Dame Sharon Hollows, DBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 1958, Burnley

Burnley

Burnley is a market town in the Burnley borough of Lancashire, England, with a population of around 73,500. It lies north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun....

, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

) is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 schoolteacher and headmistress.

When Hollows took on her first headship at Calverton Primary School in Newham

London Borough of Newham

The London Borough of Newham is a London borough formed from the towns of West Ham and East Ham, within East London.It is situated east of the City of London, and is north of the River Thames. According to 2006 estimates, Newham has one of the highest ethnic minority populations of all the...

 in 1994, pupils' performance was very poor. By 1999, when the primary school results were published, Hollows had raised the score 11 year olds achieved across the three subjects in the national curriculum tests to 269 – up from just 45 in 1994. It marked out the school as the most improved in the country. In 2001 the performance went up again, to 287, far above the national average, with most of the students being of African, Asian or Eastern European descent.

In October 2000, Sharon Hollows gave the footnote addresses at the W. Garfield Weston Foundation's Outstanding Principals Awards Program conferences in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

 and Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

.

Damehood

Hollows' work was formally recognised in 2001 when she became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Aged 42, she was one of the youngest recipients of this honour.

Accolades

At the Children Left Behind Conservative Party conference on the state of British schools, Hollows earned the following praise: Another example of transformational leadership is Sharon Hollows, who took the headship of Calverton Primary School in Newham in 1994. Like Whalley Range, Calverton was in a very poor state when she took over, yet Ms Hollows succeeded in raising the score that her eleven year-olds achieve in their national curriculum tests from just 45 in 1994 to 287 today. Having raised its performance from well below to well above the national average, Calverton became the most improved school in the country, despite most of its pupils being from families for whom English is not a first language. Ms. Hollows reports that one of the keys to her approach was involving parents more, drawing up ‘home-school contracts’ before they became a national requirement.

External links

• BBC profile
• Independent article
• Sharon Hollows Consultancy Ltd