New head teacher at Haute Vallée

Sunday 05 November 2017

A new head teacher has been appointed to lead Haute Vallée secondary school. Stuart Hughes will leave his current post as a deputy head at Hautlieu School to take over at Haute Vallée in the new year.

Experienced head teacher John McGuinness will extend his role to become executive head teacher of both Grainville and Haute Vallée, enabling the two town schools to share expertise and work more closely together.

Once Mr McGuinness becomes executive head, Grainville’s current associate head, Sue Morris, will become acting head teacher of the school. She will remain in this post while a recruitment process for his replacement takes place. Mrs Morris had already run the school for a year while Mr McGuinness was away on secondment.

Mr Hughes began his teaching career in 1994 in his native Wales where he taught maths through Welsh at Cardigan Secondary School. He came to Jersey in 2001 to be director of IT at Hautlieu and was promoted to deputy head in 2012.

John McGuinness became head teacher of Grainville Secondary School in September 2009. He spent a year on secondment as executive head of Academy 360 in Sunderland as part of an agreement between the Education Department and the Northern Education Trust and then returned to Grainville. Mr McGuinness, a former deputy head of Le Rocquier, has also been named public sector director of the year at the UK Institute of Directors awards. Under his headship, Grainville’s GCSE results have improved dramatically and are now the best in the school’s history.

Mr Hughes said: " I feel like I have been ready for a headship for some time and have been fortunate that this opportunity has arisen. I see real potential in Haute Vallée to support the development and learning of young people. There are already excellent working relationships between the students and teachers, and the caring nature of the staff means we are extremely well placed to move forward."

"I am excited to be working alongside John McGuinness and to learn from his experience because he is making a real difference to young people’s lives at his school. I think his support for me as a new head teacher will be invaluable and I am looking forward to developing our schools collaboratively in ways that will give young people the best opportunities to move forward in future."

Chief Education Officer Justin Donovan said: "The two town secondary schools face similar challenges so it makes absolute sense for them to work more closely together, especially in view of John’s success at Grainville. The need to recruit a new head teacher for Haute Vallée provides an opportunity to adopt a different leadership model for the two town-based 11 to 16 secondary schools. This kind of arrangement is new to Jersey but it’s not new elsewhere and is a recognised way of strengthening schools."

Education Minister Deputy Rod Bryans added: "As a former chair of governors for Haute Vallée, the school is very close to my heart so I am extremely pleased to see one of our outstanding deputy heads promoted to this important role. I wish him and his new team every success for the future."