Two Sittingbourne schools become academies
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By Hayley Robinson
hrobinson@thekmgroup.co.uk
A secondary school rated outstanding by Ofsted inspectors
has become the first in the county to become a new-style
academy.
After 10 weeks of hard work, The Westlands School,
Sittingbourne, finally received news from the Department for
Education early on Wednesday morning that its application had been
approved.
Staff were told the good news when they arrived for a teacher
training day.
The news was broken to Year 7 and sixth-form students when they
returned to school yesterday (Thursday). The rest of the pupils
were told when they arrived this morning for their first day of
term.
Head teacher Jon Whitcombe said: "To become the first
outstanding school to become an academy in the county is something
I am truly delighted with.
"It's such good news for Sittingbourne - as a town in Kent it
puts us very much on the map and it's brilliant news for staff and
students. We wanted to start the year as an academy rather than the
middle of the year as we wanted the benefits to be sooner rather
than later.
"We must not forget that only schools that have outstanding
Ofsted judgement have been able to became the new-style academies -
these are obviously different to the old-style academies which were
born out of schools that have not been successful.
"New ones are those schools that have proven themselves to be
outstanding in terms of what they deliver and so have been given
the chance to run their own affairs." There will be no changes to
the school name, school uniform, the length of the school day or
term, but academy status will allow the school more flexibility in
other areas such as admissions, pay and what they teach.
Mr Whitcombe added: "With academy status there is a significant
amount of additional funding, and we want to use it to help improve
the quality of eduction we provide the children with.
"We want to do things differently to invest in additional
textbooks, refurbish parts of the school we wouldn't be able to,
employ additional teachers and make classroom sizes smaller. All
those things will help the children and raise the standards here
further.
"We won't sit on our laurels we are always looking at different
things to do to improve students' life choices and give them the
best possible chances in life and with academy status we can do
that."
Westlands Primary School, formerly Woodgrove Primary School, has
also been awarded academy status. The school, in Homewood Avenue,
Sittingbourne, was taken under the wing of the secondary school in
July to improve standards.
The heads of two other secondary
schools in Sittingbourne are still waiting to be told whether they
have been given approval to become academies.
Fulston Manor School and Highsted
Grammar School, both of which were rated outstanding by Ofsted, had
hoped to begin the new academic year as academies, like The
Westlands.
Alan Brookes, head of Fulston, said:
"We have completed all the requirements set by the Department for
Education and are expecting our conversion to be confirmed at any
moment.
"It is frustrating not to have
achieved this status on September 1, but we appear to have been
caught up in a debate between the government and the local
authority, which has delayed matters.
"While we are keen to make the change,
it is vital that all terms are right for us, and I am prepared to
wait a little longer if it means that our new status enables us to
deliver the best possible education for all our students."
Jennifer Payne, head of Highsted,
said: "I regret we are not in a position to say anything yet.
Although we as a school have fulfilled all the conversion
requirements, we understand that KCC and the DfE are still in
negotiations about the details of Kent schools conversion."
Friday, September 03 2010
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