Kestrel Mead is captivating, I challenge you to walk around and not smile at the children’s enthusiasm, work ethic and curiosity that they possess.

As Principal, it is an honour to welcome you to our school.  The staff team here are a dedicated group of professionals who strive to ‘be the best they can be’ providing the highest levels of care, education and aspiration for the children and families that attend. Recognised as experts within their field, the leaders at Kestrel Mead not only have significant impact on the education of pupils at Kestrel Mead but children and leaders across the city through various support projects. Staff development is described by external visitors as being ‘part of the DNA of Kestrel Mead’ leading to exceptional teaching and strong outcomes for pupils. Acknowledging that sharing good practice and collaboration are key, in September 2019 we made the choice to academise. We are proud to be part of TMET (The Mead Educational Trust) and we benefit from working closely with other primary and secondary schools within the Trust. This growing partnership of schools brings access to a world-class education network and high quality professional development for our staff. We embrace the vision of TMET; ‘Together we make a positive difference’. In 2022, we took our commitment around inclusion to the next level by opening a DSP (special needs unit) to support the needs locally and across the city. It is held as a beacon of good practice across the city and provides outreach support for other TMET and LA schools.

As a community we abide by 4 core values of #respect, #curiosity, #resilience and #compassion and we celebrate these core character behaviours alongside expecting to see them in all that we do. On their first day and last day at Kestrel Mead, children have a photograph in front of our school wings; each feather on these wings is a different character behaviour trait that we work hard to develop with your children so that they can fly off to secondary school fully equipped to face the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

The Kestrel Mead school community is fortunate to have 50 different languages represented as well as representations from all faiths. As you can imagine, our community celebrations are a key part of life at Kestrel Mead and yearly we welcome over 800 people to our community Diwali party, Eid celebrations and Christmas fairs. We work closely with parents to enrich the education of children at every opportunity and reguarly seek feedback on how we can continue to utilise this connection. Written on the school coridoor walls are the words from the book ‘All welcome here’ and I feel incredibly fortunate for how the whole school community celebrate each other and embrace the differences that we all hold. 

Alongside our relentless drive to raise the children’s levels in reading, writing and maths, we have a unique and bespoke curriculum that is recognised nationally as an area of excellence.  The interwoven curriculum intent is to ignite a passion for knowledge (resilience), an inquisitive eye (curiosity), a confident voice (respect), a global citizen (compassion) and is deeply personalised in the context of Kestrel Mead and Hamilton. We are proud of the confident voice that children develop and the readiness we provide for their exciting futures.

See our school enviroment tab to feel how vibrant and fortunate we are with space and resources across both of the school site sat Kestrel Mead, or come and witness for yourself our driving determination to ensure that children and adults in the school develop a love of learning, a resilience to overcome obstacles and to thrive and ‘be the best that they can be’.

Zoe Simpson, Principal