Ms Hill, formerly Principal at Thomas Clarkson Academy, Wisbech, will be retaining close links with Richard Scott, its newly appointed Associate Principal, while also assuming responsibility for Kettering Science Academy along with Brooke Weston Academy and its well established Teaching School in Northamptonshire.

As an experienced Principal with two prior Headships, including a very successful school in Northampton, she has a strong track record of school improvement, described as “excellent.” Ofsted inspectors have praised her ‘ambitious and highly effective leadership’, with a “sharp focus on school improvement” which they describe as “unrelenting.”

Ms Hill said: ‘I am very excited about the possibilities the role brings because there are some clear similarities across the three schools and also very different strengths within each. I see my role as being the co-ordinator, ensuring there is much greater collaboration. Where we have strengths these will be shared across the schools and where we have areas that need to be developed we will work collaboratively or bring in additional resource.

 ‘Sometimes it is difficult as a Principal to have the time to step outside your own school and identify and learn from all the good practice that is going on elsewhere, so in this role I will have that helicopter view. I also chair the secondary principals’ meetings for the Trust and we are focusing on working together, enabling us to bring even more value to each school for the benefit of all of our pupils.’

She will support the Principals and provide a professional overview when necessary: ‘It’s about collaboration, professional integrity, trust, confidentiality and being able, as a collective group of heads, to have open and honest conversations.

‘You often hear that headship is a very lonely place, however, as a group of secondary principals we have a ready-made support network and that will be hugely beneficial. Obviously at Thomas Clarkson Academy I will still be in the background. Each school needs different levels of support but I see my principal objective as driving school improvement, improving outcomes for pupils across the Trust. The possibilities across all three schools are huge because we have got a great staff body and very pro-active and enthusiastic Associate Principals who all share the same goal.’