Welcome to ManxMaxim
Built for leadership.
Happens to do it in schools.
Writing on how leadership actually works, what stays human as the tools get better, and what education has to become.
ManxMaxim is Max Kelly. A senior leader with substantial experience across multiple schools, and a record of turning strategy into results that hold.
Choose where to start
Leaders
Leadership is the most important variable in any organisation. Thinking out loud about what great leadership looks like, and what it demands of the people who practise it.
Human Edge
AI is changing everything. The leaders who matter most will be the ones who understand what the tools cannot replace. Judgement, discernment, relationships, nerve.
Eduvators
Most schools are still preparing children for a world that no longer exists. Curriculum reform, system change, and what education needs to become.
Series
All of the writing here runs in sequences. Read an argument from the beginning instead of meeting it halfway.
Start here
The posts that explain the thinking
Years of extensive content is a lot to walk into. If you read nothing else, read these.
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The Cost Nobody Measures
At the O2 this week I watched Ariana Grande get lifted above twenty thousand people on rigging that gets load-tested and certified before every…
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Keep Moving
Tower Bridge looks ceremonial. A panel inside points out that if it stopped operating, London’s traffic would stop with it. Governing bodies look ceremonial…
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The Invisible Leaders
Front of house, PA to the head, finance, comms, safeguarding admin, the furious parent and the frightened one. That’s a school administrator on a…
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Promoted for the Wrong Thing
Somebody is a very good teacher, so we make them a leader. Then we assess them on their subject data and never check the…
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The Leadership Nobody Looks At
Twenty or thirty people are leading something in your school today. Subject leaders, the office, site managers, the SENCo. Inspection judges the head and…
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Education: Extinct. The Overhead Projector
Hot dust and warm plastic. Acetate pens that squeaked. A bulb that always went mid-lesson and a spare that was never where it should…
Latest writing
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The Cost Nobody Measures
At the O2 this week I watched Ariana Grande get lifted above twenty thousand people on rigging that gets load-tested and certified before every show. Leadership…
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Keep Moving
Tower Bridge looks ceremonial. A panel inside points out that if it stopped operating, London’s traffic would stop with it. Governing bodies look ceremonial too, and…
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The Invisible Leaders
Front of house, PA to the head, finance, comms, safeguarding admin, the furious parent and the frightened one. That’s a school administrator on a Monday morning,…
Toolkits · No. 01
The Difficult Conversations Toolkit
Preparation, scripts and templates for the conversations school leaders lose sleep over. Built from ten years of having them.
More toolkits
The rest of the shelf
The First 100 Days
Twenty pages for anyone stepping into their first headship. The predecessor conversation, your first words to staff, and two printable templates.
THE SCHOOL POLICY HANDBOOK
A comprehensive how-to on auditing, writing and maintaining school policies, including ten model policies to adapt. For leaders who know the folder needs sorting and want a method for doing it.
Coming next
Helping leaders who run schools. Delegation without abdication, building an operating model across sites, and developing Heads of School who can carry it.
One post, straight to you
New writing as it publishes, and first look at every toolkit before it goes on sale.
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