She will be part of an impressive group of future education leaders from across the country designated as SSAT Leadership Fellows. Successful Leadership Fellows are all in their first two to four years of teaching and have been selected by their Principals as already showing the potential to become outstanding school leaders.

Involvement in the programme demonstrates commitment by Brooke Weston Academy and SSAT to developing the next generation of system leaders. The impact of this project is very impressive. Leadership Fellows enrolled on last year’s programme have achieved increased leadership responsibilities at an early career stage, through exposure to a wide range of knowledge and information which boosts confidence levels. The activities that the Fellows undertake have impact at classroom and whole school level and bring additional benefits in terms of whole school performance.

SSAT has been designing and delivering school leadership development programmes for 15 years and has over 14,000 alumni, among them some of the country’s most prestigious education system leaders.

SSAT is fully committed to supporting the development of the next generation of education system leaders and is investing in this prestigious project, free to participating schools. The opportunity will allow SSAT Leadership Fellows to engage with some of the best leaders nationally and internationally and to examine leadership in other sectors.

Charlotte said: ‘I spoke to Camilla Kerr, who had done the same programme last year, and she said what a great project it was, looking at leadership and seeing how you can go forwards in education. It was a great opportunity and one I couldn’t miss.

‘The programme launch in London had motivational speakers and talks from last year’s cohort. It is a one year programme with four main events and the option of shadowing a head teacher or SLT in different schools. You also have to do a ‘thinkpiece,’ which is a written reflection on an area of leadership that you want to focus on. There is also the opportunity to go to the SSAT conference where Matt Rodgers and Rebecca Waterson are speaking on creative imagination and leadership.’

Camilla Kerr, who completed the programme last academic year, said: ‘The best thing was visiting other schools and seeing their policies and procedures and how they deal with student care issues. Being involved in SLT meetings with schools was really interesting and getting to know other teachers in my position, early on in their career who want to push forward and gain experience in different environments is really beneficial. I did my project on KS3 student care and developing the enrichment and PiXL Edge student programme so I can really recommend this route.’

Other teachers from the Trust have been accepted onto the programme and we will celebrate their achievements over the coming weeks.