Six Stranger Blogs
Looking back on some 'biggest hit' blogs of the past year
Have I caught you in that stranger period between Christmas and New Year?
That liminal space where the pace finally slows, but the house feels a little Upside Down, strewn with empty boxes, too much food, and the gentle chaos of a festive aftermath. My family are savouring that pause too. Resting, reflecting, and (like many others) eagerly counting down to the final chapter of a certain television series you may have heard of.
We’re somewhat Stranger Things obsessed in my family. If you’ve somehow avoided it, here is my spoiler-free snapshot. Set in the 1980s, a group of young kids uncover something deeply wrong beneath the surface of their small town. What unfolds across the seasons is a brilliant mix of coming-of-age storytelling, unsettling horror, and affectionate nods to 80s pop culture. Mix tapes, board games, Pac-Man, and an iconic soundtrack that feels as much a character as the kids themselves.
For a child of the 80s, it gives me goosebumps and nostalgia in equal measure. Even better, my teenage daughter has embraced it too and now believes at least one thing about her dad is ‘trendy’, the fact that I once owned some of the same gadgets and listened to the same music as the Stanger Things kids.
Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill became the show’s unexpected anthem, used almost like a defence against the dark arts by characters in the series. The hit climbed back up the charts hill and secured the number one nearly four decades after its original release, all because of Stranger Things. As much as I love the characters and story arcs, I do wonder how much of my enjoyment is rooted in looking back; enjoying a sense of pausing to appreciate what came before. It takes me back to making mix tapes, waiting for the Top of the Pops countdown, hoping to catch the track at just the right moment. My kids will never get this with their access to a world of streaming!
As advent doors close and new year ones open with 2026 on the horizon, I’ve taken a pause here too. It seems like a good time to hit the pause button and to reflect on the posts in this Substack that resonated most over the past year. The things that found an audience, sparked interest, and got the most hits. The beauty of Substack is that it’s really easy to get this data behind-the-scenes and find out what lands best with readers.
Some of them were surprises to me. The strange thing about some of these blogs is that you never know exactly what will resonate most with your readers. I am appreciative of the fact that you read them at all and that they have, at times, helped to shape thinking in schools and other contexts. The feedback is appreciated.
On that note, thank you for reading, sharing, and engaging. As we continue to confront the very real and growing challenges of poverty and inequality in our own towns and communities, it matters that we notice the good, point out the progress, and leave space for hope. To the many individuals and organisations working every day to make a difference in this Upside Down world of distorted fairness and equity, thank you. You’re shaping and sharpening my insights on these topics.
I’ll keep running up that hill with you, no matter how steep.
Navigating the upside down
This first blog is a reflection on how opportunity, privilege, and place are experienced long after the door first opens. In it, I draw on personal experience, professional practice, and time spent in spaces often associated with advantage. It’s more of a personal piece from me, but one which appears to have resonated when I see the number of hits on it.
If you care about inequality, education, social mobility, or simply about creating places where people can genuinely belong, not just arrive, then this blog invites you to look again at the doors you’re building and ask who they really serve.
Seeing red
I unintentionally coined a phrase while giving evidence to the Education Select Committee earlier this year. Without rehearsal, the words furiously curious slipped out. The phrase has since been picked up by me and by others as a way of naming something many of us feel but rarely articulate, the anger, frustration, and deep unease we hold about inequality.
This next blog is a reflection on that tension. It explores why feeling angry about poverty is not a failure of composure but often a rational and human response to systems that continue to fail children, families, and communities. Rather than suppressing that anger, or allowing it to harden into cynicism, the piece argues for something more demanding. It calls us to become furiously curious.
But, anger alone is not enough. I think frustration can ignite concern, but curiosity can help to sustain change. If we want to challenge inequality meaningfully, we must move beyond simply being angry or frustrated, and commit to asking better questions, listening deeply, and understanding the systems we are trying to change.
Beats of belonging
Adoption is both a personal and profoundly important narrative in my own life. As an adoptive parent, I carry a strong sense of responsibility to get the tone and substance right whenever I write about it. This next blog reflects on adoption, belonging, and the responsibility schools have to see the child behind the label. Drawing on research, professional practice, and lived experience, it explores why adoption is never a single story and why assumption can be one of the greatest barriers to meaningful support. I intended it for anyone working with children and families who wants to move beyond policy and good intentions, towards empathy, nuance, and environments where every child can genuinely belong.
Strange places
There’s something strangely familiar about the places in Stranger Things. Not all of them, I didn’t grow up navigating tunnels of evil or dodging monsters. But I did spend time in arcades, surrounded by the glow of cabinets, the bleeps of Pac-Man, and the clatter of loose change dropping into the machine. Those details linger because place does that to us, it carves memories of sights, sounds and the surreal. Some of the time I spent watching others play because I’d run out of loose change, but it still carries with it happy memories.
In this next blog, I reflect on place and the responsibility we carry when we work in communities that are not just contexts to be analysed, but spaces to navigate and belong. Rooted in the North East, the blog briefly weaves into it history, inequality, and lived experience to explore why place is never owned, fixed, or shaped by one organisation or leader alone. If you care about poverty, civic leadership, and working with communities rather than over them, this is an invitation to think more humbly about place, and consider what it really means to navigate it together.
To me, place isn’t something we make, it’s something we navigate. I explore this idea further in the blog. Thanks especially to North East Bylines for picking this piece up and publishing it.
Superhero fatigue
Earlier this year, I published a blog reflecting on capes, masks, and other superhero attire. Superhero Fatigue has struck a chord, particularly with those working in education, leadership, or social justice. It challenges the myth of the heroic ‘super head’ and the burnout that comes from believing a single person or agenda alone can fix systemic issues like inequality. Drawing on research, professional experience, and playful comic-book parallels, I wanted to make a compelling case for moving beyond ego-driven leadership toward collaboration, expertise, and a deeper understanding of place and poverty. For anyone committed to meaningful, sustainable change, without exhausting themselves or the communities they serve, hopefully this piece offers insight, reflection, and a healthier way to think about impact.
Give it a read and consider hanging up your cape with me.
Learning up that hill
As mentioned, earlier this year I had the privilege of representing children and colleagues from Tees Valley Education in front of the Education Select Committee (you can catch up on what I shared here).
I shared the principles, mental models, and practical approaches that have shaped our place-based curriculum, designed to support children both in and beyond the classroom. Much like a compelling series, think Stranger Things or any great bingeworthy drama, a curriculum needs a guiding thread. For us, that thread is equity.
In this series of blogs, and as preparation for the aforementioned appearance, I sought to capture the key learning of what it means to create a poverty- and place-informed curriculum, one that invites all children to belong, especially those facing hardship and poverty-related barriers to learning. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but a summary of the principles, practices, and ideas that underpin what I think it means to have an inclusive curriculum design and delivery in schools.
If you enjoyed these insights, please share them with others!
It helps me keep this Substack running…
If things are busy right now, just bookmark or save them for later, like curating your own favourites mix tape of ideas to revisit when you need them. I can’t promise to be a Kate Bush, but hopefully they provide a source of curiosity and learning for you and others.
