Drum roll please..........it’s that time again to announce our amazing winners of Employee of the Month!
Congratulations to everyone who has been nominated and thank you to every single member of our Kedleston Group family who continue to go above and beyond to ensure our children and young people are kept safe and happy in this challenging time.
Wings School Cumbria: Hilary Cowperthwaite
Hilary has been a “rock” for Wings Care Team for some time, however during Covid-19 she has shown even higher commitment to Wings, volunteering to isolate for a week with children in a house who may have been exposed to the virus.
She received a letter of commendation from Cumbria Constabulary for her swift actions to safeguard children who were putting themselves at risk and managing to avert this.
She has, over her long career with Wings, shown such a commendable level of care and commitment to our children and helped many to prepare for independent living, and yes, this is a cliché, but really goes “above and beyond” what is asked and expected.
For all this we would like to award her with the May employee of the month.
Wings School Notts: Hannah Deacon
Hannah has shown exceptional motivation and dedication in her role at Wings Notts. She has stepped up since the clinical psychologist has been working from home and has been managing a high case load and high demands.
Hannah has built fantastic relationships with the young people and has shown a great passion to develop her role. Hannah has taken a lead on the DBT group and will often go above and beyond to meet the ongoing demands of her role.
Hannah is a great asset to the clinical team and shows continuous passion to improve the wellbeing of our children.
High Peak School: Alice Woolley
Alice works tirelessly supporting the children at High Peak, she provides nurture to the children enabling them to settle and flourish. Alice possesses amazing resilience and will always come back smiling even after the most challenging of incidents. High Peak hit the Jackpot the day Alice Woolley walked through the front door – Thank you.
Arc School Ansley: Andrea Phillips
Andrea hit the ground running when she started working here during lockdown and worked hard to get online lessons going and managed to build a rapport with students during lessons even though she has never met many of them in person.
Arc School Napton: Jo Ternant
During COVID Jo has faced her demons and been in whenever required and she’s produced some amazing remote learning, all her class are returning their work. She’s shown dogged determination to maintain children’s progress.
Jo has also taken on responsibility for English is driving children’s progress across the whole school.
Arc Oakbridge School; Becky Forbes
Becky is very much our Wonder from Down Under! Having only joined the Oakbridge Team in January, she has rapidly made her mark on the school and been instrumental in the development of our Careers provision in particular.
She is highly solutions-focused, but also has immense empathy and compassion for our students and their families. She has worked tirelessly with our older students – her dedication and commitment to the students and the school simply knows no bounds. She brings energy and enthusiasm to all of the students (and staff!).
Olsen House School: Stuart Fraser
Stuart brings positivity with him wherever he goes! No matter what the situation is, he will approach it with a positive mind-set. No matter how stressful an event is, he will smile and do whatever he can to make the best of it. No matter how daunting the task he is set, Stuart will roll up his sleeves and get on with the job.
Stuart has flourished in his new role at Olsen House because of his fantastic attitude. It has helped him build great relationships with students and colleagues alike and has ensured that he was able to respond very successfully to the extra demands that the current situation has placed on us all.
Mention Stuart’s name to another member of our team and they will, invariably, smile. What better indicator of a colleagues personal qualities can there be?
Brookways School: Laura Osborne
Laura recently took over sole responsibility for HR at Brookways and then had to lead on her first audit. Laura worked incredibly hard to get ready for the audit and she worked firmly but sensitively with everyone to ensure that all tasks were completed by the deadlines. Laura achieved a 100% GREEN audit - a fantastic achievement. We are really proud of her!!
Leaways School: Shane Caraher
Shane Caraher – For always going the extra mile for Leaways School.
Heysham House: Katie Leech
Our employee of the month for May is Katie Leech for covering shifts and helping at short notice. She is always at the end of the phone when extra support is needed.
Kedleston Support Office: Simon Rodden
Simon has been working very hard behind the scenes with each school developing their Covid-19 secure safety plans and risk assessment to support the wider reopening of school from 1st June.
He is also working with HR to ensure all colleagues returning from periods of absence or remote working have the required risk assessments and safe systems of work in place to get them back to work as safely as possible.
With his support progress has continued on developing our strategic guidance and support of settings in terms of COVID 19 as well as on other development projects we have under way at present.
Wood Grove: Lee McDermid
Lee is a residential bank support worker in Wood Grove. Despite Lee's busy schedule, he has shown great commitment, hard work and support to the team and children during this pandemic.
Lee is caring, compassionate and responsive to the needs of the children. The children all look forward to when he is on. Lee ensures the children all have a great time on his shift.
What a brilliant bunch you all are!