In this episode, which was recorded just before the coronavirus restrictions were brought in, Claire talks to Katy Cox who is the headteacher at St Matthew’s Catholic Primary School, Bradford. Katy began her headship at the age of 33 and, 15 years in, she continues to seek ways of improving and supporting her staff. She talks about her keen interest in supporting her staff and newly qualified teachers with leadership roles.
Katy talks in detail about the benefits of working in a Catholic partnership and how the support has developed her school and staff. She draws upon her own experience and the opportunities she was provided in her own teaching career and expresses the need to provide the same support to staff now with the on-going changes in education.
In this podcast, Katy summarises her journey through leadership to being a head and a Local Leader of Education. She talks about the advantages and disadvantages of leadership and the various factors that contribute towards it. Furthermore, she discusses how she supports her staff and the opportunities available for all staff to progress within their careers. Drawing upon her experience and practice, Katy expresses the benefits of working in a partnership school and how this has rapidly improved the progression of her school and staff.
KEY TAKEAWAYS

Work as a teamLearning from her teaching experience and headship role, Katy believes it is important to aid and facilitate teachers - including newly qualified teachers - with leadership roles. She discusses how all teachers should be given the opportunity and support to undertake a leadership role irrespective of their teaching experience.
The new OFSTED frameworkAs a head, Katy has developed teams of staff-members for each subject. This allows teachers to support one another with the subject’s pedagogy and development within the school. When the teachers are inspected and questioned (from Ofsted) about their assigned subject, they can support one another within the meetings.
Recruiting teaching assistantsWhen recruiting for teaching assistant posts, Katy actively looks for and advertises for graduates that aspire to be teachers. She then supports them and provides them with classroom experience and encourages them to progress and develop their career path. Many of the staff do eventually enrol on postgraduate teacher training courses that are available through the school’s partnership programme while others pursue other education-based careers. Katy also supports those teaching assistants who do not wish to become teachers by offering other roles and responsibilities which allow for progression such as taking on cover supervisor roles.
Distributed leadershipKaty believes in distributed leadership whereby newly qualified teachers shadow and support experienced teachers and senior leaders with different responsibilities including course subjects. Through this approach, teachers are given the opportunity to develop and expand upon their skills when they are leading their own course subjects. Moreover, this approach can bring out a passion for progression and leadership within newly qualified staff at an early stage as they experience being involved within the team and working alongside leaders.
Working in a partnershipBetween partnership schools there can be a lot of opportunities for professional development for all teachers and staff. Katy believes that the pace with which her school and staff have developed so far, along with the quality of the development opportunities, would not have been possible without this collaboration.
Training leadersStaff are offered training including National Professional Qualification for Middle Leaders (NPQML) and National Professional Qualification for Senior Leaders (NPQSL) through the Catholic school partnership. Other opportunities include working with peer groups within the partnership school.

BEST MOMENTS
“I think it’s really made me think about the teachers that are coming into the career a