SPOTLIGHT ON ALUN REES

Spotlight on Alun Rees – one of our wonderful trainers who has been working with us since 2017

Alun was seconded from the headship of a very large secondary school, to create a Virtual School for Looked After Children for Leeds City Council (one of the first Virtual Schools in the country). Within this role, he also managed inclusion services for the City.

He took up a visiting fellowship at the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford, where he wrote the Virtual School Handbook, commissioned by Edward Timpson’s Ministerial Expert Group on Virtual Schools. This has subsequently been adapted and utilised by NAVSH. He put the handbook’s principles into practice as Virtual School Head and as a consultant for 7 further Virtual Schools.

Alun continued to work closely with the Rees Centre on the evaluation of the London Fostering Achievement Programme and as lead evaluator for Edge of Care & Adolescent Service Change projects in the DfE’s £80m Children Social Care Innovation Programme. He’s currently working with the Centre on the ongoing DfE-funded evaluations of the extension of the Virtual School Head’s role.

Alun was recently appointed by NAVSH as their first Policy Advisor, with a brief to provide them with up-to-date, authoritative, advice and guidance, however, a significant amount of his time is now spent offering schools and colleges support in developing more attachment and trauma-aware practice through his work with AC Education.