Mr Duffy
Acting Assistant Principal, Head of Year 11
Mr Duffy is Head of Year 11 and teaches Music and Performing Arts. These are both roles that he absolutely loves. As Head of Year 9 he is responsible for the academic progress and the wellbeing of the 240 students in his Year Group which involves getting to know each individual student in order to best meet their needs and maximise their outcomes. He is passionate about pastoral care and ensuring every student has the opportunity to flourish and succeed. As a teacher of Music and Performing Arts he gets to work closely with all of the students to help them unlock their creative potential as well as seeing them grow in confidence through the medium of performance. He is also a trained Stonewall School Champion and leads LGBTQ+ inclusivity within the school.
Mr Duffy started playing the piano at the age of 4, and the oboe at the age of 8. He knew from a very early age that he wanted to pursue a career that involved Music in some way. He did his degree at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, achieving a BMus(Hons) degree. It was during his degree that he undertook a module linked to teaching, and it was at this point that he discovered that teaching Music was what he wanted to do as a career. He then went on to get his PGCE from the University of Reading.
Mr Duffy began his teaching career in Mill Hill, North London where he worked as a Teacher of Music for 4 years. He then moved to a school in Surrey as Head of Music, where he taught for a further 4 years. Prior to coming to Harris Academy Sutton he was a Head of Year and Subject Lead for Music at a school in Reading, where he was for nearly 5 years. He feels his experience as a Pastoral Lead and as a Curriculum Lead gives him the skills required to enable the students at Harris Academy Sutton in his Year Group and in his classes to achieve the very best they can.
When Mr Duffy isn’t working you are most likely to find him running. He has run more than 40 marathons and has recently got into the slightly crazy world of Ultramarathon running, sometimes running races of more than 50 miles in length!
