New head’s faith in determined students

Dave McEntee - New Hathershaw College head

THE new principal of Hathershaw College is no stranger to the school — he has worked there for 17 years.

Senior vice-principal Dave McEntee will take over from Carol Cawkwell in September, initially for a year.

Oldhamer Mr McEntee originally trained as a chartered accountant after studying maths at Manchester University.

“It was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to become a teacher but I wanted to get some wider experience, just to be sure teaching was what I wanted to do — I have never looked back,” explained the 49 year old, who lives in Saddleworth.

Mr McEntee worked in four schools before joining Hathershaw as head of maths in 1997.

Mrs Cawkwell announced in March that she was retiring at the end of the school year.

Mr McEntee said: “Fundamentally, it is about starting to raise levels of attainment. We have just had a monitoring visit from Ofsted and all the signs are that things are going very well. We are confident results are going to be considerably better in the summer than they were last year.”