Penny Clayton
When Penny Clayton first began teaching in a deprived area of West London, she was amazed to discover she was being paid to do something she loved. She spent twenty eight years in primary education holding two headships, spanning eighteen years. It was during her second headship that she was introduced to Accelerated Learning, when she knew her hard working and effective staff could not work any harder, and needed to find a different path if they were to affect pupil achievement.
She could also see frustration in her own two creative sons for whom school was a place for activities other than learning. As a headteacher, when asked what she might do next in her career, her response was always that the job she wanted didn't exist. In 1999 she decided to make it happen. Not wishing to become an inspector, she left headship and set out to find work which she felt would make a difference to the achievement, confidence, control, motivation and enjoyment of her fellow professionals.
Penny has a wealth of experience of training and supporting Governors, Heads, senior managers, teachers, LEA inspectors and officers. She is an associate of Cambridge University's Leadership for Learning Network, a Performance Management Consultant, an External Adviser and was a Headlamp mentor.
Passionate about adult development and growth, as well as that of children, she has developed and delivered an Induction Tutor programme for the London Borough of Ealing, trained Headteacher mentors in four LEAs, led the mentor training for associate tutors at St Mary's College, Twickenham and acted as critical friend for several schools through projects from Keele and Cambridge Universities.
Penny's skills are inter-personal, communication, empathy and understanding, creative thinking and problem-solving. Her interests and experience are in coaching, mentoring, organisational health including stress management, strategic management, inter-personal skills development, accelerated learning and in the provision of support to schools.
Through her work, Penny hopes to enable others to feel as she did all those years ago that the job of teaching and the experience of learning are indeed joyous experiences.
To book a course with Penny please contact Hilary Thomas on (01628) 810700 x20 or email Hilary.