Former head, co-founder of Future Leaders , and founder of Great Schools Trust. Passionate about using the power of education to advantage the disadvantaged.
United Kingdom
Joined December 2010
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I have adopted a 7 year old mother from a breeding kennels who’s convinced she’s a mountain goathttps://chatgpt.com/s/m_6aeb920f33f48191961d5f9992e5fa88
Iain Hall retweeted
The British Irish Chamber of Commerce bestows Honorary Life Membership on Sir Keir Starmer
🇬🇧 🇮🇪
britishirishchamber.com/2026…
Iain Hall retweeted
NEW: @Keir_Starmer has made his first major intervention since stepping down as prime minister
He urges Europe and Britain not to be “caught asleep” again in the face of rising security challenges, calls for a “common security framework” between the EU and the UK, and warns the Trump presidency is not an “aberration” but a “permanent change”
Starmer says:
“A stronger Europe is vital and the UK must be at the heart of it. Europe has twice been caught asleep - failing to anticipate and prepare for predictable events.
"First when Russia’s attack on Ukraine exposed long-standing European weaknesses on defence and security; and second when President Trump made clear, once and for all, that the US will no longer bankroll our European security. We have to catch up.
“I will say here what I have said to European leaders. This is about responding to a permanent change of affairs, not an aberration of the Trump Presidency. Things will not go back to the way they were before.
“That doesn’t mean the US relationship is no longer important. On the contrary, the military, security and intelligence alliance is far too strong for that. But it does mean enabling Europe to take on far more responsibility for its own defence and security.
“Increased defence spending is a part of that, but the challenge goes far beyond that. We need to build up pan-European co-operation and co-ordination on defence and security - a common security framework as much as a common market. The EU is changing to respond to that, but it cannot be the EU alone when Europe’s periphery is core to its defence.
“Britain must be central to that project. We are one of two nuclear powers. We are a leading NATO member. We have a viable next generation fighter jet programme. And we are pledged to work alongside European allies to guarantee security in Ukraine.
"Ireland and the UK stand side by side in the coalition of the willing and with Ukraine, working together to guarantee and shape the security of our continent. I hope and believe that Britain’s relationship with its friends and allies can and should be strengthened by this urgent and common security project.”
He spoke in Dublin after meeting Taoiseach Micheal Martin and being given an award by the British Irish Chamber of Commerce
Iain Hall retweeted
This is the other side of one school’s high number of suspensions story. The motivation here is so clearly to provide better outcomes for kids who have been failed.
Iain Hall retweeted
Possibly the only reason for constant unjustified attacks on Starmer during his time as PM?
Under his tenure, the CPS authorised charges against various tabloid journalists, editors & public officials for offenses like misconduct in public office+ perverting the course of justice
Iain Hall retweeted
(Also with all the original ideas borrowed and adapted from clever people who came before. Don’t know about wonka or Google in enough depth to know if this tracks, but you get the point!)
Iain Hall retweeted
Unlocked has spent 10 years trying to solve problems which at times felt pretty close to impossible. Now, after ten years and to mark our closure, we are sharing all our learning!
Like Willy Wonka opening the factory, or Google sharing their top secret search algorithm, but the public sector / prison reform / learning science / early career recruitment / policy nerd version…
unlockedgraduates.substack.c…
Iain Hall retweeted
If we put episodes of They Behave For Me on youtube, would you watch them there?
I don't really understand how people consume podcasts on YT. Do you literally sit and watch them? Or are they like on in the background?
Iain Hall retweeted
👇🏻🙌
I’ve launched my landmark dataset: The Childhood Lottery.
Huge thanks to my panel - Minister @Georgia_Gould; Prof Peter Fonagy; AC Laurence Taylor, Met; Tim Bowman, GMCA; Joanne McCartney, Dep Mayor London.
The stars were my Youth Ambassadors who expertly grilled the panel.
Iain Hall retweeted
👇🏻
Join me at the launch of my forthcoming report, The Childhood Lottery: The hardest places to grow up in England.
🗓️Mon 19 Oct,
⏲️3-4:30pm
📍One Great George St, London SW1P 3AA
RSVP 👇🏼forms.cloud.microsoft/pages/…
We do not have to wait to make care homes more accountable. A quick first step would be to publish their monthly fees as accommodation and services. That way we can better look at comparative costs
Iain Hall retweeted
Jim Ratcliffe has lost confidence in the world’s 3rd largest innovation economy with two fifths of Europes high growth young companies. Ignorant and ill-informed this tax exile deserves no air time bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm04…
Iain Hall retweeted
Mark Carney, "In the heart of Germany, above Weimar, there is a wooded ridge called Ettusberg. And for decades, Goethe walked, thought, and wrote there. An oak on that ridge came to bear his name, a living monument to the highest ideals of European culture"
"As the 20th century turned dark, that same oak became trapped behind the barbed wire of Buchenwald. A silent witness to humanity's deepest moral failure. Goethe understood that ideals must be fought for, that values do not defend themselves."
"Indeed, at the end of Faust, the old man's last vision is of a free people on free ground. Nödvg, Värdjän, Siegfreiheit. Wie das Leben, de taklik si eroban mus"
"Freedom and life must be earned every single day"
"Every day"
"Every day, not once in 1945 or 1956 or 1989. Every day, including this one."
My take: 1945, 1956 and 1989 are not distant history lessons: they mark Europe’s liberation from fascism, Hungary’s uprising against Soviet rule, and the fall of the Iron Curtain. Carney’s point is that freedom is never something Europe simply achieved and banked forever - it is a choice, a responsibility and, when necessary, a struggle renewed by every generation.
Iain Hall retweeted
Matthew Evans's blog here is characteristically provocative and challenging . At present, schools are disincentivised from taking the toughest students. I don’t know what the policy solutions are. Some tentative suggestions:
All “high performing schools” (and we would have to figure out a definition for that) have to change their admissions policies to fast-track students on free school meals. There are a bunch of schools (like TTA and Reach) that have already done this, and it’s a good thing.
Progress 8 needs to be tweaked to take prior attainment into account. I think p8 is a really good measure - the best we’ve ever had - but the time to tweak it is now before this summer. It makes sense, because we’ve had two years off, so there won’t be a sudden shock to schools’ outcomes if we do it now.
SEND registers: this one’s harder, but at the moment schools can put students on and off the SEND register however they like. This makes it hard to figure out which schools have more and which have less, and to then establish if all schools are doing their bit, or if they are gently dissuading SEND entry. I don’t know how you’d go about doing this personally. Probably pie in the sky, but necessary.
Global improvement in straightforward teaching strategies: I have written about this a lot before, but schools just need to get better at the basics - like behaviour management/policies, delivery of instructions, routinised classrooms etc. A 5% improvement here would have an outsized effect on SEND, NEETs etc. And, in my opinion, there are no intrinsic reasons why it should be out of reach. Every school can improve, most can improve pretty easily.
substack.com/home/post/p-215…
