James Townsend

Executive Director, Reach Foundation

James Townsend is an Executive Director at the Reach Foundation, where he leads the Cradle to Career Partnership and Reach's leadership programmes for aspiring head teachers and and trust CEOs. James has previously held leadership roles at Teach First and STiR Education, where he helped found and grow the organisation to reach over 200,000 teachers globally. He started his career as a history teacher in east London.

1 Breakout sessions: Series one

The partnership dividend: How do we build and benefit from it?

The ‘partnership dividend’ is realised through an investment in each other, in people, in ‘our place’. It is ‘paid out’ in the increased collective capacity of and for our children, families and colleagues and in stronger, more resilient communities. In this session, James will be inviting trusts to provide tangible examples of this work already underway at the neighbourhood level. He’ll pose some reflection questions to help consider the leadership implications for trust leaders seeking to support their colleagues in this work, for the benefit of the children, staff and communities they serve. Ideal for all trust leaders interested in system leadership, including chief executives, directors of education, and school improvement leads.