Andy Hunter

In the late 1990s, after two frustrating and unsatisfying years as a newly qualified English teacher, Andy Hunter accepted that his career in education was a failed experiment and resigned to explore other options. Six months later, he took what h intended to be a week of supply work at a different school, fell in love with it and has never looked back.

Andy has worked in schools ever since, including nearly 20 years as a senior leader. He now works as an executive headteacher, leading a partnership of schools in Suffolk working with children and young people from early years to A-level. His early experiences gave him an acute and critical awareness of the power of leaders to set the culture and climate in their schools, and of the impact those decisions have on teachers and students alike.

The schools in which he has worked, in areas ranging from London boroughs to rural Cambridgeshire, represent a variety of circumstances and needs. A veteran of Ofsted and HMI inspections numbering well into double figures, Andy has experience of school improvement at every Ofsted grading.

Andy loves being on duty, talking to children and delivering assemblies. He also loves sailing, canoeing, hill walking and jazz. The A-Z of Secondary Leadership is his first book.