Ed Vainker, Executive Headteacher, Reach Academy Feltham - How to improve progress by investing in relationships with families

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In this episode of the We Are In Beta Podcast, Ed Vainker, Executive Headteacher, Reach Academy Feltham, shares his thoughts on:

• How he got into teaching
• How North America influenced his education philosophy
• Why Reach Academy Feltham may never have come to exist
• Why is he reluctant to shout from the rooftops about Reach Academy’s success
• Which strand of work runs through everything they do and which organisations have been pivotal to their success
• An unpopular opinion he has about student attainment data
• How they can afford to timetable teachers to not be teaching to make teachers lives easier
• How this work will be shared with other schools and thousands of trainee teachers
• Why he thinks teachers leaving the profession might actually help the retention
• His latest thinking on offering staff more flexibility
• Which leadership model has been central to improving teaching and learning
• Why two cross sectors training programmes were the best professional development experiences he’s ever had
• What he thinks the school can do better to improve CPD
• How he makes sure the organisations Reach partners with are worth their salt
• Why he’s glad he isn’t a headteacher in France
• Why he is surprisingly bullish about the funding crisis
• How he has reduced costs and increased income for the school
• What one question he would ask every headteacher if he could
• When he had a heart attack in the first year of teaching
• Why he thinks supporting families and communities before students begin school is the key to a bright future in education

To learn more about We Are In Beta head over to: https://medium.com/@WeAreInBeta

To access a full transcript of the interview:https://medium.com/@WeAreInBeta/academic-and-rigorous-or-nurturing-and-cuddly-ab0398d1ee74

Join the conversation and tell us what you think by tweeting @NiallAlcock and @edvainker

To stay up to date with interviews and updates from the We Are In Beta community and access links to all the resources, people and organisations Ed mentions go sign up here