No.15
Dr Adrian Rainbow, Head, London Park School Mayfair & Sixth
Tim Fish
Editor’s letter
Tim Fish, editor-in-chief of Insight, is CEO, Dukes Education, UK, Managing Director for Dukes Education’s colleges, and founder of Earlscliffe, a co-ed, international boarding school for students aged 15-19, in Folkestone, Kent.
Welcome to ‘Insight’ No 15 and its theme of Highperformance. In the mid-1990s I undertook some research into what made a successful team. Two case studies involved cars — one on their manufacture and the other on the racing of them.
I learned about just-in-time (JIT) production and how the coordination of the supply and delivery of parts from a variety of plants hugely reduced the carrying of stock and made the manufacturing process swifter and more efficient. The factory shop floor was operated by well-trained specialist teams led by leaders on rotation.
First developed in Japan in the 1970s by Toyota, the idea of JIT — or kaizen — was a radical approach to manufacturing. It slashed waste by supplying parts only as and when the process
required them. The old process was nicknamed ‘just-in-case’ as inventory was kept for all eventualities, which was not only inefficient but costly. Workforce teams were involved much more directly in controlling their own performance through reflective Kaizen Quality Circles (small teams) which drove continuous improvement and ultimately, high-performance.
By the early 1990s
Formula One racing outfits were held up as paradigms of high-performing teams. The pit stop was the race day embodiment of how a team functioned from day to day, not least in benchmarking performance against the very best. The pit team was organised around established roles: one mechanic in charge with fitting the new tyre, one handling the used one, one in charge with unscrewing and screwing the stud with the
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pneumatic gun, one operating the front jack, another one the rear end jack and one operating the stop-go lights. Working to targets as a finely-tuned ensemble became the norm.
Fast-forward to 2021 and a live webinar with Lando Norris’s race strategist, and one learned of how live data and communications now fed into all aspects of highperformance at McLaren, with the strategist playing a key role in a team racing in Abu Dhabi or Singapore, but from a ‘Mission Control-type’ cave in Woking. However, in the Q&A session, the most revealing response was to a question on how strategy was directed in unforeseen circumstances — ‘Ah, that,’ said the race strategist, with a wistful look on his face, ‘often comes down to gut feeling!’
Tim Fish Editor-in-chief
Highperformance teams
Claire Little, Director of People, Dukes Education, analyses the factors that create the best-performing teams
Strong relationships are the foundations of high-performing teams, and all highperforming teams start with trust.’ (Simon Sinek). When we think about high-performance teams or individuals, the ones that spring to mind are often sporting — world class football teams, Olympic athletes, the America’s Cup sailing teams. As observers of these teams when they perform at the highest level, we might acknowledge what we see with comments
like ‘they had each others’ backs’, ‘they were working for each other’, ‘they played to their strengths’, in the same way as we can see the impact of players when they complain about each other or plan independently. Therefore, at a basic level we can assume that we recognise some of the elements that enable good teams to become excellent. What seems more challenging is to transfer this knowledge into the behaviours and traits exhibited within organisations.
Unsurprisingly, significant research has been undertaken to understand the genesis of high-performance in teams, most centred around common themes such as communication, clarity, accountability, empathy and humility. In his book Best Ever Teams, David Burkus grouped these in to three key factors combining six different elements which I will consider in more detail.
Burkus defined Prosocial Purpose as when each member of the team has complete clarity on the impact of their contribution to the team’s goals or objectives and a common
understanding of the value to others of the work they are doing. In Sinek terms this would be the ‘why’ of the work they are doing. Significant research suggests that there is a clear correlation between a strong sense of purpose within an organisation and its success.
(Coleman, 2022)
We are fortunate in education that our purpose is relatively clear — to enable our students to live extraordinary lives by preparing them with an outstanding education and life experiences. This is true irrespective of whether you are a teacher, bursar,
‘Our purpose is relatively clear — to enable our students to live extraordinary lives’
facilities manager or chef. Every individual has a role in delivering the experience for the student. In other organisations purpose can be less well defined, however if the purpose can be identified in a way that resonates, it can have a dramatic impact.
A case in point would be the WD-40 story, a company that plateaued but was turned around by their CEO, Grant Ridge. When challenged on the purpose of the company he said ‘Our products make heroes of people. If you have a squeaky door, it’s driving your family crazy, you solve it and everyone loves you.’
He constantly reinforced this message of turning normal people in to superheroes until, over time it became ingrained in the organisation.
Common understanding is defined as the team’s ability to have a deep understanding of everyone else on the team; their strengths, development areas, personal context and ways of working and includes having clarity around roles and responsibilities and communication styles.
To enable an optimum level of common understanding, team members know what motivates, or de-motivates, colleagues and how to support them when they are under pressure.
With clarity of roles and responsibility comes accountability — doing what we will say we are going to do and holding others to account if they do not do so. The latter requires an environment of psychological safety to be effective.
Psychological safety is an often-misunderstood term. It is not a shield from accountability, being over-protective or political correctness. McKinsey define it as ‘the absence of interpersonal fear. Feeling psychologically safe allows people to perform their best at home, school, and work.’
(McKinsey, 2023)
The concept of psychological safety was first discussed in 1965 by Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis in the context of helping people to manage change. It wasn’t until the 1990s that it was developed further when Professor Amy Edmondson studied staff at a Boston hospital, looking in particular at how different teams of nurses performed. She was trying to assess who were the highest — or lowest — performing charge nurses responsible for a particular floor or department in the hospital. She decided to take the metric of mistakes reported to measure the performance of these teams. She said at the time ‘I didn’t set out to study psychological safety, but rather to study teamwork and its relationship to mistakes’.
However, following leadership evaluation to assess those that were better or poorer performers, she noticed that the teams of the better leaders were reporting a higher number of mistakes. On the face of it, it appeared that the better leaders had the worst-performing teams. Later, when the nurses were interviewed it became clear that more mistakes were not
made but they were better documented. The nurses with the better leaders were not afraid to admit their mistakes. People felt more comfortable admitting errors, so more errors were documented. Edmonson adopted the phrase coined by Schein and Bennis and argued that good leaders create psychological safety.
So, psychological safety refers to the shared belief within a team that it is safe to take interpersonal risks. It’s the confidence that team members won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. In psychologically safe environments, individuals feel accepted and respected, enabling them to express themselves authentically without fear of negative consequences.
Psychological safety is crucial for fostering open communication, collaboration, and innovation within teams. When team members feel psychologically safe, they are more likely to share diverse perspectives, challenge assumptions, and engage in constructive debate. This leads to better decision-making, higher levels of creativity, and increased trust among team members.
Leaders play a vital role in creating and maintaining psychological safety within teams. They set the tone by encouraging open dialogue, acknowledging and learning from mistakes, and demonstrating empathy and respect for all team members.
By prioritising psychological safety, leaders can unleash the full potential of their teams and create environments where individuals thrive personally and professionally.
Team members working in an environment of psychological safety are less likely to be influenced by group think. Social psychologist Solomon Asch focused much of his research on the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform. The Conformity Line Experiment involved showing a group of students a number of different drawings including the one below.
He asked his participants which of the three lines on the right was most like the one on the left. The answer was obvious — in this case it’s the one on the far right. He showed the drawing to eight students, seven of whom had already been primed to give the wrong answer.
‘Strong relationships are the foundations of high-performing teams’
PROSOCIAL PURPOSE
MEANING & IMPACT
COMMON UNDERSTANDING CLARITY & EMPATHY
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY TRUST & RESPECT
(Burkus, 2023)
When the eighth student was asked to give their answer, over 75% gave the wrong answer even though it was clearly incorrect. When asked why they had given the wrong answer, most said that they knew it was incorrect but did not want to be ridiculed by the rest of the group. (Mcleod, 2023) This experiment demonstrated the impact of peer pressure when we may be tempted to follow the group even when against our own views. A leader that creates an environment of psychological safety enables team members to be unafraid of saying what they think, thereby creating a better outcome for the team.
