Alison Moore

I am currently Head of English at ‎Park View School, where I have taught for the past 9 years. I find my job very rewarding, as I delight in seeing staff and students exceed their goals. I consider myself to be a reflective practitioner and throughout my career I have always continued to develop my own knowledge and expertise. My role has provided me with the opportunity to learn from others; I believe it is a privilege to be invited into someone’s classroom and to share in staff development. One of the most rewarding experiences for me has been in developing a strong and cohesive English team; a team I am immensely proud of.

Wendy Pattison

I am currently the Business Director at Framwellgate School Durham, and was previously Business Manager at Sandhill View School in Sunderland. I previously managed a team of finance liaison officers for Sunderland City Council, supporting financial management in 118 maintained schools. My personal caseload included schools in difficulties. I have worked very closely supporting head teachers, governing bodies and school based finance staff across all sectors. Being a senior leader in a school environment since 2009 has broadened my overall knowledge, and enriched my skill base, providing me with the expertise needed to be an S.L.E. in the area of financial management. I have also been fortunate enough to work in both a maintained school, and now academy which allows me to offer support throughout the sector.

Justin Peel

My first teaching post was at Queen Elizabeth High School, Hexham, where I eventually secured the positions of Deputy Head of Sixth Form and Head of Chemistry. In 2003 I moved, as Director of Science, to a Sunderland school where I eventually became Deputy Head. I joined Harton Academy in September 2010 and as an advanced skills teacher and lead practitioner have carried out considerable outreach work within the authority and was designated as an SLE in January 2012. I have since become a member of the leadership team at the academy where my main responsibilities are Assessment Reporting and Recording and Teaching and Learning. I have also been lead facilitator for the SLE core training since 2015.

Stephen Pickersgill

I have been teaching since 2003 and I am currently Assistant Head teacher at Mortimer Community College and teach PE. I am responsible for assessment and teaching across the school and oversee the Teaching and Learning Development Programme (TLDP) which I devised. I also lead the departments of English, MFL, Art, Dance, Drama, Music and PE. In my role as PE LIG co-ordinate I have had an opportunity to work with all schools across South Tyneside developing teaching and learning in PE. The developments in teaching and learning have been supported by the organisation of appropriate CPD. I was designated an SLE in January 2012

Lynne Swan

I have been teaching for twenty six years, eighteen of them at Harton Academy. I was Head of English for ten years, before becoming an AST. In this role, I have worked with a number of schools and with students from the age of nine to sixteen to promote the development of teaching and learning. As well as being appointed as an SLE I have recently been accredited as an Outstanding Facilitator by the National College and will be delivering the Improving Teacher Programme to colleagues in the North East.

Sophie Biais

I have attended local network meetings where I participated in organising focus groups on sharing and leading ‘Outstanding’ practice. Supporting new and existing leaders of English and Media Studies has been a key aspect of my role as AST. This typically involves providing support with schemes of learning, progress, classroom management and learning resources.

Dawn Gill

To come

Lori Gilleece

I began my teaching career in 2002, at Harton Technology College. After 5 years I moved schools to become a 2nd in department and then again to Jarrow School in 2010, where I became Mathematics Subject Leader. In my time as Subject Leader the maths A*-C results saw a rise from 47% to over 75% and those students making expected progress rose to 80%. I believe that this is largely due to effective intervention, tracking and monitoring. I have helped a number of subject leaders, both internally and externally, with focussed intervention strategies. I have also helped to implement effective and efficient assessment and QA systems. In 2015 I became a Senior Teacher with responsibilities that include whole school data analysis including RAISEonline and SISRA analytics. In 2016/17 I became Assistant Head Teacher with responsibilities including timetable, curriculum, data and targets. I was designated as an SLE in December 2012.

