Jumping Out of the Window

We put our faith in Britain’s educators to teach our children the Three Rs. But what if they could teach us as well?

Jonathan opens up about life as a teacher, and in the process teaches some important lessons about leadership for everyone.

From a knife flying across the classroom to outstanding inspection results, Jonathan has helped turn around four major schools from inadequate inspection reports, to being excellent in all areas.

This isn’t theory, this is the story of a life, with tales from a varied and successful career. It certainly doesn’t pull any punches. Jonathan has taught in tough state schools and one of the best independents in the country. During that time, he encountered brilliant students with terrible parents, terrible students with brilliant parents, incompetent governors and mad headteachers. Join him as he talks about undercover operations in school, mafia gangs, false accusations, and the excitement of working with young people in some of the most difficult, as well as some of the most prestigious schools in the world. Through it all, there are leadership lessons for everyone, taken from the place everyone has experience of: their high school.

There’s no rocket science in taking a school through to excellence. Through the lens of an educator, Jonathan offers practical and honest examples of how to develop leadership in yourself and in others and this book shows exactly how to do it.

Jonathan has survived knives being thrown across the classroom, a pupil jumping out of a window and overseen the confiscation of a Porsche. He has been in leadership positions with failing schools as well as some of the best in the country. Jonathan has taught the children of kings and presidents, along with those from deprived housing estates in the UK in both state and independent sectors. The international school he headed in Canterbury was rated by inspectors as excellent in every area. He finished his career as headteacher of a prestigious British school in central Asia which was rated as having top international practice in seventeen out of nineteen areas.

His schools also have won the Boarding School of the Year Award from the Times Educational Supplement along with awards for excellence and innovation. His school was shortlisted for UK Independent School of the Year, and gained the International Schools Award. Jonathan has won two Global Business Excellence Awards and has been shortlisted for a wide range of other awards. He is also a published writer and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2014 for services to education.

Underneath it all, he has championed student voice, working closely with staff and treating others with dignity and respect. Jonathan has risen above false safeguarding allegations, ill health and the challenges of turning around failing schools, and is able to smile and count himself incredibly fortunate to have had a career working with so many amazing people.