Burkus would argue that Prosocial Purpose, Common Understanding and Psychological Safety are all critical to enabling highperformance teams. Although clearly all are interconnected, I would argue that psychological safety is, in the first instance the most critical, creating an environment where support and open challenge enables confidence and self-belief which will inevitably translate to overall higher performance. As Sinek says, “Strong relationships are the foundations of highperforming teams”. n
Burkus, D. (2023). Best Team Ever –The Surprising Science of High Performing Teams. Twinbolt.
Coleman, J. (2022). Finding Success Starts with Finding Your Purpose. Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2022/01/findingsuccess-starts-with-finding-your-purpose. Edmondson, A. C. (2019). The Fearless Organization:Creating Psychlogical Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. McKinsey. (2023). What is psychological safety? McKinsey & Company.
Mcleod, S. (2023). Solomon Asch Conformity Line Experiment Studt. Simply Psychology.
Inspiration is everywhere
And the path might not be as you expect.
Chris Skulte, Finance Director, Dukes Plus
It’s 1984, and you are 22 years old, competing at the World Championship, you are at the pinnacle of your sport, going toe to toe with the reigning world champion. As there is no clear victor, the match has endured for five long months of intense competition then... the match is stopped and cancelled due to the health of the players and the physical toll on their bodies.
That’s right, we are talking about the elite sport of competitive chess. Since that match between challenger, Garry Kasparov,
and defending champion, Anatoly Karpov, chess has undergone a complete transformation. The hugely popular Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit and the 16th World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, who uses Olympic trainers to help prepare his body for chess, have helped increase the popularity of chess which is now regularly played by 600 million adults globally and counts Anthony Joshua, Madonna and Will Smith among its celebrity fans. Even Taylor Swift waxes lyrical about chess moves.
To perform at a high level in this game, many look for inspiration outside of the traditional study methods and I hope to give you some insight into high-performance in the sport of chess. I was a top 50 chess player in my native Australia and play in a national league club team, the Celtic Tigers, who qualified to represent England in Europe on multiple occasions, with my best win against a Grandmaster who is a top 700 in the world player.
To compete at elite level, you need to have the basics of chess sorted — a good understanding of strategy, learnt from studying many old games, tactics, calculation, opening knowledge, and endgame understanding. However increasingly, to get that edge, top competitors are looking towards self-regulation to help manage the huge amount of stress put on the body in a competitive game. If you can’t be completely objective in a position, ignoring your hopes and wants, utilising 100% of your concentration, you are going to fail.
Here, I share some examples of the practices that have helped progress towards my greatest achievements.
To get that extra 1% you need to look outside of the box. The first key piece of inspiration for me was when American author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin, introduced me to the book, Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. The premise of this inspirational work is that nothing is new and the way
to develop creativity is not to copy, plagiarise, skim or rip off — but to study, credit, remix, mash up and transform. The takeaway being that you need to know what makes you special, and then merge into that the elements of other greats in order to evolve into something greater. Learn about everyone and everything possible, take those parts that inspire you, and you will really see the magic start to happen.
Another key resource was provided by Aatif Hassan, Founder and Chairman of Dukes Education, who introduced me to The High Performance Podcast hosted by Jake Humphrey and Professor Damian Hughes. In their podcast, they speak to the planet’s high performers from sport, society and culture and turn those conversations into life lessons.
Am I going to win the 100m at the next Olympics? I don’t know if you have met me in real life, but it’s clearly a ‘No’ — but can I steal an idea about “focussing on the process” on how to perform at your best under extreme pressure… you bet I can — and I do!
To prepare for elite competition, above all else you must have rested, eaten well, and have a clear mind with minimal distractions to perform at your best. I am sitting at a chess board for up to seven hours a match, where one error can lead to defeat, so going into an event I try to clear up and resolve anything that might be from my mind, from a report at work, to ensuring the house is clean.
‘I would argue that chess is a is less forgiving environment than work’
When approaching a chess game, it is interesting to note the many similarities between chess and work.
I would argue that chess is a is less forgiving environment than work. While it is acceptable to be in second place within an industry, in chess it’s first place or nothing. This approach allows me to hone various skills, such as strategy.
When creating a strategy, you start by setting a goal in the future and work back to the present. Top chess players find the best moves as they are looking forward to what they want the board to look like 10 to 20 moves ahead, then work out the moves to get them there, rather than starting by thinking what is the next best move. We use tactics to achieve our short-term goals to start working towards the end goal.
Having a demanding, full time job, I have less time to come up with opening positions than many of the professionals I play against. Instead, I come up with opening positions which I know they will be more uncomfortable with than me. I analyse their regular plans, types of positions they like and win, as well as any weaknesses. It may lead me to positions where I am not comfortable, but knowing that they are more uncomfortable or annoyed than me gives me the mental edge in the game and additional motivation, resulting in some great wins. It also gives me the added advantage that I am very
difficult to prepare against.
Elite performers always need to reflect on where they may not have performed as well as they may have wanted, and you never really know when you are performing at your greatest until you reflect on it later.
I hit my peak just before Covid, beating the now #670 player in the world, French Grandmaster Guillaume Lamard, and it gave me a taste of what it takes to beat high performers. You don’t just win a game, it feels like you need to beat them 10 times in one game to finish them off. Nine-times English Woman’s chess champion and Women’s Grandmaster, Jovanka Houska, said to me at the time “I have never seen someone look so intensely focused at a board”.
It wasn’t just finding and pressing for six hours over 57 moves of chess, but the self-regulation I needed to control my thoughts throughout the game. A critical moment of the game was around move 41, I was making no progress, I was nervous, I knew I could draw the game (which would have been a great result) — I wanted more but couldn’t see anything. My mind was spiralling after the exhausting five hour mark. Being aware of this, I got up from the board and went for a 10-minute walk. I knew what I needed: it wasted valuable time on my clock, but it didn’t matter how much time I had left if I wasn’t going to think clearly. Subsequently returning to the board, I found an
For those chess players among you, below you can find all the moves from the game in common chess notation:
‘As always in life, it’s about the journey and the process rather than the outcome’
amazing continuation and went on to win the game.
As always in life, it’s about the journey and the process rather than the outcome. If someone handed you a world championship trophy tomorrow, would you value it? Probably not — it’s the hard work you put in along the way to achieving a goal that makes it all worthwhile.
Did my journey work out anything like I originally planned? Not at all! I never thought starting this journey from a small town in Australia that I would be able to help finance and buy a building for the London MindSports Centre that provides space for Chess, Bridge and Go enthusiasts to play and socialise. Through MindSports Centre we also held the first significant Women’s chess events in the UK in countless years.
Little did I know that I would also become
involved in running the UK’s fastest-growing chess club, elected to the English Chess Federation Council to support initiatives affecting grass-roots members and the growth of chess across the country. I have also had the honour of representing England twice at the European Chess Club Cup (the champions league of chess), and have met and played chess with some of the top players in the world including Kramnik, Nakamura, Caruana, Gelfand, Adams, and Speelman.
I am humbled to have been able to help create and be part of moments like this and, while there have been many ups and downs over the years, I have always kept the belief and passion alive that I can change myself and the world for the better.
Hopefully the journey is only just getting started as well. n
Because I failed, I succeeded
Through his background in professional sport, Dr Adrian Rainbow, Head, London Park School Mayfair & Sixth, understands the importance of driving a high-performance coaching culture
As the Head of Eaton Square Senior School & Sixth, soon to be rebranded as London Park School Mayfair and London Park School Sixth, I’ve dedicated my career to fostering an environment where high-performance isn’t just encouraged, it’s cultivated. My experiences, both as a professional American football player and an educator, have profoundly shaped my understanding of what it truly means to build a ‘High
Performance Culture’ in education.
