Educating Cardiff - key staff

Joy Ballard - Head Teacher

Joy Ballard joined Willows in 2011, for her first Head Teacher role. When she joined the school had a very poor reputation with just 14% of pupils leaving with 5 GCSE grades at A- C. Over the last 3 years results have steadily increased to 50%.

Highly driven, Joy passionately believes that every child at her school, no matter what their background, deserves the opportunities that a good education brings. She’s introduced a new school motto – Belong, Believe, Achieve.

Joy left school with no qualifications and didn’t get her first GCSE until the age of 26 but because of her upbringing and background Joy feels she has “enormous empathy” towards the pupils at Willows and understands the issues they face in their day to day lives.