New Year Honours 2024: Shropshire education leader appointed MBE

Michael Cladingbowl has been awarded an MBE for services to education

A nationally recognised education leader from Shropshire has been appointed MBE.

The honour comes after Michael Cladingbowl became one of Her Majesty's Inspectors in 2002 and later Ofsted's national director of schools.

He told BBC Radio Shropshire: "I've seen education change youngsters' lives."

Mr Cladingbowl began his teaching career in 1987 and was the head teacher of a school in Cheshire for six years.

The 65-year-old, from Wem, has been honoured for services to education and said he was "really surprised" to receive the news.

"I see this as being a recognition of all the fantastic people I've worked with over the years," he said.

Mr Cladingbowl has been a senior leader in education for over 25 years and has also worked to improve school inspections through his work with Ofsted.

As a regional director for the north of England, he led over 400 staff and a much larger field force of inspectors with annual budgets of more than £40m.

'Children are our future'

He was the national director of schools until leaving Ofsted in 2015.

In September 2020, he played a leading role in the merger of Knutsford MAT and Congleton MAT to form The Learning Alliance.

He became the CEO of the newly formed trust of eight schools, three primary schools and five secondary schools, all based across Cheshire and north Staffordshire and educating over 4,000 pupils.

Speaking about what the MBE meant to him, Mr Cladingbowl said: "It's less about me - and that might sound a bit silly - but I see this as being a recognition of all the fantastic people I've worked with over the years, including in north Shropshire.

"This reward is important because it's all about acknowledging the fantastic work all those people do day in day out, often unsung, often in difficult circumstances, to do such a great job in teaching our kids."

He said education was "the thing that matters most" and he had seen the transformative effect it had had on children's lives.

"It's a cliché I know, but children are our future, so we need to invest in them and to do that we've got to invest in our staff," he said.