High-performance starts in the mind. It is about the relentless pursuit of excellence, not just in academics but in all aspects of life. This pursuit begins with a simple yet powerful premise: pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It is here, in these moments of challenge and discomfort, that true growth occurs. This belief is something I’ve carried with me from the football field to the classroom.
Inspiring self-belief
As educators, our job is to instil a sense of self-belief in our students. We aim to develop growth mindsets and to help each student believe in the possibility of their future success. Thomas Edison famously said, “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” It’s this potential for astounding achievement that we seek to unlock in every student.
Embracing failure, building resilience
One critical component of a highperformance culture is resilience. Recognising that resilience is a significant part of success is vital. Michael Jordan, a legend in his own right, once talked about the 26,000 times he missed shots during games. He attributed his success to these failures, encapsulating a powerful lesson: “Because I failed, I succeed.” It’s essential for our students to learn this. We need to help them embrace their failures as much as their successes, seeing each setback as a step forward.
This understanding was deeply personal to me. Growing up with a brother who was bigger, better, stronger, and faster, I was constantly pushed to work harder and do more to overcome and achieve. This personal drive underscores the value of setting challenging yet achievable goals.
Encouraging risk-taking
At London Park School Mayfair & Sixth, we emphasise the importance of stepping out of comfort zones. Whether through oracy, debating, music solos, drama performances, outward bound leadership experiences, service opportunities or our Elite Performance Pathways for students excelling in specific areas, we provide myriad opportunities for our students to take risks.
This exposure is crucial because when you do something that scares you, you learn to overcome your fears and push beyond your perceived limits. It is also why we embrace the Dukes Young Leaders Award and provide students with opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom to experience highperformance in an explicit way. Students reflecting on their Silver Duke of Edinburgh award, on their involvement in the school play, on their solo performance at a music event, on their courage to stand up in a school assembly and present, empowers them through a realisation that highperformance is personal and achievable.
Likewise, the personal satisfaction of working really hard to understand a maths concept, to grasp the nuances of literary analysis, to begin to comprehend the foundational problems of quantum mechanics are also all examples of high-performance in an educational context.
‘It’s not merely about achieving the end goal but about the attitude and performance along the way’
‘Growing up with a brother who was bigger, better, stronger, and faster, I was constantly pushed to work harder and do more to overcome and achieve’
Driving aspiration and ambition
Motivation, driving ambition, and aspiration are the fuels that keep this engine running. We foster an environment where students are not afraid to aspire. Aspiration is about stepping out of your comfort zone and believing in your own worth. It’s about seeing yourself as worthy of investment — your time, your effort, your dreams. It is about personal bests; you are the driver.
Encouraging a ‘have a go’ mindset
In fostering high-performance, we also focus on the importance of ‘having a go.’ It’s not merely about achieving the end goal but about the attitude and performance along the way. The process is what is important. Our educational philosophy is about stretching targets, fostering belief and positivity, and understanding each student as an individual, with individual strengths and passions.
Ultimately, high-performance in education isn’t just about producing top exam scores or
elite athletes; it’s about preparing students to face the world with confidence, resilience, and ambition. It’s about ensuring they are the best they can be, willing to try and prepared to succeed.
Onwards and upwards
As we continue to advance our educational practices, my vision for London Park School Mayfair & Sixth is clear. We will continue to build a culture where high-performance is the standard, not the exception. A culture where students not only dream of what they might achieve but also have the tools and support to reach those heights — no matter what they are.
I firmly believe that high-performance in education is about more than just outcomes. It’s about setting a foundation for lifelong success and fulfilment. It’s about creating a nurturing environment where every student believes they can achieve greatness — because, with the right support and opportunities, they truly can. n
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Growing a culture of excellence
Dr John McGinnity, Guidance Counsellor at The Institute of Education, Dublin, discusses their approach to supporting high-performing students to achieve their full potential
How can we, as a school community, support highperforming students? Importantly, each and every student in the school must have the opportunity to thrive so that they reach their full potential, while simultaneously creating a culture such that highperforming students are empowered with the necessary support so that they can excel in their own right.
At the Institute of Education in Dublin, the percentage of students who attain the H1 grade in any given subject (the highest grade in the Republic of Ireland school leaving points system) is typically four times that of an average Irish school. As a consequence, school progression rates to highdemand courses, as well as the other courses, in Irish and other universities globally, are the highest in this school when compared to all other schools in the country.
‘An educator’s passion for their subject shines through each day in the interactions between the teaching team and students’
So how is this success achieved? A fundamental building block is teaching excellence that forms part of a charter to provide for continuous development and enhancement in teaching and learning, so that an educator’s passion for their subject shines through each day in the interactions between the teaching team and students.
The school provides an option for students to choose their own teacher, subject to timetabling compatibility, so that within the initial couple of weeks of the academic year, students are able to match their learning style with that of their teachers’ teaching style. Importantly there is a wide range of subjects available for students with the flexibility such that the student can choose the school subjects which they are most interested in, and indeed they have an input into the creation of the timetable which suits them best, for example, early or later starts. A high-achieving student may decide to take a more quantitative or qualitative array of subjects depending on their innate abilities and interests.
School leadership is the glue that pulls together a whole-school approach to enable all the students in the school to thrive. A philosophy which strives to enable each student to reach their full potential, as a unique individual, provides the headroom such that high-performing students can avail of bespoke school initiatives to support their ambition, within the context of numerous initiatives which are available for all students in the school. The strive for excellence has to be rooted in tangible steps to ensure all students feel part of a school community and that the school is not seen only as a school for high-achieving students. School leadership, and the team in place across the school, can embrace the co-existence of the provision of supports for high achievers and for other students with performance across the range of abilities. No one intervention will affect an environment for highachiever success — it is the myriad of smaller adaptations which make the sum larger than the individual parts.
One particularly successful innovation has been the introduction of a suite of masterclasses across all subjects. The masterclasses allow a deep insight into a specific topic and last an hour long. High-performing students are passionate about their subjects but also ambitious to get every mark possible in their assessments and a regular topic for discussion in a masterclass is where the additional marks in state public examinations can be acquired. Masterclasses are available online in the evenings after school making use of the virtual learning environment infrastructure which the school has adopted successfully. Indeed all classes are recorded so students can recap over areas where they feel the need to hear the teacher’s explanation as often as they wish.
A virtuous cycle emerges when students are in the right educational environment and are surrounded by other students who have a high degree of self-agency to do better and to be their best. Peer learning happens when students are working with each other and increasing
each other’s knowledge with the parallel support of excellence in teaching and learning which occurs in the classroom.
Another innovation which supports high performers is the provision of fast-paced, and normal-paced classes in a number of subjects in the school. The fast-paced classes allow teachers to cover complex concepts at greater speed and thus more concentration can be focused on strategies for the attainment of higher grades. Higher-achieving students are able to move swiftly through the curriculum with their teachers, at a pace which continually ignites their engagement and enthusiasm. Being relatively new to the school myself, I was struck by being able to hear the proverbial pin drop in the study hall during the day — a clear recognition on the part of all students that they had an individual responsibility to allow other students to learn and not to be a distraction to others in pursuit of their learning. It is another signal which sharpens the sense that study and learning is cherished in the school.
‘School leadership is the glue that pulls together a whole-school approach to enable all the students in the school to thrive’
High-performing students can sometimes struggle with the capacity to organise themselves and make the most from their study timetable. The school provides weekly study skills clinics throughout the year whereby students can get advice on a one-to-one basis from an expert so that they can optimise their time. Importantly there is a suite of extra-curricular opportunities for students to engage in, from athletics to philosophy, as well as a health and fitness programme, so that students can maintain a healthy, balanced approach to their studies and their general lifestyle throughout the year. All students have the opportunity to excel in competitions outside as well as within school (for example, Maths Olympiad, Young Scientist, international debating) and the provision of such opportunities allow a platform for further growth and personal fulfillment.
