Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich

My name is Heather Hann and our organisation is the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

What was the highlight of your summer? 

To be honest, Jenny, summer seems quite a long time ago now!

We didn't go anywhere exciting, but we spent lots of time at home seeing friends, visiting the beach huts and sitting in the garden. So it sounds very boring, but they were my highlights. Just having time to spend with my friends and family. 

Which method of contact you most prefer people to use
when getting in touch?

The best first point of contact is probably myself or Hayley Baron, who is our lovely admin person. You can reach us through the same inbox. If you email me, heather.hann@cofesuffolk.org, I’ll be able to forward things to Hayley Baron too!

Tell us a little bit about you as an organisation

So we are a diocesan and Multi Academy Trust. We have 21 schools spread across the great geography that is Suffolk. We are made up of lots of different schools, we have coastal schools, we have urban schools, we have very large schools and our smallest school has only 34 children.

Why did you choose to be a partner with Church of England
and Catholic Education Office?

Succession planning is a big part, before I took this role I was the head of a church school so I know how important and vital leaders and teachers are across all levels in our schools.

Trying to get as many school leaders as possible to engage with the NPQ’s and also to keep them in church schools, ideally in our mat in Suffolk. 

Which NPQs do you offer? 

So currently we are offering NPQSL for senior leaders and we're offering NPQLTD. We also work with our sister Diocese in Norwich and they deliver the NPQH for us and we're really excited to be part of the leading primary maths NPQ starting in February.

Where will your learning take place? 

So the NPQH takes place in Norwich and all our other courses take place in Ipswich and also on the Norfolk Suffolk border in one of our schools.

Is there anything you would like to say to somebody
who's considering an NPQ?

I would say go for it. I think it's a really exciting way to build your career.

I wish in some ways that I had done the Church of England NPQs previously. I think the coaching element is amazing. You get to work with lots of people across different phases and so I would just say go for it. We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now and I'm really pleased that one of our staff who was previously on the NPQLT is now doing NPQSL. So I'm hoping that we'll see them through that journey until they're in executive leadership in the future.