On Friday 31st January, I was the profile feature in Schools Week newspaper. This blog is a preview to the full article.
This interview was conducted by Schools Week editor, @Miss_McInerney on Friday 16th January 2015. This is up-close and personal …
Interview:
by Laura McInerney | Feb 3, 2015.
“Wearing a long black coat, fluorescent vest and speaking into a walkie-talkie, Ross Morrison McGill’s 6ft 4in skin-headed frame would look perfect outside a nightclub marshalling rowdy night clubbers. But it’s Friday, it’s 4pm and McGill – the only state school teacher on The Times’ 500 Most Influential People list – is on bus duty at Quintin Kynaston (QK) Academy in north London.
Ten minutes later, with coat and vest removed, he is showing off his school’s new building. Only open a week we see the gym, a new dining room, a fancy coffee bar and well-designed outdoor spaces.
Most exciting for design and technology teacher McGill, however, are a series of glass tubes on the sides of the building. They are exhibition spaces and their possibilities clearly excite him.
Best known for being the “most followed” teacher on Twitter, the QK deputy head is a generous resource-sharer – he’s given away tips and resources on his website Teacher Toolkit for years.
“I’m the only state school teacher on the list. It’s amazing!
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When we meet, he has also just been nominated for The Times’ list, organised by DeBrett’s.
In his neatly ordered office which opens directly onto the spanking new playground, he pulls out the DeBrett’s invite and carefully places it on the desk as if it might bite him.
“I have no idea how it happened,” he says. “I got an email. It said ‘Ross we want to let you know that you have been short-listed for your sector’. But I’d never heard of DeBrett’s, and I had to look online. When I saw that it was The Times 500, I thought ‘bloody hell’.
“I’m the only state school teacher on the list. It’s amazing.”
You can read the full article here.
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And look what’s also on the back cover of the newspaper! Click to the image to open to the software; and why not click this tweet?
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