THE Standard can now reveal its winner for the Headteacher of the Year Award.

Announced at our first Education Awards ceremony on Friday, July 7, with the help of ITV journalist and broadcaster Lucy Meacock, the Headteacher of the Year celebrates the great work by those who oversee and manage some of the best schools in our area.

Setting the standard and ensuring that everyone is pulling in the same direction to give children across Chester and Ellesmere Port the best possible education is an unenviable task but one that many on our patch make look easy.

We too had a difficult task to choose our winner, but all those who were nominated deserve great credit.

Our runners-up for Headteacher of the Year Award are:

  • Sian Simcock, Headteacher at St Paul's Church of England Primary School near Tarporley.
  • Ben Reading, Headteacher at Maple Grove School in Chester.

Our winner of the Headteacher of the Year Award is:

  • Beth Hacking, Headteacher at Cherry Grove in Chester.

Beth said: "I feel really humbled, it's such a privilege. Cherry Grove is such an amazing school to be headteacher of and I feel very proud of everybody, the children, the staff and the parents, we're a great community.

"The culture for me is the most important thing, our motto is 'We care' and I feel that for every single child, every single parent and every single member of staff. If you always come back to that, that helps us to think about what is most important for those children and what is going to make the biggest difference to their lives.

On the challenges of the last few years in the education sector, Beth added: "It's incredibly challenging but in terms of the way that we have come together and grown as a community is has been amazing. We've faced those challenges together and that has been really rewarding as a headteacher as well.

"We're such a strong team and this will be such a great thing for the school so I'm really pleased."