Zoe MacDougall

2 months ago | schoolmanagementplus.com | Luke Ramsden |Irena Barker |Zoe MacDougall |Michael S Foley

At St Benedict’s, we have taken a long, hard look at the 11+ entry process and made some big changes to improve the experience for both students, parents and the school. We wanted to strip away the parts that added stress without adding value and focus on what really matters: selecting students who will thrive in our community, while ensuring the process itself is as humane and meaningful as possible. One of the biggest shifts has been scrapping the verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers.

Jan 21, 2025 | schoolmanagementplus.com | Wetherby Pembridge |Irena Barker |Zoe MacDougall

As a 9-year-old girl growing up in Brussels, Vicky Bingham would regularly visit the museum of fine art to look at the collection of Bruegel paintings. She loved to stop and look at his famous artwork depicting The Fall of Icarus, where the hapless protagonist’s flailing legs are shown poking up from the waves. “I would spend at least 20 minutes looking at that painting,” she says.

Dec 10, 2024 | schoolmanagementplus.com | Irena Barker |Zoe MacDougall

As a boy, Nick Page’s parents ran a riding school and trained racehorses on the family farm in Suffolk. And while most children might have been watching TV or playing football, Page was employed as what he describes as a racehorse “tester”. “I spent most of my childhood on a horse. Whenever we got a new one where we wanted to find out whether it was good for customers or not I would get put on to see whether it killed me or not”, he jokes.

Nov 19, 2024 | schoolmanagementplus.com | Zoe MacDougall |Alex Russell |Hayley Mintern

In the first article from our Ask the Recruiter series, Hayley Mintern of Anderson Quigley executive talent partners shares her insights and expertise around the world of recruitment. To kick off, the first question we asked Hayley was how do you recruit a successful chair who will add value and help drive forward a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT)?

Nov 14, 2024 | schoolmanagementplus.com | Zoe MacDougall |Alex Russell |Steve Price

In multi-academy trusts (MATs), leadership encompasses much more than running a single school. As MATs continue to grow, Julian Drinkall – who is CEO of the 43-school GLF Schools – gives his thoughts on the fundamentals of leadership, emphasising the need for balance. He says: “I think leadership is in part about experience and in part about judgement.