An Ashford secondary school will become the latest member of the expanding Swale Academies Trust when it converts to academy status.

The North School, in Essella Road, plans to convert into an academy, following Chancellor George Osborne's recent Budget announcement that all schools much become academies by 2022.

It will join the Trust, which currently has nine schools under it's umbrella, The North School will be it's tenth.

A spokesman for the school said: "As the school is a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) school, the process of academisation will take longer.

"The advantages for The North School are that we will be able to benefit formally from the support, expertise, staffing and training that the Trust has to offer, not to mention a robust layer of accountability that will support continued school improvement."

Trust CEO and county 'superhead' Jon Whitcombe was first brought into the North School as executive head in 2014 following an inadequate Ofsted report.