Leadership Lemonade: A model of national and international collaboration to turn crisis management into new opportunities

This articles was first published as part of a global conversation on the future of teaching. It's been a tough year for optimists. Granted, it's been a really tough year for everyone. But optimists have been hit pretty hard in all of this. Politics, the COVID-19 pandemic and the guilt and uncertainty around class closures and reopening have tested even the most fervently optimistic school leaders. When the world started shutting down and UK schools abruptly closed the majority of their classes in April 2020, big dreams and strategy were replaced with short-term operational triage. Whichever way any of us looked at it, there really didn't seem to be much of an upside. Children and school communities everywhere looked to school leaders for certainty. But who could school leaders turn to for support? To address this gap, Bond and Coyne, an award-winning creative strategy agency, introduced two former headteachers, Karine George and myself, Alex Bell; each of us regarded nationally