School Done Smarter: The Headteacher Blueprint for Sustainable Change

This episode is brought to you in association with Learning by Questions. Find the report here: https://primary.lbq.org/hub/headteacher-guide-school-improvement-top-attainment

Episode 267: This week on Thinking Deeply About Primary Education, I’m joined by Andy Done, headteacher of Masefield Primary, to talk through his new report, School Done Smarter: A Blueprint for Headteachers.

We start with something that’ll probably feel familiar: that instinct to jump straight into “fixing” things. Andy makes the case for slowing down first and properly diagnosing what’s going on — listening to pupils, staff and families, and trying to get to the root cause rather than treating the symptoms. He shares a moment from his first week that stopped him in his tracks.

From there, we get into culture and consistency: why culture beats strategy, why alignment matters more than compliance, and what it looks like in practice when a staff team is genuinely moving in the same direction. Andy talks about things like the teaching and learning handbook, curriculum structures that reduce workload and decision fatigue, retrieval routines (including “Flashback Fridays”), and using technology in a pedagogy-first way — including how they’ve used Learning by Questions to support assessment and feedback without adding to the burden.

We also talk about how Masefield tries to keep the bigger picture joined up: outcomes, staff wellbeing and pupil experience aren’t separate projects. Thrive, structured play, oracy and community-building all sit alongside the academic work, and the point is that they reinforce each other.

If you’re leading in school (or thinking about it), there’s a lot here that’s practical — the kind of ideas you can pinch and adapt straight away.