Juliet Coley is a Christian, mother, educator, black children’s book publisher, author and heart attack, heart surgery and cancer survivor.
Her career has included her being a victim support councillor, promotions manager for Britain’s best black newspaper The Voice and a television presenter for Channel 4 and ITV1 before moving into education in the late 1990s.
She became a teacher at a time when African Caribbean children in particular boys were under achieving and her school was in an under resourced area and borough wide had poor examination outcomes for all students. At that time, only 5% of students were achieving 5+ A* to C grades (without English and Maths). 7 years later, as Head of Year she broke school records with her Year group achieving 47% including English and Maths. 15 years later after taking whole school responsibility for the raising achieving in English, 75% of students were achieving 5+ A* to C grades including English and Maths.
Juliet was selected by the Government’s Teacher Training Agency to be the face of their Newly Qualified Teacher resource – Juliet, How to Teach English and in her first year her teaching was rated by the Government inspectors Ofsted as Outstanding and was nominated in the Lloyds Bank/TSB Teaching Awards for Best New Teacher in a Secondary school.
She was promoted to Deputy Head of Year in her first year of teaching and as the driver in Raising Achievement as Line Management of English, Juliet coached and entered 120 students into an early GCSE English Language examination and 99% achieved an A* to C Grade. She was responsibilities for ‘Preparation for Ofsted Inspections’ and led the school through 3 successful Ofsted Outstanding grades on 3 consecutive occasions. A rare accolade for an inner city school in in under resourced Tottenham with students who enter with poor and below average baseline grades.
As Head of Citizenship, Juliet was as the driver behind a student led award winning Anti-Gun and Anti-Knife crime campaign, ‘Value Life.’ The 10 year project was awarded: ‘The Queen’s Award’ for voluntary service, an accolade only 3 schools nationally had won previously. Former Prime Minster Tony Blair awarded Juliet the Respect Award for her work on this. She was the coordinator and driver behind a national citizenship campaign: ‘Everybody Dreams’ which brought together the school with the community, local council, the police and local, national and international music, television, sport and political celebrities to bring back positivity to Tottenham, where the 2011 Riots began. The Student Flashmob has had over 50k views on YouTube and the single she released which the students sang on was mixed by iconic music artist Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics and reached number 38 in the iTunes charts.
Juliet was awarded in 2013 The Wise woman in the Community Award, in 2018 Haringey Council awarded her the Outstanding Award in Education and in 2019 at the House of Lords she was awarded the Lord Hastings Integrity Baton Award for her work with young people. That same year, Manhood Academy Global and Westside Young Leaders Academy awarded her The Marcus Garvey Award for her work with young people.
Juliet has taught students who have gone straight from secondary education to degree studies. Students who have won scholarships to prestigious boarding schools like Eton, Harrow and Millfield. Two of her students following the introduction of the new GCSE specification in 2017, were part of the 732 Year 11s in the country who achieved 8 Grade 9s (A** grades) in all of their examination results. Her students are now Cardiothoracic Surgeons, GPs, Teachers and Lawyers. Alumni include:
- No.1 Music Rap Artist: Chip/Chipmunk
- Songwriter/Producer: Nana Rogues (US Artist Drake)
- TV Personality/YouTube Sensation: Elijah Quashie (Chicken
Connoisseur) - Swimming Champion: Alexander Macay (Team GB)
- Footballer: Emmanuel Fringpong (Arsenal)
- Footballer: Steve Zakuani (Seatle Sounders)
- Footballer/ Manager: Gaberial Zakuani (Peterborough,
Fulham,Spaulding United) - PhD Graduates – Nulushi Weysinge, Marlon Weysinge, Alexander
Mackay)
Following ill health, Juliet retired from being a Senior Deputy Headteacher and now publishes Beautiful Black Books written by Beautiful Black Children aged 6 to 15. Three of the children author’s have won awards for their work.
She is a 2021 finalist (from 50,000 nominations) for a National Diversity Award, Role Model for Race, Religion & Faith and for the Multicultural Business Community Champion Award, Community Unsung Shero for her work as an educator and publisher, having now published 16 books written by children: www.younglitstars.com
She is the author of 3 books. Her memoir 39 Weeks: Life Behind the School Gates is currently in development for a Black British film.
One of her most recent achievements has been finally completing her Masters of Arts degree in 2021, (after 10 years) following a heart attack, heart surgery, cancer, chemotherapy and Covid.
