Rod Weatherhead
Rod is a School Improvement Partner working with primary schools in Bradford, Bury and Manchester. He was the headteacher of Heybrook Primary School in Rochdale for twelve years and led the school through three successful Ofsted inspections. Previously he had been the headteacher of Darnhill Primary School in Heywood for nine years.
Darnhill School served an all white disadvantaged community with a high proportion of the pupils having special educational needs and displaying very challenging behaviour. Heybrook is a very large school with over five hundred pupils from Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage communities in Rochdale's most deprived ward. All of the pupils have English as an additional language. Heybrook School received a DfES achievement award in 2002 and in 2003 was named in the one hundred most improved primary schools in England.
Rod qualified as an Ofsted inspector in 1993 and has experience of inspecting English as an additional language, special educational needs, school management and all National Curriculum subjects. He is a specialist mathematics teacher and has led teams of both primary and secondary mathematics teachers.
Rod was a prominent member of the Pioneers Educational Action Zone from 2002 to 2008. In 2003 he completed a post-graduate certificate in educational leadership development and consultancy at the University of Manchester. He was an accredited external advisor to governing bodies for the annual performance review of headteachers for three years, and is now an accredited school improvement partner (SIP). Rod worked as a trainer, facilitator, assessor and tutor on the National College of School Leadership's (NCSL), National Professional Qualification in Headship (NPQH) programme from 2004 and works as a coach on the revised NPQH programme. He works as a leadership mentor on the NCSL Leadership Pathways programme.
He is a facilitator and associate consultant to the Inspirational Professional Learning Community Network of six Rochdale primary schools working in challenging circumstances.
“Rod has wide experience of leading schools serving disadvantaged communities.”
