Colin Diamond has worked in education leadership roles for 40 years. He started his career in inner-London secondary schools as a humanities teacher and soon began to specialise working with students with additional needs. He trained as both a teacher and child psychotherapist to learn how to work effectively with the students whilst also teaching exam classes up to A level. He became a local authority adviser for SEND and an associate headteacher in Hackney and Tower Hamlets. His career then took him to jobs in the north east of England and then the South West where he has lived for over 20 years.
En route he trained as an OfSTED inspector. He became Director of Education in North Somerset when it was in intervention from the then DfEE and led its improvement journey until it gained “outstanding” judgements from OfSTED. He then worked for DfE as Director for Children and Learners based in Bristol and Plymouth holding 17 local authorities to account for their value added performance. In 2011, he returned to DfE in London to head up the Academies and Free Schools Education Adviser team and engage in the development of the new government’s 2010 Act policies.
In 2014, he was asked by DfE to lead the team that went to Birmingham in the wake of the Trojan Horse crisis. This led, in the short-term, to the re-brokerage of the academies most badly damaged by Trojan Horse. In the longer-term, it led to his appointment as Deputy Education Commissioner for Birmingham working directly to the Secretary of State and her ministers. In 2015, he was appointed as Executive Director of Education in Birmingham to deliver the Education Improvement Plan signed off by the Secretary of State. 95% of the plan was delivered within 18 months and it laid the foundations for Birmingham’s recovery journey which continues. The intervention was formally ended by the Secretary of State because rapid progress had been made.
In September 2018 Colin Diamond took up the new post of Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Birmingham. His main tasks are to create greater engagement between schools and the university and establish an Education Leadership Academy. He is driven by the power of education to transform the lives of working class children and wants them all to have the same opportunities that he was lucky enough to get through going to brilliant schools in Liverpool.
In 2018 he received a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to education.
He is a member of the Liverpool Education Improvement Board, chair of the West Somerset Opportunity Area, trustee at the Prince Albert Community trsut chair of members at the Waverley MAT Birmingham, member and chair of the Compassionate Education Foundation. He is a consultant to a number of schools, MATs and local authorities.
He edited The Birmingham Book: Lessons in urban education leadership and policy from the Trojan Horse affair. The thirteen local authors had over 200 years of experience in the city.
He is a lifelong supporter of Liverpool Football Club and Anfield is his spiritual home. He is currently somewhere in the bereavement cycle following the departure of Jurgen Klopp. He used to play in blues and rock and roll bands until Birmingham took over his life.
