Outstanding?

Twenty years ago, I was wrapping up a Master’s thesis that included — what I believed at the time to be — a catchy chapter titled “Effective Schools Need Effective Toilets.” The focus of the research was a popular idea then: that there was a School Effectiveness Rubric (SER) around which you could plan and measure a successful school.

Two decades on — and now completing my third headship — that toilet chapter has unexpectedly returned to mind.

In the thesis, the phrase “effective toilets” emerged from personal research into what was needed to make a private school in Pakistan more effective. The single, recurring challenge? Water shortages that frequently led to school closures. The solution? Get the toilets working — consistently. The insight was simple, practical, and deeply symbolic of a much wider truth: without meeting basic human needs, no framework or curriculum would matter.

Since then, I’ve been privileged to work as a school leader and inspector across an extraordinary range of settings. Purpose-built campuses with gleaming resources and slick marketing. Repurposed homes. Crumbling buildings deep in the jungle, holding their ground against climate and time. Some schools were bursting with iPads and innovation; others operated with intermittent electricity and the resilience of children using their own simple tools.

Within these vastly different environments were children from every walk of life — multilingual, gifted, struggling, cherished, overlooked. These schools have been as diverse as the children inside them.

And yet, each in its own way, has been outstanding.

Not always in the way inspectors or official frameworks might define it. Not necessarily “Excellent” by a checklist of KPIs or test scores. But outstanding in something deeper and harder to quantify — in the way people cared. Cared about learning. About community. About children.

Getting the toilets right still matters. So do the facilities, the curriculum, the tech, and the training. But what truly binds it all together is the culture — the values, commitment, and care shown by the people who show up every day to make learning meaningful and inclusive.