An important pillar for high-performing students and, indeed, all students, is the ability to see role models, and visualise what they
would like to do after their second level studies. As part of the guidance programme, the school introduces students to carefully chosen speakers from a range of universities and other areas, who are thought leaders in their disciplines. In addition to this, one particular innovation is to leverage the experience of past pupils, who are in the initial years of their study, so that they can impart the secret of their success such as differentiators in their personal statements or the study approaches they used in preparation for an array of university selection tests.
In conclusion, there is not a single magic bullet to ensure high-performing students excel. Rather it is the careful building of a culture of excellence set within a holistic environment that promotes respect and a care for others. Each individual in the school community, students and staff, feels supported so that they can aspire to be their best each day. It isn’t magic… but it works. n
‘No one intervention will affect an environment for high achiever success – it is the myriad of smaller adaptations which make the sum larger than the individual parts’
Exam demands highest performance
Cian Hogan,
English Teacher, The Institute of Education, Dublin, examines the changing meaning of high-performance in English in the Irish education system
When I joined the Institute of Education in 2001, I was excited to be asked to work in a school that demanded and rewarded high-performance in equal measure. The school’s promise to deliver excellence in education by employing the very best subject experts was an unusual, if not unique, one within the context of the broader Irish education system. No other school in the State was structured around the idea of excellence in teaching; and in large part, that excellence in teaching was informed by how the students reacted to their teachers in the classroom. I remember being surprised by the idea that the students were invited to survey the teachers but also reassured by just how honest and constructive their feedback was. However, as an English teacher, I also couldn’t help but feel that our commitment to highperformance was somewhat compromised at the time by the nature of the Leaving Certificate English examination.
The Leaving Certificate English paper in the early 2000s was, in my opinion, less than perfect. The questions required students to give their personal responses to a poet’s work, and or to outline the reasons why they liked or didn’t like a particular author. Of course, from an egalitarian point of view, it could be argued that questions of this nature levelled the playing field for everyone. Certainly, the fact that 15% of the cohort regularly reached the highest grade, would seem to vindicate the belief that subjective questions delivered success. However, in a world where reaching the highest possible level is simply a matter of giving your personal opinion; where the best possible grade can be achieved through rote learning, then the worth of that achievement, I would argue, is devalued for just about everyone.
‘Almost overnight, the Leaving Cert English examination was transformed into a very demanding test of a student’s ability to apply higher-order reasoning to a complicated set of problems’
I was never comfortable with the idea that an ever-increasing number of students reaching the highest possible grade was something to celebrate. What I perceived as a dumbing down of the English Examination was not, in point of fact, an egalitarian triumph to be lauded, but rather an insult to the willingness of the vast majority of students, regardless of their circumstances, to improve themselves through hard work. While many people involved in curriculum development shared my misgivings, they were reluctant to reshape the examination for fear that it would give an unfair advantage to higher performing students.
The reasons for such a reluctance were many and varied. Since the establishment of the Irish state, successive governments attempted to use the education system as a means to buttress and promote national priorities. And much like other jurisdictions, education policy in Ireland from the mid1960s onwards was aimed at the delivery of high quality, mass education to as wide a cohort of the population as practicable.
Ireland’s economic situation improved dramatically, due in no small part to the quality of its education system; and the country began to take advantage of globalisation by trading more openly and competing in world markets. As an inevitable consequence of this, new ideas began to challenge commonly accepted social norms and mores.
Happily, old certainties about the nature of intelligence, success and, indeed learning itself, yielded to new more egalitarian approaches and methodologies. Meanwhile, there was a shift in focus towards STEM subjects, which were seen as crucial for the country’s economic prosperity, while English and the humanities were no longer accorded, I think it’s fair to say, the respect they once commanded.
In 2008 Ireland experienced a humiliating economic crash. Over €350 billion of the country’s collective wealth was vaporised and we were forced into a shocking evaluation of how we allowed this to happen. In the heartringing of the moment, many wondered how a country that prided itself on having such a robust education system could have produced so many educated people who failed so abjectly to exercise their critical faculties.
The Department of Education quickly identified that very few of the Leaving Certificate subjects were capable of challenging students to think critically. What surprised most people was that the analysis pointed to English and Applied Mathematics as offering the best opportunity to the widest possible cohort of students to learn the skills necessary to think critically. Almost overnight, the Leaving Cert English examination was transformed into a very demanding test of a student’s ability to apply higher-order reasoning to a complicated set of problems.
As the English examination paper changed, the number of students performing at the highest possible level plummeted. If we exclude the pandemic years (which have disrupted the grade profile of every subject) only 800 of the 44,000 students who sit the Higher Level paper are now, on average, reaching the highest possible grade. The types of question being asked, 92% of which are rooted in higher-order analysis, demand
‘ The expectations of an exam motivated students to work harder, which in turn led them to see and believe that hard work delivers success’
that our students demonstrate a deep and insightful appreciation of the texts selected for study. In other words, the paper demanded that both teachers and students perform at the highest possible level. The change in the paper raised the bar for every student and I would argue that the need to perform at a higher level was a good thing for everyone, not just the students who were, what could be termed as: naturally gifted. The English paper is now, from a critical thinking point of view, twice as challenging as every other subject examined at Leaving Certificate level.
What I quickly noticed was that the students arriving to us from other schools relished the opportunity to learn how to face the increasingly difficult problems posed by the English paper. The expectations of an exam that demanded that students perform at the highest possible level in order to succeed, motivated students to work harder, which in turn led them to see and believe that hard work delivers success. This outcome expectancy was, I feel, particularly noticeable in students who exhibited additional needs such as dyslexia. The misguided belief, fostered by years of nebulous demands
that suggested the only way to reach one’s potential in English was to have a talent for English, was replaced by the realisation that hard work would deliver high-performance in a high-stakes exam. And while elsewhere students were being told that the exam was impossible, we worked on a skills based approach to English. For the first time in my career students of mine were consistently reaching 100% in the exam, a grade viewed by most as being impossible to achieve in English.
The years ahead will undoubtedly herald tectonic shifts in how we live, learn and think. Ireland’s recent stellar performance in the PISA studies would certainly seem to vindicate the transformation that has taken place in our education system over the past twenty years. However, I am convinced that if we continue to demand the highest possible standards from our students, they will face the undoubted changes and challenges that lie ahead with confidence and self-belief, safe in the knowledge that real and meaningful success must necessarily be rooted in results that have been achieved on the back of hard work and genuine high-performance. n
McGrath, P. (2021). The Leaving Certificate Examination — A Target for Unfair Criticism? Irish Journal of Education, 44 (5), 1-23. www.erc.ie/ije.
PISA 2018 Database, Tables I. B1.10, I. B1.11 and I. B1.12.
The Cambridge Edge
The Principal of Cardiff Sixth Form College Cambridge, Dr Julian Davies, on finding school identity and on the value of the enthusiast
Let me ask you a question. How would you create a new school? Something brand new. You are given a blank slate and you can decide what to do. Quite a tantalising opportunity… Perhaps you would build in your own image and create a school that reflects your vision and values. It sounds like the role of a lifetime.
What if your new school was the offspring of one that was already successful, so successful in fact, that it had a reputation as being ‘The world’s most academic school’? That might change your thinking. Not so much big shoes to fill as big shoes to create. Welcome to my world! Eighteen months ago I was given the privilege of launching Cardiff Sixth Form College Cambridge. The original Cardiff Sixth Form College (CSFC)
had proven so successful that demand for places, particularly from overseas students, had exceeded supply many years ago. The time had come to open a new branch and replicate this success.
