A snapshot of Ross McGill’s career history.
Founder and Managing Director – @TeacherToolkit Ltd
Ross McGill is currently training teachers all over the world to transform teaching and learning for teachers. His vision is to change the workload and wellbeing dialogue to inspire teachers and school leaders to be research-informed, ask difficult questions in order to transform classroom culture.
When not training teachers or blogging, Ross is also a parent governor, a regular podcaster and writes for The Guardian and Telegraph newspapers. He is also a visiting PGCE tutor and a visiting lecturer for the University of Buckingham; an author of five teaching books and is currently working on how to upscale Teacher Toolkit as the next go-to platform for every teacher across the world.
To add to his busy schedule, he started his doctorate at Cambridge University in September 2018 and frequently struggles with it!
Teacher Toolkit Ltd.
TT started with a simple website in 2008 and then a Twitter account in August 2010; soon becoming the most followed teacher on Twitter in the U.K. – the Twitter account receives over 7 million impressions every month! The company was first registered in February 2014 after Ross McGill published his first book in September 2013. Soon realising the websites popularity and the workload on top of deputy headship, Ross started to open up his website to the community in 2017. Today, this site is read in over 190+ countries and is the most popular blog on education in the U.K, ranking one of the top-25 across the world and until 2020, was developed from Ross’ spare bedroom in his spare time. At the moment, he has upgraded to a large home office…
Quintin Kynaston Academy, Westminster
Deputy Headteacher from September 2014 – August 2017; responsible for teaching and learning; CPD; appraisal; initial teacher training and eLearning. Ross supported the school transition into a new £35M building; two difficult OfSTED inspections and co-led the school through a period of time when the school fell under the international media spotlight for various news stories.
Greig City Academy, Haringey
Assistant Vice Principal from November 2011 – August 2014; responsible for Teaching and Learning; CPD; Appraisal and Initial Teacher Training. I arrived at GCA under very difficult circumstances, so I am eternally grateful for the inspirational Mr. Paul Sutton OBE for the opportunity he gave me to work for him and transform standards of teaching and learning at GCA. I enjoyed every single day … You can read what I said about GCA in my leaving speech posted here.
The Crest Girls’ Academy, Brent
Assistant Principal from September 2008– August 2011; responsible for Teaching and Learning; Technology Specialism, ICT, Staff Development and Staff Well Being. During my time at Crest, I also worked as a Lead Practitioner for the Specialist School & Academies Trust (SSAT) from May 2009– May 2010.
Alexandra Park School, Haringey
Head of Design Technology from September 2000– July 2008; I built this department with architects and Deputy Headteacher @TeacherHead in 2000. Headteacher Rosslyn Hudson (1999-2008) was inspiring and relentless in her vision to create a startup London comprehensive. I was nominated me for ‘The Guardian Award for Secondary School Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School in London, 2004.’ I was also Head of ICT from April 2007– July 2008.
St. Thomas More RC School, Haringey
Technology and Art Teacher from September 1997– July 2000 (3 years). I came across St. Thomas More as a very young supply teacher, after a troublesome time abroad in Nigeria with the VSO. The school welcomed me as a young, naïve teacher and I soon established myself a regular salary and a classroom I could learn my subject and practice.
Voluntary Services Overseas
Head of Design Technology at St. Thomas’ School, Kano, Nigeria in 1997; living on a humble salary of £15 per month in an apartment large enough to have 3 reasonably sized classrooms and still have room to sleep! My time is Nigeria was short-lived, but I do hope to return to Kano in the future now that I have seen much more of the world!
Goldsmiths University of London
Ross trained to be a teacher at Goldsmiths (1993 – 1997) under the tutoring of Dr. Terry Liddament and Professor Kay Stables. I loved every second, mastering my teaching repertoire in 4 teaching placements in and around South London.
Ross was delighted to feature in a centenary magazine, ‘Celebrating 100 years of education at Goldsmiths College’ in November 2014, representing people who studied at Goldsmiths in the 90s decade.