Architect of a transformative educational model
Claire’s pioneering educational model has transformed the way institutions,
teachers and policy-makers approach the education of vulnerable young people, both at home and abroad.
It is Claire’s belief that learning should be a joy and that teaching should foster openness, expressiveness, and should champion each child’s potential. No individual should feel they don’t fit in. Understanding, respecting and shaping an education around the unique emotional
and learning needs of each child is at the heart of Claire’s practice. You can learn more about CLA's educational model here.
Creative and effective strategist
Claire is a pragmatist as well as a visionary. She is not afraid to take bold steps for brighter futures.
It is her ambition to support as many educators as possible to put her creatively-minded, student-centered approach into practice.
She has established an ever-growing, supportive network of experts to readily draw on in any given scenario.
She is a galvanizer of the energies and expertise of the complex of professionals it takes to see a strategy through.
She is equipped with the emotional empathy and global perspective essential for working across diverse bodies and for mastering complex,
seemingly binding frameworks. You can learn more about Claire’s proven track record here.
A Leader for Our Times
Crisis management has been central to Claire’s professional practice. The cataclysmic disruption of the Global Pandemic presents national
and international educators with an opportunity for profound change like never before. Now is the time for radical change,
not only in the way we engage and educate hard to reach young people, but in our approach toward education at large.
For too long, educators have been hemmed in by prohibitive meritocratic league tables and examination systems.
Lockdowns have freed us up to be wildly innovative in our approaches towards engagement, as well as giving us the opportunity
to roam beyond the bounds of the curriculum. Now is the ideal time to radically reassess what we teach,
how it is we teach it, and what we determine “success” to be.
View CLA's services here.
The Story So Far
From mainstream teacher to CEO of a multi-academy trust, Claire’s career
highlights and these case studies tell of her lifelong passion for engaging hard to reach young people,
and for radically changing and shaping the culture of educational institutions for the better.
A history teacher with a passion for engaging each and every student
Creative methods of engaging students have been integral to Claire’s practice as an educator right from the start.
Between 1990 - 1998, Claire taught history at De la Salle’s, a mainstream secondary school in Basildon. As a teacher, Claire firmly believes no student should ever be left behind. It is not good enough if the majority are enthused; Claire strives to find surprising, eccentric ways of ensuring all students are invested in the subject. Dressing-up and role playing historical figures, getting the class to reenact key moments were a part of Claire’s programme of making the past come to life in the present, and proved an effective way of drawing in learners who were disengaged by conventional classroom learning. A number of Claire’s students went on to become history teachers.
Transforming crisis into opportunity
In desperate situations, Claire has a knack for achieving the impossible, for succeeding where other leaders have not.
In 1998, Claire was appointed Deputy Director at Rebound ECD, Medway. Her first duty was to respond to a riot. Sitting at the extreme end of challenging children and challenging staff, City College Manchester (the school with Medway’s education contract) was struggling to maintain control, let alone educate. Building on her success at De la Salle’s, Claire implemented her non-restraint, open door policy. This utterly transformed the culture of the school, moving the emphasis away from punitive, restrictive measures toward a culture of understanding and earned respect.
Claire joined Ian Mikardo High School (IMHS) in Tower Hamlets in 2002, as the 4th headteacher in 9 months. Her radical and creative methods took the school from ‘Special Measures’ to ‘Outstanding’ in just 2 years. Under her guidance, the school has held the award of ‘Outstanding’ ever since.
Replacing punishment with empathy
Claire’s unwavering belief in understanding over punishing is at the heart of her success in transforming critical schools into places where pupils flourish.
At De la Salle’s, Claire’s empathetic approach towards students deemed disruptive led to an additional role in pastoral care. In this role, Claire realised that hard to reach students were best engaged via an approach that seeks to understand and listen, rather than punish and exclude; one that doesn’t restrain, but that teaches students to “check” themselves.
When she first joined IMHS, the ailing school was prison-like, with high fences and locked corridors; the childrens’ stationary and exercise books were kept in safes. Confronted with this punitive, prohibitive culture, Claire felt the pupils deserved a radical new approach, one that respected and empowered them rather than locking them up and shutting them down.
