Staff Profile

What does your role entail?

I oversee Teacher and Leadership Development, including the Harris Federation Main Provider Status of Apprenticeship Programmes. I am the named person and Designated Safeguarding Lead for the Harris Institute’s Appropriate Body and Apprenticeships. I also lead the three Harris Teaching School Hubs in North-East London, South London, and South Essex representing, all school settings in Basildon, Brentwood, Castle Point, Croydon, Epsom and Ewell, Haringey, Maldon, Redbridge, Rochford, Southend, Sutton, Thurrock, and Waltham Forest.

What are your credentials/experience to your current position?

I am an experienced system leader, harnessing the power of partnerships regionally across London and Essex and nationally with the National Institute of Teaching and the Teaching School Hub Council on ITT, ECF, AB and NPQ Advisory Boards. 

I have spent seventeen years in educational leadership, specialising in professional development, initial teacher training and the English curriculum. I have been a leader of High Challenge Teaching and Learning, a pastoral Head of House, an Assistant Principal in charge of KS3 and Head of a Teaching School Alliance working at the forefront of school improvement, policy change and reforms in schools. I have led organisations through the Ofsted inspection framework to Outstanding and am currently finishing a PhD with King’s College London on Comparing International Perspectives on the Core Knowledge Curriculum.

What is the highlight of your role?

I am passionate about local, school-led improvement and providing attractive career pathways for staff in the profession through the DfE’s Teaching School Hub strategy. I play an active role in Local Authority initiatives including the Essex Disadvantage Strategy, the Essex Year of Reading, and the Thurrock Local Cultural Education Partnership. I am a champion for subject and phase specific expertise and sit on the governance boards of several local Curriculum Hubs and ITT Providers. My work focuses closely on evidence-informed practice, particularly the work of the Education Endowment Foundation on improving the attainment and outcomes for all children. 

Memory is the residue of thought.

Daniel Willingham