Janice Howkins is an Ofsted Inspector. She is a qualified teacher and holds the national professional qualification in headship.

Janice served as headteacher for sixteen years in a girls’ comprehensive school until 2022. Janice was previously a sponsor of a local primary school and was joint interim headteacher. Janice has spent the majority of her career in five secondary schools specialising in special educational needs, although her initial teacher training was in primary education. Janice has contributed to national developments in inclusion and has carried out research on leadership. In 2022 she received an OBE for her services to education.

I completed a classics degree at UCL many moons ago followed immediately by a PGCE in classical languages and literature at King’s College, London. As a July baby I had always felt young at school and wanted to spread my wings before going back to school as a teacher in the UK. Consequently, I joined VSO (Voluntary Services Overseas) and spent 3 years teaching English and History as well as acting as the school librarian in a secondary girls’ school in rural Malawi. Not quite knowing what I wanted to do next, but being absolutely certain it would be in the maintained and not private school sector, I took a job covering a maternity leave in the English department at Nower Hill. That job became a permanent one and, as I gradually persuaded the school to introduce Latin at GCSE and then establish more and more classics on the timetable, I became head of a one-person classics department that now contains 6 specialist teachers.

In my time at Nower Hill I have held a variety of roles including various responsibilities in the English department, Equal Opportunities co-ordinator, Year Co-ordinator, Initial Teacher Training Co-ordinator and Second in the Languages Faculty. My role now is Assistant Headteacher Staff Development and Wellbeing, as well as Governor and Chair of the Students, Standards and Achievement Committee at Pinner High School.

I was privileged to have served under Howard Freed, headteacher of Nower Hill High School and founder of HCA when it was called HCTSA (Harrow Collegiate Teaching School Alliance). Mainly through his and Janice’s inspirational leadership, like Becky, I have had the honour and pleasure not only to have received incredible support from fantastic educators which has aided my own professional and career development, but also to have been given the opportunity to train others as a SLE (subject leader in education) for CPD, accredited provider of various NPQs, and course lead for a range of HCA programmes.

I am delighted to have been appointed as co-director for HCA and look forward to meeting and supporting educators who already give so willingly and unselfishly to the young people in our local communities.

Having completed a BSc in Geography at Queen Mary’s University and remembering the impact my own teachers had on both my academic and personal development, I decided to embark on a career in teaching. I have worked at Hatch End High School since the completion of my PGCE with the Institute of Education in 2010. I have  held many different roles and responsibilities as part of the school community. These roles have included; Head of Geography, Head of the Humanities Faculty, Teacher Governor, Induction Tutor, Assistant Headteacher and most recently Deputy Headteacher with a responsibility for Curriculum and Assessment. I am also the Chair of a Local Stakeholder group at the Welldon Park Academy and I am now honored to be a course leader within, and co-director of, the Harrow Collegiate Alliance.

The HCA has been a constant throughout my professional career and I am always humbled by the bespoke support and guidance that has been offered to me along the way. From the subject groups as a geography teacher to the leadership development courses as I stepped into middle and senior leadership as well as the one to one coaching I have received from expert practitioners with a real passion for what they do. I wouldn’t be in the position I am in were it not for those individuals I met from the HCA along the way.

As co-director of the HCA, it is a privilege to now be able to give back to an organisation that has given so much to both myself and my school community.

Rebecca Cleary – BSc. PGCe, MA.