John Finlayson Email & Phone Number

My work is underpinned by an obsession with meeting the needs of young people that are hard to reach. I have a triple allegiance to people, place and system. Work and effort must be practical with discernable outcomes that make a difference to young people's lives - often where there has been no prior sustained-engagement or progress.I moved from a career in finance to train as an English teacher in my mid-twenties, to develop as a behavioural and SEND specialist within mainstream secondary education. I took on a headship of a small independent school in 2014 to quickly develop it into an oversubscribed specialist provision catering only for young people who had experienced multiple exclusions or custody. After receiving an outstanding judgement for leadership from Ofsted in 2018, I took on an executive headship role to set up another independent school and support the leadership capacity of newly-appointed school leaders and SENCos. In 2020, my role broadened within the same organisation to encompass the responsibilities of the Responsible Individual to support the setup and leadership of children's homes - both through registration processes, and setting up systems to ensure ongoing compliance and upskilling of the workforce. Alongside leading and training on safeguarding across schools & homes, I consult on leadership capacity and sustained partnership development. I also continue to work one-to-one on occasion with the most challenging young people in our contexts. This allows me to keep my approach intrinsically young-person centred - in authenticity, empathy, collaboration, engagement, and innovation.Across education and children's residential care, all regulated projects have been successful at their initial registrations and all have received at least good in inspections from respective regulatory bodies.https://twitter.com/JohnTFinlayson

Listed skills include Teaching, Leadership, Staff Development, Human Resources, and 7 others.