Programme participants win prizes for pupil impact and outstanding leadership

Participants on our Teaching Leaders Secondary programme have been awarded the Pearson Prize for Pupil Impact and the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) Leadership Prize.

James Gardner, now Assistant Head at The JCB Academy in Staffordshire, was awarded the ASCL Leadership Prize for his outstanding commitment to raising the achievement of his pupils.

James was given the award for his contribution to improved GCSE results at Tamworth Enterprise College, where he was Head of House and PE teacher during the Teaching Leaders programme.

He trained the team of Form Tutors so they were more involved with students, and ran a number of projects that focused on mentoring, improving behaviour, peer tutoring, parental involvement and collaborative learning to raise children's results across the whole school.

The Pearson Prizes for Pupil Impact are awarded to the programme participants who made the most substantial impact on pupil outcomes during their time on the Teaching Leaders Secondary programme. 

Kristy Brooks, Lead Practitioner for Science at ARK St Alban's Academy was awarded first place Pearson Prize for Pupil Impact for increasing the number students achieving A*-C in two more science GCSEs to 81% alongside setting up a coaching and mentoring programme in her school.

Kerry Hull, Senior Leader & Subject Leader at Queens CofE Academy in Birmingham, was also awarded a Pearson Prize for Pupil Impact, for her work to improve students’ reading skills, contributing to her school getting the best results at Key Stage 2 ever.

Kerry’s aim was to get more boys reading and narrow the gap in reading age between boys and girls, and she ran a project using strong male role models to remove the social stigma about reading.

Rabia Afzal, Assistant Principal at ARK St Alban's Academy, was highly commended for her impact on a fourfold increase in the number of entries for the literature exam and achieving a 85% pass rate, the highest in her three years as head of department.

Amy Fuller, Assistant Headteacher of Teaching and Learning, CPL and ITT at Ellis Guilford School, also received a highly commended award for her implementation of a new teacher training programme to improve recruitment and retention. The programme was shared beyond her school with Professional Mentors across the Midlands.

The prizes were awarded at graduation ceremonies for our high-impact middle leadership development programme, Teaching Leaders, run by Ambition School Leadership.

Click here for more information on the Teaching Leaders programme.