Principal's Welcome

     Natasha Whiles, Principal

I am delighted to introduce myself as the Principal of Grace Academy Coventry. I could not be more excited, passionate and committed to our school, our community and, more importantly than anything, our students. I am dedicated to ensuring that all young people are supported and challenged to allow them to become truly successful young adults who look back at their school career with pride and happiness. I believe our role is to nurture and challenge students to be the best version of themselves at all times.

Grace Academy is a welcoming and caring community where our core values of Limitless Potential, Intentional Excellence, Mutual Respect, Genuine Integrity and Amazing Grace underpin all that we do through ‘The Grace Way’. Our Values are central to our ethos, day-to-day curriculum, extra-curricular activities and pastoral structures. We are aspirational and proud of who we are as we fundamentally believe that all our students should thrive at school and that they have the Limitless Potential to succeed.

We have amazing students here at Grace who deserve the best possible life chances. We encourage students to be praised and recognised for their achievements whilst at the same time being challenged to meet our high expectations of them.

At the centre of all we do is the focus of what is best for our students; we not only focus on the academic excellence of students but also work with students on supporting them to be the best people they can be. My team and I pride ourselves on making decisions from a position of integrity. As a parent myself, I strongly believe that if it is not good enough for my children, then it is not good enough for Grace students. This is even more important in the current climate, as we put student wellbeing and aspirations at the heart of all that we do. We believe it is important for all students leaving Grace Academy to have the self-belief and qualifications they need in order to follow the path they have chosen; that students do not limit themselves and that staff and parents work together to support them in raising their expectations and aspirations. This is without doubt a strength of the school where we achieved ‘outstanding’ in our Ofsted inspection for Personal Development.

We value our staff and pride ourselves on our caring ethos with a strong and genuine focus on staff wellbeing. We are committed to developing our staff at all stages of their career, both internally and externally. This was recognised as a strength of Grace in our recent Ofsted inspection: ‘The school has implemented a well-thought-out, professional development programme for staff. Staff workload is carefully considered, which staff appreciate.’

We have a friendly, innovative and exciting community in which to work and offer a variety of attractive benefits, such as an on-site gym and use of the sporting facilities, free eye care vouchers, refreshments available throughout the day, free lunches when on duty and the opportunity to be a part of the Staff Wellbeing and Workload Committees.

Grace Academy joined the Tove Learning Trust in April 2019. We are a close-knit family of schools that have a shared vision and purpose: to deliver outstanding educational experiences that lead to inspiring outcomes. Each academy has a strong individual identity and tailors their educational provision to serve their local community. Academies within the Trust collaborate to share expertise and maximise opportunities and experiences for our staff and students.

If we truly work together, we can achieve limitless possibilities for our students' outcomes, their educational experience and their personal development and welfare. Asking ‘why’ will remain at the heart of all I do, thinking very carefully about why we do things the way we do, and asking ‘do they benefit the young people that we are here to educate?’ Education isn’t easy, learning is difficult and challenging; and being successful does not happen by accident. At Grace Academy Coventry we look very carefully at how we support students in that journey and how much we challenge them to ‘know better, do better and be better.’ This journey is an exciting one for us all, as we continue to work with you to make sure we are all constantly improving to be better.

I therefore invite you to join us on this journey; we are enhancing our programme of community activities so we can show you more of what we are achieving and working towards.

If there is anything in the meantime you wish to share with us, please email the reception office at coventry@graceacademy.org.uk and we will strive to further develop our important relationship with you.