Council hails academies for borough schools

8.44.00pm GMT Sun 23rd Mar 2008

• THREE secondary schools in Richmond upon Thames have been earmarked for academy status bringing an initial multi million pound cash injection into the borough's schools.

The announcement came from Richmond Council and was welcomed by Schools Minister Andrew Adonis, at a meeting at Hampton Community College (HCC) today Wednesday. The three schools are HCC, Whitton School and Shene School. The sponsors identified to work with HCC and Whitton are the Swedish organisation Kunskapsskolan while the education foundation Edutrust will work with Shene School.

Speaking about the academies programme Cllr Malcolm Eady, Cabinet Member for Education and Children's Services on Richmond Council said: "This represents a fantastic opportunity for three of our schools to make a step change in the standards of education delivered to our young people. Not only will the programme make millions of pounds available for the development of each of the three schools selected they will also benefit from expertise of two organisations who have valuable skills in the field of education. Edutrust are a not for profit organisation, whose aim is to promote excellence in schools. They have a very strong educational management team and are currently planning a number of academies in England. The Council feels that the expertise they bring will be particularly suitable for Shene, where there will also be a two form entry primary school. Kunskapsskolan have established a strong reputation operating successful schools across Sweden. For the last seven years Kunskapsskolan they have pioneered the delivery of personalised learning in secondary schools in Sweden. During the selection process they greatly impressed our council officers, members and senior school staff.

"We are very excited to be joining forces with these top class organisations. They both believe in strong partnerships with local education establishments and with the community. We will be expecting to be co-sponsoring all the academies and they will be very firmly staying within the family of Richmond upon Thames schools. Before today's announcement, our three schools had already embarked on a rapid improvement programme. The decision on sponsors has generated a lot of enthusiasm within the schools, and I would expect this to help feed their appetite for change. I think that, in the longer term, having the three academies will have a positive effect on all our schools. Improving our secondary schools is a key priority for this administration, and this academy programme will be a major step towards achieving that goal."

Related Links:

• Kunskapsskolan

• Edutrust