"Education can open up so many lifetime opportunities" - Jersey Evening Post
by James Jeune · Jersey Evening PostPosted inNews
“Education can open up so many lifetime opportunities”
by James Jeune 10 July 202610 July 2026
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“EDUCATION is about optimism and doing the hard work to make the change,” said Jo Terry-Marchant, who has 35 years of experience in the sector.
Born and educated in Jersey, Mrs Terry-Marchant started her teaching career in London in the early 1990s, before she returned to the Island to take up the role of head of faculty for English and Drama at Grainville School, and later joined Highlands College.
She went on to hold various senior leadership roles in the College before becoming principal in April 2020.
Now concluding her time at the helm at Highlands, it was revealed earlier this year that she has been chosen to serve as ‘partnership lead’ for the Island’s secondary schools starting in September.
Among other objectives, her new position will see her work with school leaders to strengthen collaboration between primary and secondary education and support curriculum delivery across Key Stages 3 to 5.
Mrs Terry-Marchant said: “My passion, the thing that’s made me super resilient in London and over here, is I believe in breaking down barriers.
“Everywhere I’ve worked, what I aim to do is make access to quality education easier. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a young person of 16 or an adult wanting to do a degree, or a single parent mother who wants to retrain, or somebody who is learning a language.
“Education can open up so many lifetime opportunities and that is really why I’ve decided to delay my retirement and do the partnership lead role.”
It forms part of the Jersey School Partnership, a two-year pilot scheme that has seen four partnership leads appointed.
The other three are CYPES senior adviser Jo Pearce, who will have responsibility for town primary schools, as well as La Moye head teacher John Baudains (eastern primary schools) and Les Landes head teacher Vicki Charlesworth (western primary schools).
The government has stated that evidence from other jurisdictions “shows that structured school partnerships improve professional development and lead to better outcomes for children”.
Asked why she felt she would be a good fit for the position, Mrs Terry-Marchant said: “Obviously my secondary experience was relevant, but also it’s my approach to leadership.
“If you look at both strategic plans which I wrote for the College, at the heart of that is about working in partnership – whether it’s with employers or parents or the governing body or schools.”
She noted that she already had “a substantial range of partnerships with schools”, which had “brought about better outcomes for learners”.
“To build on that was an obvious opportunity.
“I know the secondary heads – they’re skilled, passionate, highly-educated people and they lead dedicated teams of staff.
“The partnership role is really about taking those strengths, drawing it together so we can harness the opportunities across the schools. So if we identify strength in an area, we share it. If we identify an area for improvement, we work together as one whole to improve it.”
Commenting on what she hoped to achieve by the end of the pilot, Mrs Terry-Marchant said: “There’s a real desire and appetite to move along the special educational needs agenda.
“We’ve had a review, we know what’s working, we know what we need to change – and in working in a partnership you’re going to be much better able to make those inroads.”
She also envisaged that the next two years would involve “setting the foundations of partnership working across a range of areas”.
“Performance priorities, key performance indicators, we’ll have all of that in place – but really it will be about the partnership establishing how we problem solve together.”
In May, the National Education Union’s joint district and branch secretary in the Island, Adrian Moss, highlighted concerns that educational staff were being “burnt out” working additional unpaid hours.
At the time, he warned that “if the incoming States Assembly want to retain and attract teachers then this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency”.
Mrs Terry-Marchant said the unions had “a really valuable lens” regarding the working lives of teachers, stressing that “you can’t achieve any positive change without people”.
“My entire educational career has largely been successful because I’ve been fortunate to work alongside really wonderful, dedicated people.
“The unions are a really important part of this partnership. And there are wellbeing challenges. It’s a challenging job to be a teacher in all sorts of ways and it’s a different job from the one I started in.”
While immediate pressures will require attention, Mrs Terry-Marchant also acknowledged longer-term trends that could affect educational planning – including the Island’s falling birth rate.
A total of 711 babies were born to Jersey resident mothers in 2025, the lowest annual figure recorded since at least 1995.
Jersey’s total fertility rate – the average number of children a woman has over her lifetime – stands at 1.14, falling notably short of the 2.1 births per woman typically required to sustain a stable population in developed countries.
Mrs Terry-Marchant contended that smaller class sizes could present opportunities in terms of teachers potentially being able to “work across settings and share resources”.
But she also noted that a lack of “decent group sizes” could negatively impact the learning experience.
“Now, there’s a lot of things that will be going on at government level to attract new people to the Island, to get young people to return, and that’ll be going on at the same time.
“I don’t think we need to be fatalistic and say the demographics are just going to keep going down, because I don’t believe fundamentally that that is what’s going to happen – but it would be clear to say we need to have a plan for when and if they do.
“I would say my role, and any leader in education, we are a guardian of public resources. Taxpayers pay for an education service, they deserve to get the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
“Working in partnership enables that to happen.”
Though her time as principal has come to an end, Mrs Terry-Marchant welcomed government plans to move the further and higher education offer from
its current site at Highlands to a campus that would be created in St Helier.
The intended development forms part of the Investing in Jersey strategy unveiled last year, which states that: “Relocating Highlands College to a more central site in town will improve access for students, support closer links with local employers, and make better use of existing transport and public infrastructure.”
Mrs Terry-Marchant said that this would bring “massive benefits for students”, including improved accessibility as well as purpose-built facilities that could provide an improved training environment.
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