Canon Lee’s new head outlines her ambitions for school (From York Press)
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New Canon Lee head teacher Christine Holbrey outlines her ambitions for school
9:41am Friday 28th September 2012 in News
By Haydn Lewis, haydn.lewis@thepress.co.uk
Christine Holbrey, the new head teacher at Canon Lee school
THE new head teacher at a York secondary school has outlined her vision for the future.
Christine Holbrey took over at Canon Lee School , in Clifton , at the beginning of term.
She says she is aiming to improve the school and bring its Ofsted rating back up from satisfactory to good and in the direction of the top grade of outstanding.
Miss Holbrey, 44, who lives in North Yorkshire with her partner and her four-year-old son, said: “Someone once described Canon Lee to me as a hidden gem in York and that is quite accurate – it’s a great school with fantastically articulate pupils who have great aspirations and ambitions. The school has a great family feel to it.”
Miss Holbrey has worked as a teacher for more than 22 years. She and was previously deputy head at York High School and before that, acting head teacher at Lowfield School, overseeing the school’s move to the old Oaklands site where the two schools merged.
She said she wants Canon Lee, which currently has about 750 pupils, to engage with the local community, but her ambitions do not lie with making the school an academy and taking it out of local authority control.
Miss Holbrey said: “I don’t feel the school will gain anything from going down that route, and while you never say never, it’s certainly not something I want at this point in time. I have worked in York for the local authority for the last nine years and while the local authority challenges schools, it is very supportive of them and gives schools the backing they need. The head teachers at York secondaries are also very supportive of each other.”
Miss Holbrey said this summer, Canon Lee had achieved its best GCSE results ever, ranking it fourth in the city for five grade A* to C including English and maths, making it the fastest-improving school in York.
