John is a freelance education consultant and coach, specialising in leadership development and pedagogy. He works in close partnership with academy trust leaders, senior local authority staff, headteachers and senior and middle leadership teams on how best to adapt and implement evidence-informed approaches in their organisations, and with teachers of all ages and disciplines on developing their daily practice. He trains and coaches primary and secondary senior and middle leaders in a wide range of schools, from those serving areas with high levels of deprivation to independent schools. An early adopter of instructional coaching, John has set up instructional coaching and mentoring programmes in dozens of schools.
John leads training on a wide range of teaching and leadership-related issues and is regularly used to initiate, support and monitor the implementation of radical and sustained change in collective practice. He has worked as a tutor and assessor on NPQ programmes, works onsite across the UK, and coaches both face-to-face and online.
The bits he won't say...
...but Gareth will.
John Sullivan?
The first time I met John, I was a headteacher and he was the consultant walking through my door. Anyone who has led a school knows the feeling. You brace yourself a little. You wonder what this person could possibly tell you about your own school, and whether you're about to spend a day nodding politely.
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Within an hour I was telling him things I hadn't said out loud to anyone. Not because he asked clever questions, though he did, but because he made it feel safe to be honest about where we actually were. That is rarer in this line of work than it should be.
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What John does so well is hold two things at once. There's the mentor in him, the "you need to do this, and in this way", when that's what you need to hear. And there's the coach, patient and unhurried, helping you see your school clearly and move it forward at a pace you can sustain. You never feel overwhelmed. And your school never starts to feel like it's becoming someone else's.
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Then there are the small things that aren't small at all. He learned the name of every member of my staff. He could talk with me about individual pupils, and he remembered the moments that mattered to us long after most consultants would have moved on to the next school. He never tried to turn us into something he'd seen down the road, or into his idea of good. Everything was done alongside us.
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He's become a good friend since. If you get the chance to work with him, take it.