Brooke Weston Academy

Congratulations to Deputy Director of 6th Form – Raising Standards Leader, Ash Narwal, who has successfully completed the prestigious Leadership Legacy Project run by SSAT, the Schools, Students and Teachers network. The project is a year-long initiative and has been set up to develop teachers who have been identified as having the potential to become outstanding leaders.

The impact of the project is impressive and involvement demonstrates commitment by Brooke Weston Academy to developing the next generation of leaders. Teachers who are accepted onto the Leadership Legacy Project achieve increased leadership responsibilities at an early career stage, through exposure to a wide range of knowledge and information and the activities undertaken have an impact at classroom and whole school level.

Ash, who is in his fourth year of teaching, completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Birmingham studying Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Science. He undertook his PGCE in Physical Education at Loughborough University before starting his teaching career at Brooke Weston as an NQT.  

He said ‘I felt this was a great opportunity – it meant a lot to be part of this award as you have to be nominated or recommended by the school. From a personal perspective I was really proud to be recognised. I am truly grateful to the leadership team at Brooke Weston for believing in me and putting me forward. It has helped me to become more confident in my leadership principles but leading during a difficult time during Covid-19 has also taught me to be flexible.

The project all started with a trip up North to Manchester where we met half of our cohort on the SSAT Leadership Legacy course. This was more of an introduction and what to expect over the academic year. I also had the opportunity to attend the National Teaching Conference in Birmingham which was a great experience listening to talks and topics from leading experts in education. Every term myself and a small number of other leaders would meet our personal mentor (Dame Susan Jowett) to touch base about how we were getting on, share ideas and best practice and discuss our ‘think piece’ projects. The course would have also normally allowed me to shadow a headteacher, but unfortunately COVID-19 meant this could not happen.’

The project culminated in Ash producing a written ‘think piece,’ on a subject of his choice.

He said ‘My think piece was titled “Raising Year 11 Attainment in GCSE PE through Centre Assessed Grades: An Evidence-Based Approach” This was a really timely topic as Centre Assessed Grades were completely alien to the teaching profession with no real educational literature out there. What this allowed me to do was highlight how my department and I had gathered valuable data and evidence to utilise and inform the grades for our students during the national lockdown when summer examinations were cancelled. I hope this could even be used as a guide for future Heads of Department when moving forward for future cohorts in their subjects.’