Highbridge’s King Alfred School has this week issued an update on the process of ‘academisation’, which was impacted by their Ofsted report of April 2017.
In June the Somerset local authority commissioned Clevedon Learning Trust to lead the school’s post-Ofsted improvement programme.
And during the second half of the summer term the school and Clevedon Learning Trust worked together with students and staff to develop a ‘Be Proud Plan’ which was shared with parents at a post-Ofsted parent meeting.
Then at the end of August, the South West Headteacher Board met to decide which Trust should be asked to ‘sponsor’ the school.
“This group of experienced Headteachers were led by the Regional Commissioner for Schools (RSC) in the South West, Rebecca Clark,” said a spokesperson.
“During this meeting they discussed in detail which local Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) was at this time best-placed to become the school’s sponsor and work with them to develop and move forward from their Ofsted judgement of April 2017.”
“The Headteacher Board decided that The Priory Learning Trust (PLT) based in Weston-super-Mare were the Trust best placed to support and develop the school as it embarks on the next stage of its improvement journey. Currently, PLT has two secondary schools within the MAT.”
“These are Priory Community School and Worle Community School. Worle was placed in Special Measures in April 2016 – prior to joining the Trust – and has made rapid improvement in recent times. It is planned that three local primary schools will join The Priory Learning Trust in 2018.”
“A ‘due diligence’ process will now start to enable the financial and legal aspects of this partnership to be fully explored ahead of The King Alfred School formally becoming part of The Priory Learning Trust, early in 2018.”
“Meetings will be running over the coming weeks to provide parents further information about this.”
More details about The Priory Learning Trust are available at www.priorylearningtrust.org.uk
