New CEO appointed for The Cam Academy Trust

The Cam Academy Trust has appointed a new chief executive to succeed Stephen Munday.

Claire Heald is currently national director of education at Academies Enterprise Trust (AET), a network of 57 schools nationwide.

She will take over from Mr Munday, who has led the multi-academy educational trust since it was formed in 2011, in June.

The Cam Academy Trust runs four secondary schools, including the village colleges at Comberton, Cambourne and Melbourn, two sixth forms and seven primary phase schools. A sixth form at Cambourne is set to open in September.

The appointment follows a rigorous selection process and comes as The Cam Academy Trust (CAT) looks to the next stage of its development.

Sue Williamson, CAT chair of trustees, said: “I am absolutely delighted that Claire Heald will be joining the trust family later this school year.

“Claire will be joining us at an exciting time for the trust – our new sixth form will be opening, and we have a healthy pipeline of schools expressing an interest in joining our family. This will be an important new chapter for us, and we are absolutely committed to delivering the high-quality education that local families deserve.”

Mr Munday retires from the post at the end of March, having initially joined Comberton Village College as principal in 2001 before moving on to lead the trust which oversees it when it became an academy 10 years later.

Before joining AET in 2021, Ms Heald was deputy chief executive at Inspiration Trust, a Norfolk-based group of 16 schools. She founded and led a free school in Norwich, and before this had a number of senior leadership roles in Norfolk schools. During her time at AET, the proportion of schools rated good or outstanding by Ofsted improved from 71 to 86 per cent.

Ms Heald said: “I am thrilled to be taking on the post of chief executive at The Cam Academy Trust. The trust has the potential to be an exceptional group of schools.

“As a values-driven leader, their six core principles resonate deeply with me, particularly around standards of excellence and inclusion. It’s also very important to me that the trust’s schools continue to be at the heart of their communities.

“I’m very much looking forward to getting to know all of the schools and working with the staff to build on the successes to date.”