Book review: The A-Z of Independent School Leadership by Guy Holloway
Dr Ian Hopkinson, 2025-10-21
This book is part of a series by Hachette Learning edited by Roy Blatchford on “fun and fundamentals” in leadership and teaching in schools. The A-Z of Independent School Leadership is arranged into two sections, the first is the headline set of A-Z chapters which are short, with headings and bullet points - no long blocks of text here. Each ends with an aside which is a quiz describing a person, book or film, with the answers collected later in the book. The second section is of three short articles on politics, sleep and the case for later starting school days, and finance for school leaders.
Guy Holloway has been involved in teaching and leading schools across the world over 30 years, as well as founding an independent school. He is well suited to writing this book. He sees the independent schools sector as one that needs a champion which fits with the goals of AFIS.
As a parent with a background in data science and middle management I am not the target audience for this book – it is aimed at teachers and school leaders. I do, however, have a child at an online independent school.
I must admit to being slightly sceptical about the A-Z format, how does one build an argument or theme across alphabetically ordered chapters? In retrospect themes do come through as they are repeated in different chapters (the importance of relationship, and the freedom in the independent sector to innovate), the book is not building a coherent argument and the short chapters make handy snack-sized chunks to read in a break.
A-Z provides a snapshot of the independent school sector: many schools are exceedingly small – less than 100 pupils (I wonder how this is financially viable), international education conglomerates are taking over many schools, the British independent school sector is seen as a world leader, the sector feels beleaguered with the recent VAT imposition on school fees and the wider hostile environment for independent schools. Some of the sector is there because it has always been there but parts of it are there are there because they fill a need that the state does not serve – I think here of the online school my son attends, and SEN schools. Independent schools also cover pupils specialising in arts and sports.
Holloway highlights the personal characteristics required of independent school leaders, some of this is pragmatic – organisational skills and at least familiarity with finance. He mentions Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and David Allen's Getting Things Done for time management, and also SWOT analysis and the Belbin framework for team roles – all things that would be part of management in any field.
Some parts of leadership are more emotional in character: charisma, enthusiasm, seeing lessons as a performance. These apply to classroom teachers as well as leaders. I was interested to see how the school environment fits with several of the chapter themes, in some cases it is prosaic – a well-kept school draws in potential customers and convinces them of your financial viability but in other cases it reflects a school’s culture and values, not just things on display to reflect syllabus targets.
I suspect one would write very much the same thing for state school leaders and teachers. By my reckoning about two thirds of the book would have applied equally to schools in the state sector. The first chapter on Advertising would no doubt have been replaced by Attendance! However, in the independent sector there is more scope for individuality in leadership and teaching.
Into every book some rage should slip, for me this was in the chapter on Latin. I think the key fact for me was that Latin is taught at 2.7% of state schools at KS3 and 49% of independent schools. Holloway makes claims for the benefits of learning Latin (Do you want operating on by a surgeon who has learned Latin or one that has not learned complex grammatical structures?) and attributes “learning to think” to it. I am interested in Latin because I could read Tacitus’s Histories in the original language, but I’m also interested in Arabic because it gives access to the Islamic Empire which linked classical civilisations to the Renaissance in Europe, Chinese because it is utterly different to Western European languages and cuneiform because it gives insights into life thousands of years ago. Perhaps I would also recommend some of the more esoteric computer languages such as Haskell which certainly get you thinking.
Networking with other schools, and collaborative arrangements with state schools is a recurring theme but it seems these days the state sector is little interested in such arrangements. We’ve seen this ourselves with our online school; despite DfE accreditation the local authority and mainstream school wanted nothing to do with them even when they offered a ready-made and economic solution to our son’s attendance difficulties.
As a parent I found this a useful read, independent education is a large financial commitment and being well-informed as a parent is essential.
The A-Z of Independent School Leadership is available to purchase via the AFIS Shopping Centre, from Waterstones and other retailers. Click here to get your copy, and help raise funds for AFIS Schools and Families. Every purchase made via the AFIS Shopping Centre, generates a donation from the retailer, to AFIS, which helps us support AFIS Schools, and their community.
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