Most heads are rubbish at recognising their genius

This is so true.

Over the last few months I've visited about 25 superb schools - maintained and academies - and have been overwhelmed with admiration for what schools are doing:

- The school in Birmingham where the head has worked out how to get into the Somali communities and Bangladeshi communities and get them working together for the benefit of their kids. He's got Aston Villa and Birmingham International Airport working alongside him and his team.

- The top team in Hemel Hempstead where home school links start pre reception and have created the best example of parents supporting the school of any I have come across.

- The academy in Huddersfield where they could only give me an example of one student becoming NEET in recent years, because their 'beyond school' programme has been so effective.

- The primary in Folkestone where the number of pupils getting level 6 in Maths is huge, and where the whole school curriculum is centred on getting children to ask questions, from when they first start in Reception.

I have taken with me one of the  senior researchers from The Key, who has joined my two-hour interrogation of the head to dig down into what the school has done to discover how they can advance learning.  The researcher then writes up a number of case studies and publishes them within answers to questions from school leaders, thereby making them available to the other 40,000 school leader members of The Key.

Each month I feel more and more privileged to be working with so many school leaders - heads, deputies, business managers, SENCOs - who are doing amazingly creative things for their children and young people.

Stop reading the newspapers: they only focus on bad stuff

Remember: what you are doing is of absolutely huge value to our children, our young people and through them, society as a whole.

Keep encouraging your staff with your vision.

And - if you want to tell the world, we'll help you at The Key, if you will invite me to visit...fergal.roche@thekeysupport.com