Many aspects of our new school were brought across from Cardiff. We have our colleagues in Wales to thank for assistance in many areas such as curriculum planning, teaching materials, pastoral support and for an understanding of the incredible academic culture of CFSC. Our new school could not simply be a clone, however, no matter how successful the original. Who would be inspired to work and study in a mere facsimile of a successful school? We needed identity. There needed to be a reason to join a CSFC college that was in Cambridge.
The answer now seems obvious to me, but came only after some dedicated mulling and daydreaming… What can you do with able and ambitious students who are studying A-levels in a city which has one of the world’s leading universities? The answer — you use the university. You use the work of the academic departments, the museums, the teaching hospital and the science parks to help your students to be inspired by those at the cutting edge. We call it The Cambridge Edge.
This idea became a programme of ‘super curricular’ activities — student enrichment that is based on developing academic interest beyond the A-level curriculum. Our ethos is that we can learn from those outside the college. One route to this is to attend university public lectures, another is to create links with local enterprises to facilitate onsite bespoke tours. As we have become more established, we are also forming direct links with academic staff and have hosted seminars in our college on topics such as the use of economic modelling on covid cases and on the future of AI. Our student leadership team used the idea of reaching out to invite speakers from Cambridge University and UCL to their ‘Women in STEM’ seminar to celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
We try to encourage students to engage and network with such speakers to help them see that they can engage with academics and can discuss interests from a common ground. As you may imagine, for most of our students this is often the first time they have spoken to an academic, let alone one from such a prestigious university. We view such interactions as steps in confidence building that can lead to a student enjoying, and succeeding in, subsequent university admissions interviews.
This leads to the idea of the enthusiast. A central message to our students is that the people working at the university and associated enterprises are not scary, unreachable titans. They are enthusiasts. They do the work they do for the love of it and will be interested in students who engage with them about their work. An example of this was when one of our students, Sarah, attended a Cambridge science fair and plucked up the
‘I initially told our student Cesare that, ‘no, you can’t build a nuclear reactor in the basement’
courage to speak with academics from the university about a medical topic she had read about. The conversation must have impressed the staff as it led to Sarah being given a personal tour of the Cambridge University department of Pharmacology. Sarah continued to look outwards and found a number of medicine-related work experiences, took part in MUN and won a national debating competition. She is now the proud holder of our very first Cambridge University offer for medicine.
We also learn from home-grown enthusiasts, in the form of CSFC alumni. We host mentoring sessions every half term when former CSFC students who are now studying at Cambridge University or at one of the top London universities, such as Imperial or UCL, join our students to discuss their journey and to pass on advice. Our Year 13 students host these sessions with the idea that they are to become the next generation of mentors themselves.
The Cambridge Edge programme includes an invitation for our students to work on a
project with university departments. We build connections with academic staff in the university based on student project choice. As an example, currently we have a student, Fernanda, who is working with the university’s Department of Chemistry on an algae-powered fuel cell. She hopes that the device can be used in rural parts of her home country of Angola to provide off-grid electricity generation.
Our first Cambridge Edge project nearly ended before it began when I initially told our student Cesare that, ‘no, you can’t build a nuclear reactor in the basement.’ Cesare is made of stronger stuff and produced a substantial risk assessment document to detail how he would mitigate against the risks of building a nuclear fusion device. He had also managed to bring on board Jamie Edwards, a PhD student at the university’s engineering department, as a mentor. Having established the ethos of reaching out to enthusiasts, I couldn’t very well block Cesare’s way and so his project began.
‘
We have an established, outward looking programme in the Cambridge Edge’
Cesare is now in the final term of his studies with us and has completed the construction of a functional, hand-built, nuclear fusor. He has presented the device both in the Dukes Colleges ‘Renaissance Scholars Symposium’ and in our very own ‘Nuclear Fusion Symposium’. This latter event was entirely created around Cesare and his fusor and included a presentation from Prof. Eugene Shwageraus, the Professor of Nuclear Energy Systems at the engineering department of Cambridge University, to an audience of CSFC Cambridge and Cardiff students and students from local Cambridge schools.
It is still very early in the development of our new school but we have an established outward-looking programme in the Cambridge Edge and it is helping us to form our own identity. You can get a glimpse of this at www.the-cambridge-edge.com
Long live the enthusiasts! n
Leading a valuesdriven life
A high-performance life in the workplace and at home, by Dr Ricardo Tavares,
Director, Dukes Plus
Do what you can, with what you have got, with where you are.’ This one quote, from Ben Bergeron, a CrossFit legend, sums up highperformance perfectly.
The super-power of ‘presence’, which for me is the vital foundation block needed to unlock high-performance, is a critical ingredient too often misunderstood. It enables one to be grounded in a moment in time and showcase the authentic self, without fear.
I have an avid interest in all the areas that sit around high-performance, such as health, nutrition, sleep, your mind and the other related subjects that link to this ever increasingly popular term.
As I now approach 40, and reflect on my personal journey that took me from a decade spent on hospital wards as a doctor, to a stint in investment banking, through to co-founding a business to now running Dukes Plus, I look back and wish I had been introduced to the learnings around high-performance much earlier. This would have saved unnecessary stress in my 20s, enabled me to perform much better in the early days of my startup, given me the confidence to respectfully challenge poorly-performing teams and, most importantly, potentially saved my hair follicles!
‘Do what you can, with what you have got, with where you are’
High-performance simplified
Mo Gawdat, former Chief Business Officer for Google X and a leading global authority in the world of happiness and performance, distils performance into the following equation, adapting a version first created by Tim Gallwey, author of The Inner Game
Performance = Potential – Distraction
Distraction is an interesting concept, commonly driven by fear in our own minds, often born out of legacy childhood challenges. My major distraction over the years has been the fear of failure.
I grew up always wanting to win, whether in a football match at school, a mock exam in the classroom or playing the Mega Drive with my closest childhood friends. Whilst it undoubtedly served me well through schooling and university, it was only more recently that I realised it was preventing me from achieving higher performance.
I was continuously ‘winning shallow’, a term coined by author, Dr Rangan Chatterjee. I am a big fan of his work and highly recommend his podcast. Dr Chatterjee uses the example of Jonny Wilkinson, whose joy in winning the rugby world cup for England in 2003, the biggest professional honour in his sport, was short lived as he was a victim of winning shallow — always moving on to the next thing without recognising the present moment.
Some may read this and feel this is a positive trait. I am not promoting wallowing in one’s success, but running continuously at 100mph is not healthy, and when I confronted this characteristic, I realised it was born out of a fear of failure.
James Marshall, one of my coaches on Dukes Education’s inspirational Senior Leadership Programme, simply said to me: “Ricky, what has served you so well up until your mid-30s will destroy your health as you move into your next 30 years”. It really struck a chord.
So, what is the learning from this? Create a ‘valuesdriven’ life.
How do you find your value set and purpose — keys to unlocking performance by driving down distraction? The answer is that whenever you find friction in your life, lean into it and question what is annoying you and why. Let me give you an example. When out for dinner with friends one evening, one of them was not treating our waiter in a way I thought was appropriate and respectful. I observed it, found myself getting angry and then analysed why. This moment created my first life value: Respect. Respect and kindness are key for me and I often find myself looking out to see who is happy to talk to the intern in the building rather than the CEO.
My other two values, which complete my 3 ‘R’s, are relationships and self-regulation.
‘Surround yourself with protons. People who have positive energy and make you feel good’
The number one driver of happiness, now scientifically proven through a large Harvard study1, is the quality of our relationships. To keep your mind in a good place, it is so important to prioritise your friends, family and those you like spending time with.
An old colleague of mine said to me, “Surround yourself with protons.” People who have positive energy and make you feel good. We all know the feeling when you are around a negative, complaining individual. I am not advocating blind optimism, but surrounding yourself with positive, forward-looking people
works wonders for your performance. Your own mindset is key for this. I have seen some great models around mindset and how it translates into high-performance, the one below highlights the hierarchy of mindset:
Victim mindset Why always me?
