Tim Long

In 2008 Tim Long was appointed Headteacher of Bridgewater High School having started out as an English teacher and having assumed middle and senior leadership roles in a number of schools. Under his leadership in 2011 Ofsted judged Bridgewater High School to be Outstanding.  

In 2013 he was appointed a National Leader in Education whilst Bridgewater became a National Support School working alongside several Warrington schools. At the same time, he trained as an Ofsted Inspector, a role he still fulfils as a “serving practitioner” and he has inspected in excess of 35 schools and academies during this period. More recently he has conducted Curriculum Reviews in English for Ofsted. During this period, he also successfully led the school’s conversion to Academy status and then cofounded The Challenge Academy Trust (TCAT) whilst securing Teaching School status for Bridgwater High School.   

In September 2018 he was seconded to the Teaching School Council to coordinate the delivery of the DfE’s School to School Support offer across the Liverpool, Merseyside and Warrington areas for Tier 2 schools; he also continues to undertake a number of these deployments himself whilst providing school to school to support to other schools in the region.  

After 14 years as Principal at Bridgewater High School and having overseen the successful completion of a £4.4 million extension to accommodate an increase in the school’s PAN from 300 to 360, he moved to work exclusively for the TCAT as its School Improvement Lead. This involves providing school to school support within the trust but also outside the trust and builds on his other recent role of being the Executive Head (Secondary) for TCAT.