Dame Sharon Hollows, DBE (born 14 December 1958) is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

schoolteacher and headmistress. Born in

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

to Jack and Margaret Hollows, Hollows' first headship was at Calverton Primary School in Newham 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, Hollows gave the footnote addresses at the W. Garfield Weston Foundation's Outstanding Principals Awards Program conferences in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

and

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

. Dame Sharon Hollows is currently the principal at Charter Academy, a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

in Portsmouth, which is sponsored by

ARK Schools Ark or ARK may refer to: Biblical narratives and religion Hebrew word ''teva'' * Noah's Ark, a massive vessel said to have been built to save the world's animals from a flood * Ark of bulrushes, the boat of the infant Moses Hebrew ''aron'' * ...

Damehood

Hollows' work was formally recognised in 2001 when she became a

Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

. Aged 42, she was one of the youngest recipients of this honour.

Personal

Hollows successfully sued the NHS on behalf of her blind daughter, Tatum, for £1.5 million.

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''.Children Left Behind policy document

References

External links

BBC profileSharon Hollows Consultancy Ltd
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hollows, Sharon 1958 births Living people Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire People from Burnley Heads of schools in England People educated at Haslingden Grammar School