About Us

Chris Kinread is the Director of Grad2Teach, overseeing the development, growth and management of the programme. Before setting up Grad2Teach Chris had a career in Education recruitment. As the costs to schools increased and retention of staff fell, Chris began to wonder if there wasn’t a different way to approach the problem. As a father of three and a governor of a primary school, he was keen to build a company that helped schools manage in a world of shrinking budgets and increased costs, whilst at the same time rescuing practitioners from the ‘gig’ community.  Chris believes that salaried routes are vital – otherwise, every teacher will be from a background where they can afford to take a year without pay, and not be representative of the students they teach. 

Alex is the Course Manager for Grad2Teach, overseeing our relationships with academic providers and ensuring trainee success. Alex firmly believes that the best way to do this is to promote collaboration between institutions, training providers and prospective teaching staff - be they recent graduates, career changers, or in-school support staff. Alex aims for Grad2Teach to be a programme that is supportive to trainees, to schools, and to the whole education community. He believes that Grad2Teach spends a lot of time helping passionate people through their training programme and supporting schools through their delivery. Through giving more control to schools, saving them money, and building long-term pipelines of quality staff, Grad2Teach can help to deliver the leaders of tomorrow, for years to come, for less.

Michelle is the Teaching & Learning Lead for Grad2Teach, overseeing the training course in Phase 1 and ensuring trainee success in Phase 2. She began her career in education as a secondary English teacher in 2005 before working as an Assistant Head of Department, Advanced Practitioner and Teacher Trainer. Michelle will never say that teaching is boring (because it is never, ever boring) or unrewarding, but believes it does take a special kind of commitment and resilience. As the Teaching and Learning Lead at Grad2Teach, Michelle is committed to helping our trainees to become confident, knowledgeable practitioners who can tackle its daily challenges head-on and flourish regardless. This means recognising the importance of humour and perspective as well as pedagogy and practice, so our graduates become colleagues whose pupils and schools truly value them.

Simona is a Partnerships Coordinator, specialising in teacher training across a number of regions. Prior to working at Grad2Teach, Simona worked as a Junior Paralegal for an anti-death penalty NGO, a Legal Assistant and a Regional Support Coordinator. She then pursued a career as a Primary School Teacher and worked across early years, KS1 and KS2, whereby she specialised as an RE and PE subject leader, a School Recovery Programme Leader and a Reading Intervention Specialist. She has an undergraduate degree in English Language and Communication, a Graduate Diploma in Law and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. Simona has always been dedicated to ensuring fairness and professionalism and firmly shares the principles of Grad2Teach that it is vital that trainee teachers are equipped with the skills to become confident, fully qualified education practitioners.

Grace is a Partnerships Coordinator, working with schools and trainees across the primary and secondary sectors across the country. Grace is a primary trained teacher from New Zealand with a Bachelor of Education from The University of Auckland. Throughout her degree and time in the classroom she has focused on the holistic development of students, with a particular emphasis on promoting biculturalism and inclusive practices, this is something she aims to share with the Grad2Teach trainees. As the school lead for Digital Technology, she used technology in the classroom to enhance learning and promote student engagement while educating students across the school on how to stay safe in the digital age. Her role also gave her the opportunity to train her colleagues through CPD sessions in the digital curriculum.  

Azaan is an Associate of Grad2Teach, having worked as a Partnerships Coordninator before. He now advises the programme and advocates for it in schools. Before Grad2Teach, Azaan was a Director of Education for an educational charity and a Secondary teacher of History and Religious Education. He is also a member of his local Standing Advisory Council for RE and has written RE curriculums for the local borough. He has a Master's in International Social and Public Policy from LSE, with a specialism in education policy. He is publishing work on education and disadvantage and consults schools and organisations on curriculum design, humanities and oracy development. Azaan believes firmly in the principles of the programme design of Grad2Teach, especially in ensuring that trainees are developed effectively in their practice and are dedicated to teaching as a career, not an option.