Reema has worked in Southwark as a substantive headteacher since 2013. The daughter of a Windrush immigrant, she first joined education as a lunchtime supervisor and a teaching assistant in Lambeth and as part of Southwark’s Teaching School Alliance, has helped coach and mentor ethnic minority teachers to take up leadership roles in their schools and has empowered many BAME educators and pupils to follow in her footsteps. In 2021, Reema won the prestigious Gold Teaching Award for Headteacher of the Year in a Primary School in the Pearson National Teaching Awards.