School delight at MBE for Rachel

By Bill McCarthy

A Sutton Coldfield head teacher’s achievements has been recognised in the the Queen’s New Year Honours List. The honours recognise the incredible achievements and service of people across the whole of the UK.

Rachel Davis, headteacher at Little Sutton School and from Sutton Coldfield, was awarded an MBE for services to education.

Staff members at the school, rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted inspectors, praised Mrs Davis on their Twitter account saying: “Congratulations to our Headteacher Rachel Davis on being awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours. We are all so proud of her.”

Parents also praised Mrs Davis’ for her work. Clare Macphail, has three children who spent happy years at Little Sutton.

She said: “All three of my children enjoyed time at Little Sutton and that was down to the warm and friendly learning environment created by Mrs. Davis and her staff. Her MBE is well deserved.”

Mrs Davis has been head teacher at the Worcester Lane primary school since 2004 and is both a National Leader of Education (NLE) and an Ofsted inspector for the West Midlands.

National Leaders of Education provide focused support to under performing schools to enable rapid improvement.

According to her LinkedIn profile,  in 2014 she supported a school in challenging circumstances to move from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’ in 12 months.

The following year she then helped a school to move from Ofsted category of ‘Special Measures’ to ‘Good’ in 15 months and in 2015-2016 supported a school to move from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’ .

Little Sutton Primary School has more than 400 pupils and is designated one of the government’s new English Hubs – one of just 34 schools nationwide recognised for their excellence in teaching and learning.

The hub aims to support schools to achieve excellence in early literacy teaching through an initial focus on developing early language and closing the word gap, developing early reading through systematic, synthetic phonics. It also promotes a love of reading.

Her work was acknowledged by a Tamworth school she supported, who congratulated her for her award on Twitter: “Congratulations from all at Coton Green Primary School… Your help from the English Hub has had an enormous impact.”

Professor Colin Diamond, CBE and Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Birmingham, added: “Warmest congratulations to headteacher Rachel Davis on being awarded an MBE in the New Years Honours. Always the head who goes that extra mile to help others in Birmingham. So well deserved.”