1:50pm Sunday 24th January 2010
By Ben Barnett
Two ambitious teachers are gunning for inner-city headship jobs by taking a fast-track course to the top.
Education charity Future Leaders provides training, mentoring and residency places at schools for teachers eager to become heads at schools in deprived communities.
Liverpool-born Luke Sparkes, 31, joined the three-year programme in its fourth year. He gave up his position as head of geography at Dixons City Academy, in Ripley Street, Bradford, to join Future Leaders.
After intensive training, which included support from a former headteacher and a trip to see how charter schools work in New York, he worked alongside the head at Mossley Hollins High School, in Greater Manchester.
A year on, he was appointed assistant principal at the newly-opened Dixons Allerton Academy, in Allerton, Bradford, last summer.
He said: “I thought I was ready for an assistant head’s role but was finding it difficult, so I decided to go through the programme. It’s been testing but enjoyable and the training I received was first class.
“There’s no way I would be in this position without this programme.”
Bradford’s only other successful applicant, Manningham-raised Sajid Hussain, started his residency year at Dixons Allerton Academy, this year. The 37-year-old former Woodhouse Grove pupil and Oxford University graduate ultimately wants to open his own academy school in Bradford.
He said: “I came from an inner-city background and know how difficult it is to get opportunities to succeed in that environment. I want to contribute to the aspirations of people of inner-city backgrounds.”
Future Leaders was set up by a partnership between the National College and children’s charity Absolute Return for Kids in 2006, with the aim of improving life for disadvantaged young people. It also aims to address the gender and ethnicity imbalance of head teachers.
Participants and residency schools are recruited from Yorkshire and Humber, London, the North West and the West Midlands.
Interested peoples can find out more about the programme at an information session at Crowne Plaza, in Wellington Street, Leeds, on Thursday. To attend, register online at future-leaders.org.uk. For more information, call 0800 822 3783.
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