Hammersmith’s Academy’s Assistant Headteacher Peter Saunders did us proud last term by taking home the Pure Potential Leadership Award. Pure Potential recognises and celebrates achievements of state educated students and teachers. Pete was put forward for the award ‘for staff who provide excellent support and guidance to fellow teachers and pupils to improve standards in their school or college’. He won against teachers with decades of teaching and leadership experience, a real achievement and recognition of his hard work, passion and dedication to the students and staff of Hammersmith Academy.

Pete said:

“I was nominated and shortlisted for the award and invited to the awards ceremony in Canary Warf.

“The venue was absolutely awesome – on the 20th floor of one of the new skyscrapers. There were four people in my category who were shortlisted. I was shocked when they announced I was the winner, it was a very strong field and I wasn’t expecting to win. The guy before me had made a speech, but because I assumed I wouldn’t win I hadn’t prepared one so I just took the award and walked off!

“The important thing was all the other awards were very interesting and inspiring. The student awards in particular. There was a young person who had gone through chemotherapy during their A levels and still managed to get 4 A*. There was a girl who was homeless and still managed to get accepted into Oxford University in September. For me that was the most important and inspiring part of the night. Winning the award has given me more confidence in what I’m doing and motivated me to try and even harder to improve the lives and learning of the students here at Hammersmith Academy”.

Pete is an incredibly passionate and talented teacher who inspires both students and his colleagues to give 100%.

He is one of our founding members of staff and has been a consistently outstanding teacher and is responsible for the creation of our Teaching and Learning program. Through his leadership he has designed and implemented a bespoke CPD package for staff which includes an NQT program and a Beyond Outstanding program to challenge our very best teachers.

He has a huge passion for education and spends large amounts of his personal time researching evidence based best practice. His creation and implementation of our Year 11 GCSE support program has had a significant positive impact in our first set GCSE exams since the Academy opened 5 years ago. Pete has devised a mentoring scheme for every student, launched through a staff and student team building day. He has created curriculum pathways for all students to ensure the best outcomes and has put a range of supportive programs in place including subject intervention sessions and Saturday tutoring classes. Pete provides analysis and evaluation of initiatives that need implementing and takes full ownership of a program.

He is a worthy winner of the award.