Lionheart colleagues recognised at the Heart Awards 2023

Around 700 staff from our 14 Trust schools congregated at Athena in Leicester to celebrate a wide range of achievements. New for this academic year, the peer-to-peer Heart Awards were introduced in response to employee voice, giving staff an opportunity to recognise their colleagues and highlight the incredible work they do.

All year, staff have been nominating individual colleagues who embody one or all of the Trust’s three core values; positivity, professionalism and pupil-centredness. The crucial work many of the school teams do was also recognised by nominators in this fourth category.

By May, some 273 employees had been nominated – many of these by multiple nominators - and the independent judging panel had the hugely difficult task of deciding on the finalists and winners.

At Athena in July, Lionheart’s very own ‘Ant and Dec,’ Ollie Rowe and Rikki Khakhar, stepped away from their teaching day jobs to guide the audience through the award ceremony where the worthy finalists and overall winners were revealed...

Positive:

Winners

Gareth Butcher (Beauchamp College) – Head of Science

Jaspal Singh (Highcliffe Primary School) – Premises Officer

 

Finalists

• Tom Barr (The Newbridge School) – Head of Maths
• Ryan Pemberton (Beauchamp City Sixth Form) – Head of Pastoral
• Pip Chambers (The Cedars Academy) – HLTA
• Leavi Oshungbure (Judgemeadow Community College) – Team Leader
• Katy Watson (Lionheart) – Operations Manager
• Lisa Sharma (Martin High School) – Catering Manager

 

Professional:

Winners

Natasha Ladha (Sir Jonathan North Girls’ College) – English Teacher

Alison Spathaky (Beauchamp College) - Associate Head of Key Stage 4 & Pastoral Support

 

Finalists

• Christine Greenall (Humphrey Perkins School) – Careers Leader
• Jatinder Sehmi (Lionheart) – Finance Partner
• Mandy Sharp (Lionheart) – Data and Assessment Lead
• Natalie Yeomans (Broom Leys Primary School) – Class Teacher
• Kate White (Sir Jonathan North Girls’ College) – Humanities Teacher
• Joe Matjasz (Riverside Primary School) – Class Teacher

 

Pupil-centred:

Winners

Kelly Cragg (The Cedars Academy) – English/Media Teacher & Head of Sixth Form

Chanel Dhameja (The Newbridge School) – English Teacher

 

Finalists

• Faye Wheatley (Martin High School) – Learning Support Assistant  
• Karen Gutteridge (Highcliffe Primary School, Hallam Fields Primary School and Riverside Primary School) – Family Support Worker
• Andrea Ives (Hallam Fields Primary School) – Senior Administration Officer
• Craig Patterson (The Cedars Academy) – Team Leader
• Sarah Brady (The Castle Rock School) – Head of Year 7
• Mariam Meman (Sir Jonathan North Girls’ College) – Pupil Premium Mentor
• Finlay Moore (Brocks Hill Primary School) – Sports Apprentice

 

Team:

Winners

Wellbeing Team (Humphrey Perkins School)

Catering Team (Martin High School)

 

Finalists

• ELSA Team (Broom Leys Primary School)
• Leadership Team (Brocks Hill Primary School)
• Student Managers (The Cedars Academy)
• Designated Safeguarding Leads (Lionheart)

 

A huge congratulations to all those that were shortlisted and to the very worthy winners.

 

With thanks to our corporate sponsors who made the awards night possible:

• Main sponsor – Surveyors to Education
• Co-sponsor – GTE Electrical
• Co-sponsor – Aspire People
• Main Prize sponsor – Benenden Health

 

Merit should also be given to the judging panel – Byron Chatburn (Director of Sea-Band Ltd and Trustee), Chris Swan (Governance advisor and former teacher), Roy Pett (Surveyors 2 Education) and Daniel Dawkins (Aspire People) – who read through all the nomination forms, selected the finalists and presented awards on the night.

Here’s to next year!

 Click on the video below to watch a montage of an incredible evening