Introduction to the Secondary leadership team for 2020-21

Dear parents and guardians of Year 6-12 DBIS students,

I write to you at the end of this year to thank you all for your support through what has been a challenging year for students, their families and colleagues within the school. Together as a community, we have overcome many things and I know that we all look forward to a well-deserved summer break.

Despite some adversities witnessed this year we have also had many reasons to celebrate. Year 13 are off to different prestigious Universities across the globe after successfully completing their sixth form courses.  Our Year 11 students have completed their IGCSEs and look forward to embarking on their sixth form studies in August.  In addition to these academic successes of which we are supremely proud of, we have had many other moments of celebration across our entire student body that makes us very confident moving forward.

I also wanted to use this opportunity to introduce you to our new Secondary Senior Leadership and Middle Leadership Teams. With these new teams, we build upon our strengths of previous years, whilst adding to our capacity to make the most of the opportunities ahead.

 

The new structure is as follows:

 

Secondary Leadership Team

Head of Secondary: Mr. Simon Oakley

Deputy Head of Secondary (Academic): Mr. Peter Roberts

Assistant Head of Secondary (Pastoral): Mr. Aaron Harris 

Head of Sixth Form: Ms. Emma Cerrone

 

Our enlarged Secondary leadership team will allow us to focus on ensuring that we are even better prepared to support every single child to reach their full potential whilst they are at DBIS. The newly created position of Deputy Head of Secondary (Academic), which will be taken up by Peter Roberts, will allow us to further focus on our curriculum to ensure that it is built upon the latest academic research on the best educational practice. It will allow us to ensure we do not miss out on opportunities to both support and stretch every single student in the Secondary phase. Peter brings with him a wide range of valuable experiences from his current role as Assistant Head of Secondary School as well as in his previous leadership roles and he is very excited about helping move the DBIS Secondary phase forwards. 

Aaron Harris is moving up into the role of Assistant Head of Secondary (Pastoral), from his current role leading Year 8. His focus will be on the pastoral side of Secondary where he has a lot of knowledge from his different roles within the school and also of the local community during the years that he has lived in DB. 

Emma Cerrone will be taking on the role of Head of Sixth Form, currently called the Senior school, from the start of August. Emma has effectively led the current Year 11 for the last two years and is well placed to grow the Sixth Form, whilst deepening the student leadership experiences and enhancing their service opportunities. She will also be working closely with our  University and Careers Guidance Counsellor, Mr. Richard Koenig, to support students and their families to make high-quality decisions about where they wish to study in the future and effectively guide them through the various application processes.

 

Heads of Year (Previously called Year Group Leaders)

Year 7 Ms. Morag Armstrong

Year 8 Mrs. Tracey Smal

Year 9 Ms. Samantha Hine

Year 10 Mr. Nicholas Moore

Year 11 Mr. Tom Lemon

Year 12/13 (Sixth Form) Ms. Emma Cerrone

Mr Harris, our new Assistant Head of Secondary (Pastoral) will be sending out information at the start of next week about the make-up of form tutors within the different year teams to ensure that you are clearly informed about this before the end of this academic year.

 

Heads of Department (Whole School) 

Mr. David Spencer: Creative and Performing Arts 

Mr. Rob White: Physical Education and Sports 

Mrs. Angela Moriarity: Learning Techology

Ms. Qin Cai: Mandarin and Foreign Languages 

This team now includes Rob White who is stepping into the whole school Physical Education and Sports role, which he is excellently placed to do, based on his valuable experience and skills from his time in both DBIS and also his previous leadership roles.

   

Heads of Department (Secondary Phase) – Previously called Curriculum Group Leaders 

Ms. Amy Lee: English 

Ms. Rachel Murphy: Humanities 

Ms. Anna Lyndon: Science 

Mr. Adam Reid: Mathematics 

Ms. Hannah Sussams: Technology 

We welcome Hannah Sussams moving up into the role of Head of Technology for next year after her time in supporting this department to develop and grow into offering the many high-quality areas that they already deliver on.

I wish you and your families all the best for this summer.

 

Kind regards,

Simon Oakley

Head of Secondary