Pessimist
Struggles to see the positives.
Optimist
Hope for the best, but don’t plan for it
Realist
Understands there is good and bad.
Or, as Shakespeare said, “There is no good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Look for the realists, especially in a work context and give them the freedom to flourish.
My final value is selfregulation, the most important value for me. I am a very sporty person, yet throughout my thirties, following a very bad football injury, I have had restricted exercise capabilities. Sport, a long run or a competitive match of football, had always been my release valve but I was now confined to the swimming pool for a prolonged period due to my injury and found myself frequently falling into the victim mindset.
Self-regulation and following a routine which grounds me each day and keeps me positive, has been a turning point and interestingly, has recently unlocked my physical capabilities such that I can play football again. The key component for me was to create stillness in my mind. I am always thinking, always ‘on’. Taking even 10 minutes each day to sit still and practise mindfulness and focus on breath work has really controlled my ‘distraction’ factor in the performance equation.
Linked to this theme, I was fortunate to recently have a group session with a leading performance psychologist, David Priestly, who expertly highlighted the need for selfregulation and how simple breath work can control our nervous systems in the moment: a quick technique to
reduce the distraction factor. Now I must confess, I am a human being and often need to remind myself of my values as the stresses of life can get in the way. But it has been transformative for me and an important anchor.
It would be remiss of me to not mention Richard Fletcher and Waqar Siraj at this point, who lead the Dukes Senior Leadership Programme that has been transformative in enabling me to develop a high-performance mindset.
High-performance culture in the workplace
Toto Wolff, CEO of the Mercedes Benz F1 team, who have enjoyed unparalleled success in the sport, cites one key factor to a high-performing team — authenticity.
Teams want to be able to relate to their leader and, in order to do so, the leader needs to be comfortable showing their authentic side. If for no other reason other than that it must be exhausting for leaders who turn up to work not as their true self.
My colleagues in Dukes Plus will tell you that I never shy away from saying I don’t know the answer and I will identify people in the team who are much better than me at certain tasks. This approach percolates down and empowers people to take ownership in a safe environment.
I am comfortable to be honest with my team and highlight my own vulnerabilities. In return, I feel we have created
‘If you don’t fear the unknown, the unknown will be kind to you’
Rory McIlroy
a workplace which has psychological safety. One where people are happy to have difficult conversations in a respectful manner, for the benefit of the business. One where accountability is not something to be feared, but a sign that we set high standards and accept mistakes along the way. Teams need to trust each other, from top to bottom and bottom to top.
I still get a lump in my throat when I recall a mistake I made as a junior doctor and my Consultant at the time tore me apart in front of ten colleagues on a ward round. The irony was the mistake ended up being his, but the point is that mistakes should be championed, they are a by-product of a team pushing boundaries, growing fast and working in a safe environment to try new things.
Of course, recurrent mistakes and negligence is another story, but what I promised myself from that day forward was that I would acknowledge we all make mistakes and, should I ever be in a leadership position, people who make mistakes would not be ridiculed, but would be supported for taking a risk.
Taking high-performance concepts into schools?
Looking back on my own journey and talking to so many of my peers, the education journey around high-performance and happiness has been so positively impactful in all facets of our lives.
How much more beneficial
it would have been if I had been introduced to the concepts in my late teens, it would have undoubtedly led to a calmer, more present individual in that period.
When thinking of my own young children, I would love to be able to start to introduce some basic concepts to them in an age-appropriate way and how we introduce these concepts to students in schools in a way they can relate to is a challenge we are exploring.
Working on reducing the distractions, be it through leading a values-driven life, addressing your mindset and prioritising yourself, can all have a hugely positive impact on the individual both in the workplace and in one’s personal life.
Being able to take the mask off at work and be your true authentic self, in my opinion, will unlock a culture shift that drives innovation, growth and fulfilment. Central to this is ensuring psychological safety has been cultivated through trust and championing mistakes.
How we start to take these concepts down to children and those at the start of their professional careers is a potentially powerful route to embedding high-performance from a young age.
I will end with a quote I recently heard from golfer Rory McIlroy, “If you don’t fear the unknown, the unknown will be kind to you.” n
1 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/ the-secret-to-happiness-heres-someadvice-from-the-longest-running-study-onhappiness-2017100512543
What makes a winning mindset?
Mark Bailey, Managing Director, Dukes Education, discusses what sets up a team for success
In November 2023
Sancton Wood School hosted a ‘thriving minds’ conference for gifted and talented pupils across Dukes, and one of the optional breakout sessions was on high -performance in sport. I was invited to deliver the session, on the dubious grounds that I had played rugby for England before decimalisation.
So what factors are key to high-performance in sport? The basic answer to that question is widely known
to coaches everywhere, and commonly categorised as the five ‘S’s: speed, strength, stamina, skill and pSychology. Of course, the degree of importance of each ‘S’ factor varies from sport to sport. For example, speed and strength are essential in rugby, but almost irrelevant in darts. The one factor which is highly relevant to both rugby and darts is psychology. Indeed, it is arguable that for anyone operating at the level of international sport, then
SPEED
STRENGTH
STAMINA
SKILL
PSYCHOLOGY
the presence of the requisite degrees and combination of speed, strength, stamina and skill should be taken as a given. This would imply that a key differentiator of performance at the highest level is what happens between the players’ ears. Is it really the case? The first place any self-respecting rugby player would look for an answer is the New Zealand All Blacks. After all, they have won three World Cups since its inception in 1987 and held the World Number 1 spot for 80% of the time over the past twenty years. Their own assessment of the reasons for their stratospherically highperformance is unequivocal. They identify the central importance of a ‘team culture built on humility, unity, and a deep reverence for the black jersey with the silver fern’. As they state on their website, ‘better men make better All Blacks’ and ‘no individual is bigger than the team’. No references at all to searing pace, tackle count or ability to pass off both hands. Instead, they want the world to know that what matters is this: ‘wearing the black jersey comes with a responsibility to enhance its legacy’.
So, I got to thinking what was it about the regime established by Geoff Cooke (Team Manager) and Roger Uttley (Coach) — both trained schoolteachers — in the late 1980s which transformed the England rugby team from perennial under-achievers to the 1991 Grand Slam winners and World Cup finalists? Other than dropping me from the team, that is. Again, the
answer would be the culture and mindset which they established among the squad: to be uncompromising about individual and collective responsibility for setting and maintaining high standards; to have pride in what we were representing; and to engender positive reinforcement of what went well, while shedding the fear of failure.
These assessments of successful rugby teams are strikingly similar and they are the assessments of people involved in teams which, by any objective standards, have performed highly. Of course, the All Blacks are supremely fit and skilled, and that England team was pretty physical too. The point about the All Blacks, and about the attitude instilled by those schoolmasters Cooke and Uttley, is their conviction that when speed, stamina, strength and skill are more-or-less equally distributed across the leading performers, then it is the mindset that is the determinant of success. Or, in the words of Mauricio Pochettino, ‘you can have all the talent that God provides you with, but without attitude you won’t achieve anything’.
Mauricio might say it, but the view is also supported by a battery of scientifically controlled research. Under the general heading of pSychology are attributes such as motivation, stress control, anxiety control and self-efficacy. Motivation is the desire to work hard, to train, to learn, to improve, and to maintain this desire over extended periods.
‘Self-esteem can be improved by the recognition and adoption of good mental routines’
Stress control is reaction under pressure or under threat, especially in the cauldron of a high intensity match. Anxiety control also relates to the private, nagging, middle of the night doubts and fears that we all have, sometimes mild sometimes severe, but which are compounded for elite athletes because of the exposed nature of their performance and the intense scrutiny. Selfefficacy is the individual and collective belief that the other four S’s are securely in place and ready to be utilised to achieve the set goals.
