We believe that it is important to invest in and equip leaders and that is what we aim to do.
One of the books that started to shape PiXL at its inception was The Four Disciplines of Execution by Covey et al. That book contains some approaches which PiXL have adapted for use in school leadership. We know that the execution is as important as the vision, and we have leadership tools to help you do that.
At PiXL, we believe in the importance of setting a Wildly Important Goal (WIG), doing a pre-mortem, addressing leadership behaviours which will help you achieve the WIG, and personalised support for you to get there. Leadership is about creating buy-in from stakeholders, creating winning moments and a culture of celebration of what has been achieved, as well as getting the balance between high care and high challenge. In every national conference, PiXL Specialist meetings and online networking sessions, you will hear the messages about leadership coming through. If we want to have the impact that we desire in our schools, for the sake of our young people, then our leadership is key.
Leadership development
There are many different leadership development opportunities that you can access as part of your subscriptions such as:
Partnership with leadership authors and thinkers
We think it is important that we sharpen our own thinking on leadership by reading the latest thinking and research in this area. We are delighted to be working with renowned leadership authors and speakers such as Matthew Syed, Steve Munby, Jaz Ampaw-Farr, Damian Hughes and Ethan Kross.
The School of PiXL Leadership
We offer leadership development opportunities as part of the subscription and further additional opportunities at an extra cost.
As part of the subscription, all PiXL schools have access to a range of courses to support leaders at all levels, at no extra charge.
Please see a message from Rachel Johnson (PiXL CEO) below that summarises our enhanced offer for 2025-26.
PiXL Podcasts
1. PiXL Pearls
Reflection is an important part of leadership, so we provide you with PiXL Pearls. These are short reflections about leadership. We have four full series ready for you to catch up on, with new episodes coming soon! Available wherever you enjoy your podcasts.
2. The PiXL Leadership Bookclub
This podcast has also been hugely popular. If you would like to hear how school leaders have taken non-educational leadership books and used them in their contexts, then click the title and listen.
It is my absolute pleasure to lead the School of PiXL Leadership. At PiXL, we believe that leadership is at the heart of everything. The ability to lead determines so much in schools: how decisions are made, how bought in people feel, how clear people are and how change is created and implemented. Leadership is not just about leading others though. It is also about how we lead ourselves and how we lead our own change, how we
self-reflect and how we can be at our best, more of the time.
The School of PiXL Leadership exists to make these things explicit through the courses that we run, each one of them going into both the theory and the practical elements of leadership and then applied to a school context. We look outside education to draw upon key research and evidence from psychology and business. These are people-centred courses so will challenge you to consider how you lead against the values and perspective that you currently hold across all aspects of life, including work.
Due to the popularity of the courses in 2024-25, with over 3000 delegates registered, we have made the decision to make 6 of our courses part of the PiXL Offer for all schools free of charge. We also want to stay agile and relevant in the topics we cover and so there will be some additional courses for a small cost that any of your staff can dip in and out of.
The courses we run are adaptive, take live feedback and seek to bring research and insight into the issues that no one else is talking about. They are moments for connection, self-reflection and for finding clarity outside the noise of the day job. There is laughter as well as learning.
We look forward to welcoming you to a course soon.
Rachel Johnson, CEO
What people say
In a world of uncertainty, PiXL continues to show its true worth to schools across the nation. The integrity and humility with which the organisation works are quite unique in the world of education support and their drive to focus on the best for our young people is indubitable. Constantly offering support in key areas where the need is greatest, PiXL continues to be the greatest source of support imaginable.
Headteacher, PiXL Secondary school
PiXL provides a reassuring touchstone, and never more has that been so important to school leaders. PiXL is populated with like-minded and motivated colleagues who give due thought and consideration about how to best approach the myriad of decisions school leaders take every day. I’ve worked with PiXL for 8 years now and every meeting leaves me inspired to try new ideas, reassured about things my school is doing well and resolved to continually do better for the young people in my school.
Headteacher, PiXL Secondary school
I can honestly say this has been one of the instrumental factors in our success story. The ideas, resources and expertise, which has been so willingly shared by the whole PiXL team, has enabled our Sixth Form to continually change and radically improve. Every single meeting has been packed with fresh ideas and practical tips to help students thrive, both academically and also as a well-rounded individual.
Headteacher, PiXL Post 16 school
Post-16 support and resources are top quality — the adaptability of resources makes tailoring them to your students straightforward. The PiXL team are always open to suggestions and strive to ensure hard-working and innovative staff have a support base. They inspire teachers of all levels of experience.
Senior Leader, PiXL Post 16 school
PiXL is more than just a network of schools; it is a welcoming organisation, with highly experienced people, offering unparalleled professional support and CPD. PiXL will continue to improve the education system and culture of the schools, Sixth Forms and colleges who introduce and embed their strategies, as it has already.
Senior Leader, PiXL Post 16 school
As a member, PiXL provides our school with a wealth of professional development opportunities and high-quality resources for all areas of the core curriculum. Their approach of diagnosis, therapy, testing and revisiting enables us to easily identify children’s next steps on a one-to-one, small group and whole-class basis and then tailor our interventions and whole-class teaching to fill their gaps.
Executive Headteacher, PiXL Primary school
I trust my leaders with PiXL: PiXL leadership moves with the times and develops all tiers of leaders, ranging from my new middle leaders to my most experienced Heads of School. It has inspired them to question and challenge themselves, whilst holding their hand and supporting their next steps.
Headteacher, PiXL Post 16 school