I was the Deputy Head of Malorees Infant and Junior school, a two-form entry inner city London school. My role as Deputy Head has been to support the federation of the two schools and develop cross site policies around teaching and learning, assessment and curriculum. I have created and managed the implementation of a robust assessment system which ensures teachers are able to accurately assess children formatively and effectively use this date to plan engaging lessons to close the gaps for all groups. I ensure that all children within the school are making at least good progress from their starting points and work with teachers to ensure quality first teaching across the school. Alongside this I lead the Curriculum Teams to ensure that the experiences we are providing our children develop useful skills and in-depth knowledge and so that the link between the data and what happens in the class is clearly understood by all.This strategic role has helped me develop clear targets for individual teachers and the wider school to improve the outcomes for all children, especially the large proportion of disadvantaged and SEN children who attend our school. I have been able to do this through a thorough and robust monitoring and feedback programme and the use of Leverage Leadership to ensure that we are working with a common ethos at the core of what we are trying to achieve. This has involved working with a wide network of schools across the Borough and afar and cultivation of open and honest relationships with all stakeholders and governors.

In my role as Assistant Head I was responsible for the development of Subject leaders of which the school had none. I had to work with new leaders to develop their confidence around leadership and how to use monitoring, observations and data to secure quality first teaching within their individual subjects, using my role as Maths and ICT lead to model. I worked closely with all teachers to develop planning, moving the school away from bought schemes. This enabled teachers to take ownership of their teaching so that children were being provided with range of experiences and lessons were being adapted to meet their needs based on accurate assessment data. My role meant I met weekly with all staff and cultivate open, honest and positive relationships so that we were able to set manageable targets around their monitoring feedback. Alongside this I maintained a full-time teaching role and so was able to model to staff the expectations I was setting.

Within my role as Assistant Head, I was in charge of the rigorous monitoring of KS2 and the implementation of school policies to ensure the schools outstanding expectations where maintained. Through weekly SLT meetings we would set targets and key focus areas and work with our phase teams, and later the whole school, to discuss and develop strategies to implement these ideas. I would use assessment data both formative and summative to identify key areas of need and then work with individual staff to ensure that they were able to adapt and make changes to their classroom practice to close the gaps for all pupils. Furthermore, as NQT Mentor I was able to work closely with talented new teachers and support the development of their own teaching styles and practices.