In this episode, Luke speaks with Alex Atherton, former headteacher and current HEP Improvement Partner and leadership coach. In the first part of the interview, Luke speaks to Alex about the way he landed his headship at quite a young age, and to see if he thought that journey was replicable nowadays. They also cover key themes of privilege and how education has changed (especially in terms of technology, data, and the focus of schools).

One key topic that continually came up is how skills developed by education professionals in their field are very translatable to other fields, despite that not usually being the perception. Heads and teachers deal with multiple management, behaviour, psychological, and administrative issues every day. When they look for jobs outside of school, they fail to realise how much their experience is worth.

In the second part of the interview, we find out more about what Alex is doing now, specifically about leadership coaching and his work concerning Gen Z. They again discuss translatable educational skills, change over time and how to deal with an increasingly multi-generational workforce.

If you're interested in finding out more about Alex's leadership coaching, follow this link: https://www.alexatherton.com/

To read the accompanying blog post head to the HEP Insights page: https://haringeyeducationpartnership.co.uk/hep-insights/