School Improvement Episode 19: Being a new school leader

My guest today is someone I originally discovered on Twitter. Craig Heeley is an educator living in Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England, and this year he landed his first ever Head Teacher role at Lemington Riverside Primary School. Over the past few months, he’s been sharing his experiences in the new Head Teacher role on Twitter, and he’s been mustering up lots of engagement and encouragement from educators around the world that are keen to follow his journey. I catch up with Craig in today’s podcast to talk more about the strategies he’s employed to get to know the staff, parents and students in his school community. We also chat about navigating challenges as a school leader, the role of mentoring and what he’s looking forward to most about the coming year. Before we launch into the discussion though, I ask Craig to give listeners a brief overview of his career as an educator and how he came to be Head Teacher at Lemington Riverside Primary School.