We all know that weight training, running and skills drills will improve performance in sport. It is less obvious, however, that psychological features can also be improved and, in doing so, lead to enhanced performance. For example, self-esteem can be improved by the recognition and adoption of good mental routines, such as being kind to self and to team-mates (yes, kindness!); recognising and celebrating positive aspects of self and performance; building a support network, based on friends, family, and team-
mates; and setting difficult but realistic challenges. These in turn contribute to improved confidence and to greater self-assurance in one’s personal capabilities and also in the team’s abilities.
All of this sounds rather humdrum. But, then again, success is about breaking down complex and multi-faceted tasks into manageable chunks and then ensuring that all the little pieces are reassembled harmoniously into the whole at the right time. Hence the massive growth in interest and investment in sports psychology. Mindset can be trained and improved, no less than the body. One final thought. The key to the enduring winning mindset of the All Blacks is their recognition of, and ability to relate to, a set of higher values. At one level, these develop a sense of identity and of belonging. At another level, they break down self-absorption and create a sense of greater purpose. They turn mirrors into windows. Highperformance on the global stage, coupled with humility. Now there’s a thing. n
The sprinter of our discontent
David Connolly, English Teacher and Head of Extracurricular Activities, The Institute of Education, Dublin, on the habit of moving forward
There is a maxim often gifted to those about to embark on some large endeavour that “this is a marathon, not a sprint”. While this is always offered with benevolent intent, it rarely reassures. Marathons are notoriously hard. People sprint all the time as a spontaneous, practical response to the impending departure of trains, the foreboding countdown of parking meters, or a pet’s sudden break for freedom/mischief. Sprints are naturally occurring, marathons are not. Furthermore, sprints are consummately useful while it could be argued that only the first marathon tangibly mattered and even that killed the runner. So why use this distinction as a source
of guidance rather than a threat?
“Excellence is a habit” — Aristotle(-ish). This quote is often attributed to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, despite not actually occurring there at all (not least due to the sage’s penchant for writing in Ancient Greek and not modern English), yet is a fair summation of the work’s ideas and methodology. Aristotle reiterates that excellence in any endeavour is to be found in the avoidance of unsustainable extremity. There is no true glory, no virtue in bravura displays of exertion or sacrifice as both are indicative of improper proportion in thought and deed. In other words, you have misunderstood the true nature of
the issue. You have acted in a manner that misrepresents what really matters and expend yourself in the process.
In the previous sprint examples, the sudden bursts of speed were a response to dilemmas: a limited resource, insufficient time, or the unanticipated actions of others. While the ability for such exertion is certainly useful as such moments are naturally occurring within any environment, personal or professional. We fail to act, find ourselves marooned, trapped or with costly vet bills. We cannot predict every variable. Those of us who have worked in education for a long time know that you meet so many people with such varied experiences that each new term
reveals some hitherto unknown combination of factors, needs and opportunities.
Yet when working within an interconnected community of a school, no one is benefited by categorising every moment as a ‘dilemma’. For students characterise themselves as the site and source of crisis. The crisis of the train departing leaving you on the platform as everyone else travels further on down the line to visit new landmarks. The crisis of the parking meter counting down to when they must vacate this space with whatever knowledge they have managed to gather. The crisis that comes with being surrounded by people with whom you may not connect or grasp. Yet these are normal concerns for anyone, high-performing or not. If we expect students to sprint to every pseudo-crisis then we recreate an atmosphere of exhaustion, not excellence.
To take the Aristotelian maxim as an ethos is not to say these things are unimportant but rather are superseded by their place in the arc of progress. These young people are on journeys from not knowing to knowing, where not knowing is the departure point, the familiar, home. To do nothing is comfortable but inert and thus not befitting of something so stimulating as understanding. No one is born with a robust grasp of disease imagery in Hamlet, an eye for the fineries of lipid structures or with an intuitive grasp of sea stack timelapses, yet at times it can feel like we treat each other like we should have been so born. At the mention of any kind of exam everyone feels a touch of anxiety about them. That’s normal and happens to all of us when we believe that a judgmental gaze may be cast our way. These tests offer us a chance to gauge strengths and weakness so we can make more informed decisions about how we exert our energies. They offer us a waypoint from which we can chart and measure the next steps on our journeys, viewing points to assess the terrain that lies ahead and the paths we have already travelled. In short, they offer us perspective. I do mean ‘us’ — school and student. They help us to better understand each other; our goals, needs, and opportunities.
This is of course most relevant to term/ end of term examinations with ‘finals’ holding
‘If all that mattered, all that gave value and worth in every endeavour was that final moment then every symphony would be a single chord, every detective novel a list of culprits and every life an exhale’
a different status. In this context the highperforming students aren’t those that can forego the most sleep the night before the exam but those that can respond to the where the exam fits in the process — in the habit of learning. A successful exam will not bring forward or push back the date of the final exam and while success is always bolstering, a sense of a continuous process is ameliorating on a more profound level.
In the sprint model of sudden highperformance exertion, you either succeed or did not — pass or fail, catch the train or stand on the platform. Yet the marathon/habit approach reminds us that the train was never the real goal, it was where that train was going. That destination has moved no closer for your rush.
So what does ‘high-performance’ tangibly mean in this context? The acquisition and implementation of exam material to achieve superlative grades? Of course, it has to be part of our model just as the finish line marks the marathon’s span. But that line matters because each step that has led to it attests to a distance travelled and a determination to go further. Each step is imbued with meaning through its context. As educators we concern ourselves not only with the minutiae of
curricula but the substance of the material. Our snippets of poetry give us words for those moments that beg for comment but leave us breathless. They remind us to ‘stop the clocks’, that ‘apples sweeten in the dark’ or that hope ‘perches in the soul’, and sings the tune without the words — the realities of which fall outside the confines of the classroom. To measure a student or teacher’s highperformance purely on hasty recitation on the page is to say that the midnight oil we burn is the only thing that warms us.
If all that mattered, all that gave value and worth in every endeavour was that final moment then every symphony would be a single chord, every detective novel a list of culprits and every life an exhale. To say that high-performance is all about what can be expended to cross that line is to do an injustice to the person and the area of expertise that values that line. The exams matter because the material matters, and the material matters because it opens up the world to us.
So why is the marathon more comforting than the sprint? Because no one expects you to be at your fastest to achieve your goals or avoid disappointment, you just need to cultivate the habit of moving forward. n
Institute of Education
Bruce College
IRELAND
Colegio Inglés English School of Asturias
UNITED KINGDOM
Colégio Júlio Dinis
Colegio Internacional de Valladolid SPAIN
PORTUGAL
United Lisbon International School
International Sharing School
Colegio Inglés Zaragoza Saba Verda International School International English School of Castellón
Elian’s British School of La Nucía Engage Independent School Joyfe Centro Professional Joyfe
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Our collection of university application consultancies represent the best worldwide.
Dukes brings together the UK’s leading providers of day camps and residential summer courses.
Offering high-quality, bespoke support for children aged 5-18.
Prague Humanities
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Beehive Square Primary School
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Copperfield
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American Academy, Prague Bambíno
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JK Education
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American Academy, Brno
American Academy, Bratislava
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SLOVAKIA
Planes, trains and automobiles
International Student Recruitment Manager, Matthew McClarty, spends much of his time travelling. Here he gives his tips for peak performance when on the road
As the plane comes in to land in Sao Luis, Maranhao — in the very north of Brazil — I am so engrossed in my Kindle that I barely register when the plane hits the tarmac then abruptly speeds up and takes off again. There’s a distinct hum of mild alarm on board at this unexpected turn of events and it will be another 20 minutes of circling before we are allowed to land for a second — and final — time. I’m half an hour behind schedule and it’s 12:15 before I’m in the back of the Uber on my way to the hotel where an event is due to start at 14:00. I have a rolling suitcase, a backpack and a fold-up banner. My shirt is sticking to my back as the city swelters in 37-degree heat. I have a pre-ironed spare shirt in a special shirt-folder that I carry in my backpack. One of a list of things that I carry with me and pre-prepare before a day on the road. I got up at 4am to fly here this morning from Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, following a two-hour car journey that unexpectedly took four hours due to an accident. But I made it to the airport in time for my flight. Of course I did.
