Sutton’s Leamington school becomes an academy

The Clare Road school has joined the School Partnership Trust, a multi-academy trust which provides professional support and advisory services to help boost attainment at its schools.

Though Leamington has already obtained a ‘good’ rating from Ofsted, principal Peter Hardern says that being part of this Trust and working in partnership with other schools will help it to improve.

He said: “Leamington is going from strength to strength and we are very proud of our ‘good’ Ofsted grade.

“Two things are going to help us to get even better: our complete new build, which could be completed as soon as 2015, and our new academy status.

“Governors believe that the Academy Trust we have joined, School Partnership Trust Academies, will provide us with the services and support we need to provide the best possible education to our children.”

Leamington is on what Mr Harden called ‘an improving trajectory’, having failed its Ofsted inspection in 2007 and risen through ‘satisfactory’ to achieve a good rating.

“It’s an improving school and we want to maintain the momentum of improvement and ultimately become an outstanding school,” he said.

“We think the academy structures will give us the best support to do that.”

The school has had a change of signage and logo to represent the conversion to an academy but there are few changes to every day school life for pupils and parents.

Mr Harden said that the main difference is the way the back office functions are now carried out, with the trust providing support on finance and HR so that Leamington staff can ‘fully concentrate’ on the outcomes of the children.

He added that he expects more primary schools in Nottinghamshire to convert to academies in coming years.