Continuing recent articles to introduce the School Improvement Team, this week sees the spotlight fall on Scott Davies, Executive Director of English:-
My career in education began with a desire to learn a language. Deciding that the best way to learn Spanish was to immerse myself in the culture, in 2004 I moved to Barcelona and trained to become a TEFL teacher. Four years of teaching English as a foreign language followed, the final year of these spent working in the north of Sweden. Eager to develop my teaching further, I returned to England to complete my PGCE and started work at Kingsbridge Community College in 2008 as an English teacher. KS4 responsibilities, the role of House Leader and appointment as Literacy Coordinator followed before I started to work increasingly in the wider trust and beyond. My role as English Lead Practitioner for ESW saw me working with four secondaries to drive improvements in English and literacy, a period that also included a secondment to Teign School as Head of English. This was combined with outward-facing support for schools in Devon and Cornwall through my position as English SLE for SWTSA.
In parallel to this, I have long held an interest in the value of evidence-informed approaches to education. This interest partly found form in my taking on a master’s in English Studies, the dissertation for which – a study of parents’ evenings involving detailed transcription of several hours of talk – will forever stay with me. This interest became formalised in my appointment as an Evidence Lead for the Research School Network in 2017 and, subsequently, Deputy Director of Kingsbridge Research School. Varied in nature, these roles have involved the development and delivery of school improvement programmes – primarily literacy, curriculum, and implementation – as well as close collaboration with the EEF in various working groups and as part of the advisory panel for the Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools Guidance Report. I continue to work closely with both the Research School Network and the EEF as Evidence Lead.
Despite starting my new role of Executive Director of English for WeST at a decidedly odd time, I already feel very much at home within the trust and feel lucky to be working with such a dynamic and dedicated group of people. I look forward to continuing to work together – perhaps even in the same room – in the future.
Scott Davies, Executive Director of English