INSPIRATION AND ASPIRATION
Because of you, this is me
Jaz Ampaw-Farr
Crown House
July 2025
If what you’re looking for in a holiday read is a poignant, inspirational reminder of why you do this job, then look no further. Jaz Ampaw-Farr reveals her heart-rending personal story, singling out the teachers that made a world of difference on her unlikely journey to success. Bound to make you rethink your pupils and your role in their lives.
Outstanding
Steve Baker
Crown House
April 2025
If you missed Stephen Lockyer’s review in these pages recently, then here’s your second chance to get your hands on what is likely to be your most cathartic reading experience this summer. A satirical send-up of the sector by a former school leader with nothing to lose. Maybe you even make an appearance.
TEACHING AND LEARNING
This Much I Know About Truly Great Primary Teachers
This Much I Know About Truly Great Secondary Teachers
John Tomsett
Crown House
July 2025
John Tomsett returns with not one but two books looking at what makes for great teaching. Less emotional and more practical than Ampaw-Farr’s effort, the books draw on Tomsett’s observations of nine primary and eleven secondary teachers to set out what we can all learn from their enthusiasm, skill and dedication. Written with Tomsett’s usual deft touch, it promises to challenge any one-size-fits-all model of classroom approach.
Transforming Your Tutor Time Curriculum
Kirsten Colquhoun
Routledge
July 2025
Scots pastoral lead, Kirsten Colquhoun follows up her successful Practical guide to pupil wellbeing with a set of resources for an often under-utilised part of the school day. The book promises to help more teachers make the most of tutor time’s potential to switch pupils on to learning and create the culture of belonging all schools aspire to.
INCLUSION AND BELONGING
It’s More Than Flags and Rainbows
Ian Timbrell
Crown House
July 2025
With such focus on SEND inclusion in the policy sphere these days, it’s easy to forget other groups still face marginalisation. Indeed, many in the LGBTQ+ community are concerned that wider social trends could be leading to a roll-back in efforts to increase their representation. Here’s the antidote to that.
Creating Belonging in the Classroom
Zahara Chowdhury
Bloomsbury
August 2025
Whether it’s SEND, race, gender, religion or other protected characteristics, the common challenge in tackling marginalisation is the need to have difficult conversations – with pupils, parents and each other. Zahara Chowdhury’s book sets out to help with precisely that, in order to create classrooms where every pupil feels seen, heard and safe.
POLICY AND SYSTEMS
Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools Have Improved Since 2010
Nick Gibb and Robert Peal
Routledge
August 2025
Who better to give the inside account of over a decade of school reforms than the long-serving schools minister who oversaw them almost consistently from 2010 onwards? And who better to co-author it than a teacher whose career has been defined by what those reforms enabled? Agree or disagree with it, this book is set to define the Conservatives’ educational legacy.
Rewilding Education: Rethinking the Place of Schools Now and in the Future
Hilary Cremin
Routledge
July 2025
And for a diametrically-opposed view of what schools could and should be, who better to turn to than the head of Cambridge University’s faculty of education, Hilary Cremin? Here, she calls for ‘a radical, system-wide reinvention of education as an adaptable ecosystem’. Agree or disagree with it, it won’t be enough to dismiss this as the revenge of ‘the Blob’.
DEVELOPMENT AND GROWTH
Coaching with Purpose: Learning encounters for educational change
Rachel Lofthouse, Trista Hollweck, Jasen Booton
John Catt
July 2025
Professor Rachel Lofthouse was making the case for coaching as an effective tool for professional development long before it became the buzzword it now is. Here, she returns to the topic with two esteemed co-authors to set out a variety of approaches that come under the coaching banner, and a range of case studies on its effective use.
Black in School: The Black Teacher’s Guide for Surviving the Classroom
Kemi Oluyinka and Caren Onanda
Sage
October 2024
If you missed this earlier this year, then given all the evidence published since of race-based systemic barriers to the profession, this may be the most useful book you read this summer. That it’s billed as a survival guide says enough. Will you take this chance to move from a culture some survive to one where all can thrive?
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