New starters at a Northumberland Academy have included six new members of teaching staff.
Qualified teachers in geography, English, mathematics and biology have joined Bede Academy North, in Blyth, while the South site has welcomed a new primary classroom teacher, Jennifer Pearson.
Sarah Hindhaugh has joined as the new head of maths. The other new subject teachers are Andrew Cunningham and Liam Shevlane in geography, English teacher Jonathan Clarkson, and Gemma Rogers, who has joined the biology department.
Bede Academy is also giving student teachers a first step on the career ladder, taking five – Robert Stanford, Kate Haley, Katie Punton, Seth Defeyter and Jessica Hindson – under the national School Direct programme in biology, history, English and art.
Principal Gwyneth Evans said: “We are delighted to have welcomed some new talented and inspirational teachers to Bede Academy. We hope they enjoy their new roles and are fulfilled and encouraged as they serve and support the young people in our care.”
Miss Evans spent the summer term visiting a number of schools across the country to seek best practice in various education settings as well as all-through 3-19 schools.
Miss Evans said she was encouraged that some of the schools she visited had heard about Bede and its success in achieving excellent outcomes for its students.
She added: “Just as we want our students to keep on learning, experience new things, expand their knowledge base and spread their horizons, so we, their educators, need to be open to new innovations, practices and processes that mean we can improve and continue to provide the best education we can for our students.”
Miss Evans said much of Bede’s success lay in the way all-through is embedded throughout the academy, across all aspects of teaching and learning, curriculum, assessment and monitoring, structure, pastoral, discipline, ethos, expectations of parental involvement and the professional development of staff.
The Academy is set to hold the UK’s first conference on all-throughness and is working with the Department for Education and researchers at Cambridge University as well as some academy trusts.