Alec Hunter Academy is a mixed 11-16 comprehensive school with an established reputation as a welcoming learning community with a harmonious atmosphere.  Our mission is to provide opportunities for all our young people to progress, enjoy learning and fulfil their academic potential in a safe, caring environment that prepares them well for a successful future.  We pride ourselves on the positive relationships we engender between our students and the adults who work with them on a day-to-day basis and believe that they learn best when they feel valued and when the expectations of them are high.  We anticipate that our learners will attend school with a positive attitude to learning, that they will embrace challenge where they encounter it and will be enthusiastic, resourceful, adaptable and resilient. 

 ‘Developing positive, productive partnerships’ is a core principle of our school and, as founder members of Saffron Academy Trust, having converted to academy status in 2013 under their sponsorship, we have enjoyed working in close collaboration with Saffron Walden County High School for many years.   Today, our membership of the Trust gives us the opportunity to exchange ideas and share practice with a dynamic group of schools, all of which are determined to contribute effectively to each other’s development.  This has had a significant impact on our journey of improvement to becoming the thriving, heavily oversubscribed school that we are today.

Central to our ethos is the desire to see our learners achieve academic success and cultivate personal qualities that will allow them to flourish in the modern world.  The most important of these is the notion of ‘kindness above all else’, a principle which we promote consistently with our students and which was recognised by Ofsted during their November 2022 visit to be 'reflected in the relationships between staff and pupils'.

We hope that our young people will leave Alec Hunter with happy memories, having enjoyed a range of experiences that have prepared them for the next phase of their education and for their adult lives.

Trevor Lawn

Headteacher