Castle Mead Academy is characterised by high expectations, doing the simple things well, and the belief that all children can succeed. Situated in the heart of historic Leicester, we are driven by a moral commitment to ‘grow a community of excellence’ for the benefit of all children in the city.

It is an immense privilege to be leading our school into its next chapter as the new Principal at Castle Mead Academy.

At Castle Mead, we live by our Castle Credo to ‘Be Kind, Work Hard and Build Your Character’.  We focus on being brilliant in the basics: doing the simple things really well, so that teachers can teach, and scholars can learn.  We have extremely high expectations because we know, without exception, that every child is capable of excellence and will flourish in our school.  We call our pupils ‘scholars’ for this reason.  The Castle Mead curriculum has been consciously crafted over time by our expert team of Curriculum Leaders.  It is highly ambitious, academically rigorous and equips scholars with powerful knowledge and skills to ensure they can confidently pursue their next steps for future learning and employment, whatever they may be. The subject vision statements on our website convey this ambition in each area of the curriculum.   This vision is then brought to life in classrooms by our extraordinary team of teachers, whose invigorating lessons, underpinned by a research-informed pedagogical approach, ensure that our scholars are amongst the most knowledgeable and hardworking in the country. We want our scholars to feel challenged, happy and motivated in their lessons, and we see this each and every day.  We also want to expand horizons beyond the classroom, and our Castle Character Time programme and wider menu of enrichment opportunities ensure that our scholars have plentiful opportunities to build their character.

Our routines, along with the simplicity of our ground rules, are designed to ensure a calm and orderly atmosphere in classrooms and around the school; we enact these with warmth, always.  We place maximum emphasis on excellent behaviour and a thoughtful, caring attitude to each other. This is supported by a strong pastoral system which ensures we get to know every child well.  We build a strong sense of belonging in our school: we want every child to come to school every day knowing that they belong, that they are cared for deeply and that they are safe.  This is underpinned by the value we place on relationships between staff and scholars.  Likewise, it is very important to us that our families feel a sense of belonging connected to our school.  We pride ourselves in the relationships we build with our families and, year on year, want to provide even more opportunities for families to be actively involved in school life.  We are committed to letting every member of our school and wider community know that their voice is valued and that we care.

At Castle Mead, we are relentless in our efforts to make the biggest positive difference possible.  Over the past five years, we have been growing a community of excellence in the heart of our city.  We are immensely proud of our achievements so far but are driven by a commitment to keep on getting better: as we enter our sixth year, we are incredibly excited about this next phase of growth and look forward to you and your children being a big part of that journey.

Miss C French

Principal