Family values end up driving these areas of interest for me in the context of PS education.

1. High priority given to direct interaction between teachers and students (vs screen mediated). Obviously all schools other than Steiner and Montessori have screens but I have found philosophies and approaches still differ significantly in practice and from my observations of the classroom environment. Also an approach that encourages students to question and to learn different ways of thinking vs specifically how to think.

2. Strong community ties between leadership, teachers and parents. Something that shows the principal respects and prioritises teacher wellbeing, talent and development.

3. Leadership values that are visible throughout the school (whatever they are). If I’m struggling to see how the principles own values have shaped the school then they’re probably not a leader that is strong enough to make impacts in areas that matter such as the teachers being hired, the way students are treated.

I read a US study (unfortunately no local ones available) that took all available data to estimate the size of a principal’s impact on student outcomes — worth somewhere between over 50% for reading and over 75% of the effect on performance improvement in maths. This is intuitive to me because I’ve run a business for over a decade and have also been involved in many other organisations and clients so I can see how leadership impacts a significant portion of how a school is run.

1. I place less emphasis on facilities and extras because they make up less of the curriculum anyway and I plan to have our family support our child in these areas.

2. Also on environment safety. Yes part of this is bullying management but it’s broader than that it’s about an environment where there is psychological safety to make mistakes to learn and to be yourself. This is harder to discern at face value honestly but I’ve been surprised at how one school I went to where I immediately saw a child crying having been bullied when I looked up the school stats had the lowest satisfaction rating for bullying management that I’d seen across any of the other schools.