Jonathan Heath

I am currently Deputy Headteacher at High Tunstall College of Science and have a wide range of responsibilities, but specialise in curriculum design, teaching and learning, CPD and leadership development. High Tunstall has seen a dramatic improvement in the quality of provision over the past few years and much of this is down to the emergence of a highly effective middle leadership team that I have supported through the development of systems around quality assurance, self-evaluation and performance management.
Prior to my current post I was assistant Headteacher at Mortimer Community College in South Shields and before this was Head of English at Ponteland High School. Overall I have been teaching English for 17 years and still find this element of my job the most rewarding.
School to school support is central to improvement and I have been lucky enough to be involved in this as an SLE, but also more recently I was seconded as Interim Executive Headteacher at James Calvert Spence College in Northumberland to oversee the transition to new leadership and put in place systems and practices to help the federation move forward.
School improvement is also driven by quality CPD and as well as overseeing the programme at HTCS I arrange training across phases for our partnership and other schools and in addition to this I am currently delivering the NPQSL programme.
My belief is that every child has the opportunities and support they need to succeed and that this is best achieved through quality teaching, quality curriculum and quality leadership.

Claire Heslop

I have been in teaching for ten years, working previously in pharmaceuticals. I began at Stanley School, transferring to Park View to experience sixth form teaching. I have had leadership responsibility as Head of Year and Head of Biology /Second in Science and am currently Head of Science; a large and successful faculty. Through Leadership Pathways I implemented Guy Claxton’s Building Learning Power across sixth form teaching and in to Science practice. I have conducted learning reviews in many schools locally and regionally, assisting and advising on the transformation of teaching and learning. Most recently I worked alongside the science leadership team at Nunthorpe School under the “Gaining Ground” project and was designated SLE in January 2012. With an adventurous spirit, I led a team of thirty one sixth form biologists and staff in 2012 on a Honduras expedition conducting environmental survey work.

Sir Ken Gibson

Sir Ken has worked in education for almost forty years and has experience of running schools for students aged four to eighteen. For the past sixteen years Sir Ken has been the Head Teacher at Harton Academy in South Shields. He continues to teach mathematics despite having been drafted in by the Department for Education to support other extremely challenging schools over the past nine years. Sir Ken spent three years as Executive Head Teacher at Jarrow School in South Tyneside. When he left in December 2012, Jarrow School gained outstanding judgments for Leadership and Behaviour. Sir Ken then became Executive Head Teacher at Academy 360 in Sunderland which he continued to support for three years. The most recent school support was when Sir Ken was appointed Consultant Head Teacher at Boldon School in South Tyneside for a term.

Harton Academy has been judged as outstanding since 2006 and in 2009 featured in Ofsted’s national publication entitled ‘Twelve Outstanding Secondary Schools – Excelling Against the Odds’. Harton has been a National Support School since February 2010 and Sir Ken was designated a National Leader of Education (NLE) at the same time. In addition, Harton became one of the first cohort of 100 National Teaching Schools in September 2011. Harton Academy has supported eleven schools in the local area and has been the training school for Specialist Leaders in Education (SLEs) for the past seven years. Sir Ken is now working as the Lead Educational Adviser for the Premier League and is a member of the Premier League Educational Advisory Board.

Sir Ken was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2013 for services to education and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Sunderland University in July 2016.

David Amos

Having started my career at Harton, I returned in September 2010, where I am a deputy head teacher. I have supported two other schools during the last five years. In both of these schools, I supported the development of systems and processes to facilitate leadership and management. I started teaching in 1993; my subjects are French & German, although these past three years have seen me teaching GCSE English, as well as A Level French. I worked as MFL subject leader for around 12 years in three different schools, before becoming assistant head and later deputy head teacher of St Wilfrid’s RC College, South Shields. Over recent years, I have developed schemes of work, performance management and staff INSET structures, as well as leading a neighbouring school to a successful Investors in People review. I have led many whole-school HR issues, SEF and SIP writing, and have also co-led Academy 360 through significant changes with Sir Ken Gibson. I am now back at Harton in a full-time capacity, and support the leadership of all facets of Teaching School, including the running of School Direct and the delivery of many aspects of School Direct training. I am also delivering SLE training to newly appointed SLEs within the Northeast of England.