Shrewsbury primary school joins academy trust

Earlier this year Coleham Primary School proposed becoming an academy and joining the Priory School in a trust, which was ratified earlier this month.

The school in Longden Coleham is now part of the Priory School Multi-Academy Trust which also includes St Martins 3-16 School, near Oswestry.

The proposal for gaining academy status was first mooted in March and since then a consultation of parents, stakeholders and governors has taken place.

The Priory School was rated as outstanding in its latest Ofsted report while Coleham Primary is a 'good' school. St Martins School is the county’s first ‘all through’ school for children aged three to 16 years of age was rated as requiring improvement when Ofsted inspectors visited last year.

Sean Harford, national director, schools said: "Upon conversion to academy status the existing school closes and a new school opens in its place. Although little may have changed, the academy converter is a new legal entity."

Michael Barratt, executive principal of The Priory School Trust, said: “The proposed strategic relationship presents an excellent opportunity to establish strong links between the our schools, to the benefit of the students in our trust.

"Coleham is the third school, in addition to The Priory School and St Martins 3-16 school near Oswestry.

"Our schools in the trust work to support each other in school improvement, to share and implement best practice and to enable discussion and dialogue across different key stages of education. Our philosophy, when schools consider joining the trust, is that individual schools retain their identity and their ethos.

"The ethos is indeed common across all our schools and the values we wish to develop in our students are the same.

"We want the young people in our schools to be selfless, self-assured and successful and whilst all schools in our trust work towards this, it is important to all of us that each school – the head, staff and governors – does this in a manner which is the best way for them.”

Ben Boutwood, chair of governors at Coleham Primary, said "As a governing body, we thought long and hard about this decision and feel that, by joining The Priory School Trust, Coleham can continue to promote a high standard of education to its pupils, whilst retaining its identity.”

The formation of the new academy means there will be 1,765 pupils between the three schools.