinically or otherwise.  Second, I would much rather any readers here spend their time clicking on the link below to discover and engage with the truly outstanding resources and features produced by the Mental Health Foundation and updated for this week:

Mental Health Awareness Week | Mental Health Foundation

At John Taylor MAT, we have supported Mental Health Awareness Week for several years, and 2026 has been no exception.  Yesterday saw colleagues in our central team taking part in the “Wear it Green” campaign, and many of our schools are doing likewise during the course of the week. 

In previous years our promotion of this campaign, and our dissemination of the materials available as a result of it, has generated some very positive and profoundly personal feedback.  We can be confident that the role we feel obligated to play to support children and young people, their communities, and our colleagues does make a difference. 

I will close with a quotation from the truly remarkable Blaise Pascal.  A mathematician and physicist of true genius, and an individual who cared deeply about the suffering of those around him, wrote this his Pensées (“Thoughts” – a series of notes and entries into his journals only published after his death):

“The heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of”. 

Despite his incredible intellect and powers of rationality and critical thought, he appreciated that we are more than emotional and intuitive.  Not random or chaotic – but, at least in part, unmeasurable.  For me, our mental health and that of those around us is best seen as a facet of our innate humanity – and, as such, is to be cherished.

Thanks, as always, for reading – and take care.

Mike.

Post-Easter and pre-Whit tends to be the most active part of the school year when it comes to motivational speakers and speeches, rousing assemblies, positive newsletter messages and general “upbeatness” in schools.  Teachers, leaders, pastoral support staff are all working at full pelt to support pupil learning with a gigantic dose of inspiration in readiness for the end of year assessment, tests and examinations that are imminent. 

This is absolutely appropriate, and absolutely important.  We all know that confidence plays an enormous role in performance and, as those end of year tests and exams loom large, the difference in outcomes between a confident entrant to an exam and a reticent one can be profound.  Generating confidence in children is a real skill, and doing so for sometimes very large groups of diverse children – as teachers and leaders have to do in schools – can appear as an act of wizardry. 

As with most skills, the better the practitioner, the easier they make it look.  However, there is definitive psychology around the factors required for the instilling of confidence which are applicable universally.  Whilst articulated in a number of ways, I find the most accessible format when looking at this to be the construct designed by Lent and Lopez (2002) which describes a “tripartite model of efficacy beliefs” that affect our levels of confidence.  This has been applied to coaching (especially in sport), therapy, and a range of other areas where an individual is required to complete a task or series of tasks. 

The three parts to the model are as follows:

• Self-efficacy: the extent of my own belief in my capability to complete a task. 

• Other efficacy: the belief that I have in my partner’s ability (this could be a playing partner in sport, but could be a therapist, a coach or a teacher) in relation to the task at hand.

• Relation-Inferred Self-efficacy (known as RISE): My belief of how my partner views my capability.

In summary, my confidence depends on how good I think I am, how good I think you are in helping me, and how good I believe you think I am!

The implications for all of us are seismic if we accept this model.  To be school-specific, if we are the pupil undertaking the test or examination, our confidence will be dependent upon a range of inputs – and only some of those are within our own control.  Our sense of self-confidence will be determined by our previous levels of success (performance generates greater confidence in subsequent performance), our preparation and practice, and our emotional and physiological readiness to undertake the task.

This is augmented by other efficacy.  Do I trust that my teacher has prepared me well for the test or task?  Do they have the specialist knowledge, the understanding of what the test requirements are, the ability to teach me in a way I understand?  My confidence depends in part in my trust in those preparing me.

Finally, there is RISE.  Do I feel that my teacher thinks I’ll do well?  Do they have confidence in me to be successful?  My confidence depends on me believing that they back me to succeed.

As teachers, pastoral staff, and leaders in school, we need to bear in mind that our words and actions materially impact on the confidence of the children and young people we work alongside.  When this, in turn, materially impacts on their outcomes, it’s very clear that all of this really matters.

In a practical sense, the extent of other efficacy can be directly influenced by teachers sharing with pupils their own credentials to teach the subject, the successes of pupils they’ve taught in the past, their passion for their subject and their expertise at being able to support students individually with their questions and knowledge gaps as well as delivering to the entire group.  This doesn’t mean being boastful or bragging, but quietly and regularly imbibing a sense of confidence to the pupils that I, as their teacher, (a) know what I’m talking about and (b) know what is needed from you the student. 

In relation to RISE, teachers, pastoral staff and school leaders show pupils and students how much they are backing in them in a range of different ways that may include deliberate and calculated acts (such as giving pupils responsibilities, formal recognition and celebration of past successes) to the informal moments of an affirming smile or a warm and supportive word of assurance. 

Finally, psychologists are quick to point out that confidence is far from stable, because the tripartite components of confidence are themselves dynamic.  For us in schools, this means that we can never affirm that “our work is done” after a powerful assembly, the awarding of a house point or the delivery of a heartfelt “well done!”  Particularly for those children and young people who may struggle for self-efficacy, the importance of other efficacy and RISE becomes even more profound, as it can compensate for doubt, anxiety and imposter syndrome that the pupil may be feeling. 

“Even if I don’t believe I can do it, I know that you think that I can” is a powerful line from many a successful person’s testimonial or autobiography.  Staff in schools, through their words and actions, inspire such lines every day.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mike.