Formalising her educational ethos into a replicable and widely adopted model
Claire’s approach to transforming IMHS led her to develop a
radical, liberal educational framework, ‘The Ian Mikardo Model’
This celebrated model has greatly influenced and changed approaches toward the education of hard to reach young people in mainstream and special education. In 2017, Claire was recruited by Attwood Schools, an education trust for vulnerable young people, on the basis of her transformation of Ian Mikardo High School and for the purpose of making her pioneering education model available to more practitioners and students.
Establishing a multi-academy trust for the education of vulnerable young people
As CEO of T4 Trust, Claire built every facet of this fledgling trust from the ground up.
As well as bringing IMHS to the trust, Claire acquired Wac Arts (now The Arts Xchange), a specialist arts, music and media college for young people, realising T4’s goal of becoming a multi-academy trust. Since 2019, Claire has been the Trust’s visionary and strategist, global manager, accounting officer, and policies and procedures officer. Mentoring the schools’ headteachers has been key, giving them the guidance and confidence to operate within the vision of the Trust, whilst empowering them as leaders and visionaries in their own right.
Claire has instigated, raised funds for, and overseen two major build projects. She has guided the Trust and its schools’ response to the pandemic, ensuring the safety and emotional welfare of staff, students, and wider community. She has instigated and implemented a long term, ongoing strategy to respond to the endemic inequalities highlighted by the BLM movement, and to ensure that T4 is a place of equal opportunity, diversity, and indiscriminate support.
Claire left this role having secured the future of both schools: leaving both with premises they can be proud of; headships that have excelled under her mentorship; and strategies in place for continued excellence and growth.
A celebrated leader at home and abroad
Claire has gained recognition and accolades at home and abroad, for her groundbreaking educational ethos and leadership.
In 2007 she was awarded Urban Leader of The Year, by the National Teaching Awards with the accompanying headline, “A Head of her Time”. In 2008 Claire was recipient of She magazine’s Humanitarian Award, and in 2015, she received the Lord Mayor’s Long Standing Achievement Award.laire is the go-to consultant - for the DofE and the Ministry of Justice, and for schools nationally and internationally - for the development of practice within Special Needs Education and the secure estate.
Internationally, Claire has been consulted by educators and media looking to address systemic issues within their mainstream education. Academics in Norway were delighted to find, via the ‘Too Tough to Teach’ documentary, that a model of education they had theoretically imagined was in many ways being pioneered and practiced by Claire at IMHS. Social commentators in New Zealand have been inspired by Claire’s holistic approach as a means of addressing the high suicide rate amongst children in education in their country.
Building better futures by building better buildings
Claire has initiated, raised funds and overseen a number of ambitious build projects, putting into practice her belief that school spaces ought to reflect a school’s ethos.
Not only did she transform IMHS in her earlier days as head into a creative, joyful space - with discrete areas for reflection, and interconnected, flowing spaces to draw students together - she has since, as CEO of T4 raised Condition Improvement Funds (CIF) for an extension to the school to create a state of the art enterprise cafe.
Claire raised substantial funds to convert a building on City Road, Angel into a high-tech space for The Arts Xchange, the new name for Wac Arts. This state of the art cultural hub is not only a radical rethink of what an educational space should be, it will be the first permanent, purposefully-designed premises the college has had in its 20 year existence. This 1960s building is being opened-up into a cutting-edge, urban space that will showcase installations and digital works by students and local artists. It will offer the best facilities
Celebrated in the media for her educational ethos
Claire’s transformative approach has been widely recognised in the media and influential in changing the culture surrounding the education of vulnerable young people.
Not only did she transform IMHS in her earlier days as head into a creative, joyful space - with discrete areas for reflection, and interconnected, flowing spaces to draw students together - she has since, as CEO of T4 raised 5m for an extension to the school to create a state of the art enterprise cafe.
Whilst head of IMHS, the school was the subject of ‘Too Tough to Teach?’, a 2 part documentary that profiled Claire’s radical non-punitive, creative approach toward teaching hard to reach boys in Tower Hamlets. The response to the programme was overwhelming, as innumerable educators, parents, and donors got in touch to let Claire and her colleagues know the many ways in which they were touched by their methods. Claire also features in print and on radio, sharing her ideas and helping to demonstrate that no child is “too tough to teach”.
