SECONDARY SCHOOL HEAD TEACHER OF THE YEAR

NAME – Richard Varey

SCHOOL – Blessed Trinity RC College

BASED: Ormerod Road, Burnley

NUMBER OF PUPILS – 1,253

SCHOOL MISSION/VISION – Love God, Serve Others, Work Hard, Value All

RICHARD Varey’s leadership has impressed the judges so much they decided to give this award to him again – he first received it in 2014, two years after taking over at the school, which was then in special measures. Now it’s a very different story and the school has been rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and has just had its best-ever GCSE results.

He was nominated for the award by teacher Lindsay Bleazard.

“Mr Varey has transformed the school. He is keen on empowering staff and enabling staff to take risks and shows great trust in them to make a real difference.

“He has also won the support of both pupils and parents by actively listening to their concerns and acting on them,” she said.

The judges of the category, sponsored by Key Stage, felt that his breakfast meetings with pupils and parents was innovative and what shone through above all was his sense of humour.

“I am delighted to be selected as Secondary School Head of the Year but it is a team effort.

“The senior leadership team, governors, teachers, students and everyone connected with Blessed Trinity have played a huge part in transforming our school.

“We are on a journey to being recognised as outstanding by Ofsted, having secured an outstanding grade in the Section 48 RE Inspection.

“We are hoping to achieve our best ever GSCE results this year and the public are recognising the strengths of Blessed Trinity, as we have been oversubscribed for the last few years. I, along with everyone at the school, want Blessed Trinity to be the best it can be and that motivates us all. We want our students to get the best out of school life, both personally and academically, and everyone at the school shares the same ambitions.

“It’s an honour to win the award on behalf of everyone at Blessed Trinity,” said Mr Varey.