Gordon Smith
As a senior leader for 23 years Gordon has developed an expert understanding of all aspects of leadership in education. Therefore, he created education-leadership as a vehicle to use this expertise to support leaders, colleagues, students and pupils in a wide range of settings.
Gordon’s experience as a leader in education has developed from secondary expertise to incorporate nursery to degree level. As a Head and Principal, he successfully led two large secondary schools; he built, as founding-CEO, a Trust of seven primary and secondary academies, developing and improving learning across the family of schools; as Chair of Governors he has led improvements in primary, independent secondary EBD, and further & higher education, including a two-college merger; he has been Chair of the Board of a successful school improvement company and sits as an Independent Member on the Finance Committee of a major exam board. His vast experience means that he has led the appointment of almost 30 senior posts and has been involved as a leader or governor in over 20 OFSTED inspections, including two that resulted in outstanding judgements.
Specialist areas of:
Education Leadership
1. Supporting trusts
2. Supporting governing bodies
3. Supporting senior teams
Supporting trusts
- Developing mission & vision
- Appointing the CEO, Head / Principal, executive leaders
- CEO coaching
- Strategic planning
- Organisational development
- Performance management of executive leaders
- Improving the performance of school
Supporting governing bodies
- Developing or implementing mission & vision
- Appointing the Head / Principal
- Improvement planning
- Performance management of the Head / Principal
- Critical friend to the Chair
- Evaluating school performance
- Improving the impact of governance
- Honing for OFSTED
Supporting senior teams
- Implementing mission & vision
- Head / Principal coaching
- Organisational development
- Action-planning for improvement
- Developing leadership skills
- Becoming the Principal
Education Leadership Blog
Review of College Governance
I recently began an external review of governance at a west London college on behalf of the Association of Colleges. It is always a...
School Review
Tremendously enjoyable this week to work with a colleague carrying out a review of The Archbishop Lanfranc Academy. Super students, great...
Assessment Centres
Fascinating last week to work with AET and Ambition Institute at the AET Assessment Centres for aspiring Principals. The commitment of AET...
Coulsdon Cluster of Heads
It is always great to work with colleagues from my old stomping ground - Croydon. Enjoyed this morning talking to Heads from Coulsdon...
The Grand Welsh Road Trip – part 2
The research work in Powys has meant driving the full north / south and east / west of the county through some incredible scenery; we even...
The Grand Welsh Road Trip – part 1
I carried out some work with colleagues from Education-Time just over a year ago looking at post-16 structures and systems in Powys....
BOA Creative, Digital and Performing Arts Academy
It was a delight to travel to Birmingham this week and visit BOA, as part of my work for The BRIT School. The energy of the students at...
NPQH
I am looking forward to meeting our new NPQH Cohort today as they continue on their journey to headship. Once again I am privileged to be...
BRIT School
After working with BRIT earlier in the year to develop their new SEF in advance of OFSTED inspection, looking forward to spending quite a...
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Development and implementation of mission and vision
Top level appointments
Strategic, improvement and action planning
Performance management
Honing for OFSTED
Executive coaching
Leadership development