Bristol school becomes National Challenge Trust

Release Date:  03-Jul-2009

Monks Park School will become the region's first National Challenge Trust (Foundation) School from September, school governors confirmed last night.
 
The new designation for the 830-pupil school in Horfield will attract an extra £750,000 government grant and a trust to run the school. 
 
The school will be supported by 'Trust in Learning', who are the University of the West of England, City of Bristol College and Bristol City Council. The trust will appoint a majority of the governors to the school.
 
Monks Park is one of seven Bristol secondary schools included in the National Challenge programme, set up to ensure that no school has fewer than 30% of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C, including English and Maths.  Trust in Learning will be able to help raise standards by bringing in and drawing on the expertise of external partners.
 
Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor Clare Campion-Smith, said: “Monks Park's students, parents and the community will benefit from the long-term commitment of the new trust to run the school.  It will bring extra energy and experience, attract further funding to accelerate improvements and inspire new confidence in the school.   We've worked very closely with Monks Park and its governors to help bring about this change and I look forward to hearing about future successes.”
 
Headteacher, Helen Holman, said: “The whole school welcomes this move forward and we are excited about working with 'Trust in Learning'.   As a school we are ambitious both for our young people and for our wider community.   We already work closely with both the University of the West of England and City of Bristol College, and we believe that by creating this new long term relationship we will add to the educational experiences of our children.”
 
City of Bristol College and the University of the West of England, two of the most successful education institutions in the region, are already working with Bristol City Council in partnership at the Bridge Learning Campus in south Bristol.

City of Bristol College was judged to be ‘outstanding’ in leadership and management in its latest Ofsted inspection and Keith Elliott, Principal of City of Bristol College, said: "We are excited by the opportunity to
support the new developments at Monks Park and I am sure that the new Trust arrangements will support young people in the area to realise their ambitions."

The University of the West of England’s School of Education’s provision in secondary education was recently judged by Ofsted as 'outstanding', along with its provision in primary and further education. UWE first began its involvement in city academies and trusts back in 2002, when it was the first university in the UK to sponsor a city academy.
 
Ron Ritchie, Assistant Vice-Chancellor, and Chair of 'Trust in Learning' said:  “We are delighted to be involved in building on the improvements already underway at Monks Park and hope we can offer advice and other forms of support that the school will find useful and that will impact on young people's learning and well-being. UWE benefits in many ways from these partnerships, for example, our recent 'outstanding' grade from Ofsted was due, in part, to the quality of our ongoing relationships with schools and teaching staff.”
 

Author:   Katharine de Lisle 0117 922 2732

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