The headteacher of All Saints Catholic College in Ladbroke Grove, London, Andrew O’Neill, has been named Silver Winner of the Pearson National Teaching Awards 2022 in the category of Headteacher of the Year in a Secondary School. The award was presented at a celebration in the school’s new Rome Building on 26 May.
The Pearson awards are often dubbed the “Oscars” of the teaching profession, and Mr O’Neill is in the running to scoop the overall prize, the Gold Award, at the Pearson National Teaching Awards UK ceremony in November.
The award acknowledges the remarkable turnaround at the school achieved by the teaching body, the governing body, and Mr O’Neill himself since he was appointed in 2016.
During the 1960s, Cardinal Manning Girls School merged with a convent school founded by the Sisters of Sion in Bayswater to form Sion-Manning Catholic Girls’ School. In September 2018, this school became All Saints Catholic College, now a co-educational 11-16 school, admitting boys for the first time. To honour the school’s history, in 2018 All Saints launched the Manning Award for Excellence, designed to develop students’ skills that will be required for sixth-form, university and beyond.
In introducing the presentation ceremony the chairperson of the Board of Governors, Amanda Sayers, a barrister and corporate finance banker, referred to the turnaround in the school’s performance – from underperforming and undersubscribed with run-down fabric in 2016, to its present status as oversubscribed and with a highly positive Ofsted report, together with the recent construction of the beautifully appointed Rome building in which the presentation took place.
The latest Ofsted inspection at the school was carried out in October 2021. As a good school, it was inspected under Section 8 of the Ofsted framework meaning that Ofsted’s overall judgement could not change at that point; however, the inspection team recognised that there was enough evidence to suggest that All Saints is currently outstanding, and the team is to return to fully inspect the school within the next 12-18 months under Section 5 to confirm that judgement.
In her address Ms Sayers also recalled that when the school was renamed in 2018, the title “All Saints” was deliberately chosen to indicate that every pupil at the school has the capacity to become a saint.
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