Research School Network: John Barlow

I have worked in secondary education for 16 years across a range of schools in Merseyside, Salford and Warrington, firstly as an NQT in Geography, before holding middle leadership roles as Head of Geography and Head of Humanities, and more recently senior leadership positions in three contrasting schools. I hold a firm belief of education as the greatest tool of social mobility to close the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.

In my current role at Penketh High School in Warrington I lead on teaching and learning, staff development and research. In a relatively short period of time I’ve sought to build a culture of knowledge acquisition amongst teachers so that they are able to refine their classroom habits and practices in order to deliver great lessons and student outcomes. My approach to professional learning is grounded in evidence upon which we can place our best bets for better outcomes for students, which has been validated through rapid improvements in the school in the past 2 years. I have significant experience in whole-school and subject level curriculum improvement, curriculum review, planning and delivering CPD and supporting teachers to get better.

I’m keen to develop myself as a teacher educator so am currently a participant in cohort 3 of Ambition Institute’s Teaching Fellow programme, and I’m also trained as in instructional coach, which drives my belief that instructional coaching is a powerful tool by which to support and develop teacher instruction. I also lead the Geography Hub across our MAT (TCAT) to build collaboration across the geography teams within our group of schools.