Staff Profile

Champions are not the ones who always win races - champions are the ones who get out there and try. And try harder the next time. And even harder the next time. 'Champion' is a state of mind. They are devoted. They compete to best themselves as much if not more than they compete to best others. - Simon Sinek

In 2018, Bethany has delivered training for the NPQML ‘Leading for Teaching and Curriculum Excellence’ module. She is passionate about teaching and learning both as a classroom practitioner and as a leader. Having worked closely with the teaching school for several years, she has loved developing ITT’s and NQT’s practice so now having the opportunity to support teachers at middle leadership level is really rewarding.

The ‘Leading for Teaching and Curriculum Excellence’ training run by Michael Williams and Bethany focuses on a theoretical understanding of a leading a rich mastery based curriculum alongside exploring a range of practical activities that middle leaders face on a day to day basis. They debate lesson observation and professional feedback, go into classrooms within both a primary and secondary setting and discuss best practice. During the course of the day, they also consider the Ofsted framework and the expectations of middle leaders during inspections. Finally, they explore having challenging conversations and difficult circumstances that can arise on a daily basis and how best to tackle these issues as a middle leader.

Bethany has taught at Harris Primary Academy Crystal Palace for the last 5 years in both KS1 and KS2. The majority of her career has been spent in Year 6 preparing pupils for secondary school and their end of KS2 statutory assessments. At the Harris Federation Annual Conference 2017, she was presented with the award ‘Transforming Lives as a Teacher’.

From 2014 until 2018, Bethany led Mathematics at Harris Primary Academy Crystal Palace. Following the changes to the National Curriculum, she created a new calculation policy and developed a series of medium term plans for the academy. During this time she successfully completed the NPQSL programme where she executed a projected on developing ‘maths mastery’ across the academy in order to raise the attainment levels of our most able pupils. In April 2017 she became Assistant Principal at Harris Primary Academy Crystal Palace where her core leadership responsibilities included: Assessment, Staff CPD, Upper Key Stage 2 and core curriculum design. She joined Harris Primary Academy Beckenham in September 2018 as Vice Principal.

Bethany believes that education is important in life because it gives people the skills and tools they need to navigate the world. We have a duty to equip our students with a broad range of experiences to prepare them for their future. Effective leadership in education is about engaging a whole team to improve educational outcomes – this includes the students who have an integral part in the improvement process which is only achievable by fully engaging them in their own learning.