In this short episode of the Rethinking Education podcast, James Mannion speaks with Dr Kulvarn Atwal – a highly respected headteacher leading not one, but two schools: Highlands Primary and Uphall Primary in East London.
Kulvarn is the author of The Thinking School and The Thinking Teacher, and a long-time advocate of distributed leadership and research-informed practice. He shares insights into how his schools are developing cultures of continuous improvement through collaboration and genuine stakeholder engagement.
This conversation focuses on the idea of slice teams – diverse, representative groups of staff, students, and other members of the school community who lead change initiatives together. Slice teams are a central feature of James's new book, Making Change Stick: A Practical Guide to Implementing School Improvement.
Topics discussed include:
What slice teams are and how they work in practice
Why including pupils in these teams is so important
How this approach can lead to more sustainable, system-wide change
Whether you’re a school leader, a classroom teacher, or someone interested in education reform, this is a thought-provoking discussion on how we can rethink leadership and change in schools.
LINKS
Making Change Stick website - https://makingchangestick.co
Making Change Stick book - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Change-Stick-Implementing-Improvement/dp/1398387487
Outro track: ‘How it is and how it should be’ by Grit Control: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ud69RIV1eOV9poMR7AORI
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