To lots of people, say a student at an event, or someone in the queue at check-in that I
get chatting to, I have a dream job. It’s all hotels and flights, international destinations and exotic restaurants. I can understand the temptation to imagine that it’s an amazing job. It is, but not for those reasons at all. Hotels are inevitably a necessity as we all need to sleep somewhere, and in certain countries, geography, time and security concerns also render plane travel unavoidable, but what people tend to forget is that my job is based on sourcing, creating and also maintaining relationships with educational consultants whose students drive the Dukes family everforward. I need to manage a complex time schedule across three time zones, juggling virtual meetings with the team in London with Mexico that sits six hours behind, whilst living day-to-day on Brasilia time, currently four hours behind London. I could be in a face-to-face meeting in Sao Paulo, followed by an evening virtual phone call to Monterrey and a 4am wakeup for an international sales meeting at Dukes central office in London.
Maintaining high-performance while travelling internationally can be a challenging task. It requires a delicate balance of physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. In my case, the demands of being constantly on the move can take a toll on your productivity and overall performance as well as your physical, mental and emotional health. Finding time to exercise when travelling between time zones, eating healthily and sleeping adequately are all vital components to being able to perform at your best every day and meet each day with the energy required.
One of the most crucial aspects of maintaining high-performance during international travel is taking care of your physical health.
Sleep
Long-haul flights and flying in between time zones can disrupt your sleep patterns, leaving you tired and fatigued upon arrival. Having a day of meetings, especially when first impressions are so important and you have to be at your absolute best, it is not ideal when you are suffering from jetlag, irritability, binging on coffee and microsleeping in the back of Ubers. My first tip would be to mitigate the effects of jet lag by
prioritising your sleep both before, during and after you land. I tend to get night-time flights when flying long-haul, and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, an eye-mask, a neck-pillow and Kindle allow me to create a relaxing environment to sleep. Exposure to natural sunlight is a great way to counter the effects of jetlag, and as long as you stay awake for the rest of the day, you can then sleep at a natural time in the evening. You could even get some meetings in during the day!
Routine
Keeping a disciplined routine is also vital. I always follow the same routine wherever I am in the world, which is to wake up at 6am, exercise and have breakfast, before spending an hour between 8am and 9am doing emails and admin. On a typical day I would have meetings between 10am and 6pm, and probably a dinner event or meeting. I try to get an hour of emails done before dinner and then try to avoid screens until the following morning. It is important to establish a routine and schedule that aligns with your work requirements and travel arrangements, such as setting specific work hours and carving out dedicated time for tasks. Prioritising tasks and setting clear goals for each day helps me focus my efforts and ensure productivity. Utilising technology to stay connected, organised, and efficient can also enhance performance, such as leveraging cloud-based tools for collaboration and communication. Creating a conducive work environment wherever you are, whether it be a coffee shop, hotel room, or airport lounge, with minimal distractions and the necessary resources, can help optimise your productivity.
Nutrition
In addition to sleep, maintaining a balanced diet while travelling is key to sustaining highperformance. It’s key to have a routine that your body can get used to, wherever you are. Healthy options such as salads and poke bowls work well in hot climates and keep you from feeling lethargic if you have a full day getting about the city meeting different people.
Staying hydrated is equally important, as dehydration can exacerbate jet lag symptoms and affect your cognitive function.
‘Embrace the opportunity to learn from different perspectives’
Mental wellbeing
Apart from physical wellbeing, mental and emotional resilience are equally vital while traveling internationally. The stress of airport security, immigration queues, navigating unfamiliar airports with unfamiliar people asking if you require a taxi, in an unfamiliar dialect of a language you thought you knew well, arriving at a hotel in the dead of night with the restaurant closed and nobody at the check-in desk, all while being away from the comforts of home and family — all these can potentially have an impact on your mental state and productivity.
Cultivating mindfulness practices such as meditation, deep breathing, or visualisation techniques can help centre your mind and reduce anxiety during travel. Setting boundaries around work commitments and allowing yourself time for leisure and exploration can prevent burnout and help you recharge effectively.
When it comes to adapting to new cultures and environments, having a growth mindset and an open attitude can turn a negative travel experience into a positive one. Embrace the opportunity to learn from different perspectives, try local cuisines and
engage with locals. It helps to be comfortable and open-minded. I adore Brazil, I enjoy speaking to people wherever I go, whether that’s ordering a coffee or speaking to a client. I embrace the warmth of the people, and this really helps to feel comfortable in a professional environment.
Familiarise yourself with the customs, norms, and social etiquette of the country you are visiting to show respect and appreciation for the local culture. Learning a few basic phrases in the local language can go a long way in building rapport with local people and navigating your way around the city more smoothly.
Staying connected
Finally, staying connected with your support network and loved ones while traveling internationally can provide a sense of stability and emotional grounding. Technology allows me to constantly stay productive whether I am travelling in a car, in an airport lounge or even in the mid-air. This allows me to pick and choose when I can work and when I can rest, giving me the balance I need to make sure that when it comes to performance, I’m always giving my all and making sure I get the best results. n
The last word…
Every week at Dukes, we share a ‘Quote of the Week’ offered up by one of the team. We’ve collected some of our recent favourites.
“I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood!”
Ludwig Feuerbach
Thanks to Terri Murray, Head of Film Studies, Hampstead Fine Arts College
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
Maya Angelou
Thanks to Heather Coom, Senior Nursery Educator, Hove Village Nursery
“If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.”
Michel Ruiz
Thanks to Renata Kunsovska, Teaching Assistant, Orchard House School
“Lead from the front, and let others believe they are in front.”
Nelson Mandela
Thanks to Susan Brooks, Head, London Park Schools, Clapham
“Small acts, when multiplied across millions of people can change the world.”
Howard Zinn
Thanks to Sally Cornelius, Sustainability Manager
“Do, or not do. There is no try.”
Yoda
Thanks to Stephen Crowe, Office Manager, Dukes House
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.”
Jane Goodall
Thanks to Andrew Kingston, Senior Digital Marketing Manager
“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
Stephen King
Thanks to Rachida Zahouani, Marketing and Admissions Manager, Radnor House Prep School
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill
Thanks to Stephen Carrington, Head, Radnor House School
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot
Thanks to Anna Aston, Director of Communications
A breath of fresh air in London
Welcome to London Park Schools – an exciting new group of smaller secondary schools that offer a more dynamic, forward-thinking approach to education.
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Dukes Education is a family of nurseries, schools, and colleges in England, Wales, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Croatia and Switzerland. Our schools cater to children from 0-19, serving them from their earliest years at nursery until they leave school to go on to university.
Surrounding our schools, we also have a collection of complementary education offerings — day camps, international summer schools, and university application consultancy services. This way, we create a wraparound experience for every family that joins us.
Dukes Education
58 Buckingham Gate London SW1E 6AJ +44 (0)20 3696 5300 info@dukeseducation.com dukeseducation.com
Founder and Chairman Aatif Hassan
Dukes Board of Directors
Aatif Hassan, Jon Pickles, Mike Giffin, Mark Bailey, Tim Fish, David Goodhew, Glenn Hawkins, Libby Nicholas, Scott Giles, Claire Little, Damian Quinn
Dukes Education Advisory Board
Jenny Aviss, Pam Mundy, Neil Roskilly
Insight Editor-in Chief Tim Fish
Insight Managing Editor Anna Aston
Dukes Education Group Ltd is registered in England and Wales number 09345899. Registered Office 58 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AJ.
