Wilmington Enterprise College could become an academy (From News Shopper)

Wilmington Enterprise College could become an academy

7:30am Friday 22nd January 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

A PROPOSAL to turn a struggling school into an independently run academy is to go out to public consultation.

Wilmington Enterprise College was placed in special measures last March for two years and is currently maintained by Kent County Council.

Plans are in the pipeline for it to be brought under the control of the Leigh Academies Trust, which oversees Leigh Technology College and Longfield Academy in Dartford.

Results of the six-week consultation would then go before Kent County Council members who will make a decision.

If approved the new academy would open in September.

The consultation will be launched at a public meeting at 7pm on February 1 at the college in Common Lane.

Only 11 per cent of pupils at the college achieved five or more A* to C grades, including English and maths, in last year’s GCSE results.

The college in Common Lane entered a partnership with Dartford Grammar School for Girls where headteacher of the girls’ school Jane Wheatley became executive headteacher for both schools.

Dartford Grammar School for Girls was the only school in Dartford and Gravesham where all entrants met the government’s target of students obtaining five or more A* to C grades, including English and maths.

Mrs Wheatley says results from exams sat by Wilmington pupils in November are already an improvement.

She said: “The school was placed into special measures because the tracking and aspiration for the students was not working properly.

“We know we have already doubled last year’s results.

“We are confident we can exceed 30 per cent in the summer.

“We have put in a whole range of strategies to support students, the key is giving them confidence to believe they can achieve.”

WILMINGTON: A DIFFICULT 2009

March: College placed in special measures for two years by Ofsted, to bring about improvements. The school goes into partnership with Dartford Grammar School for Girls (DGSG), in Shepherds Lane, Dartford, with headteacher of the school Jane Wheatley becoming executive headteacher of the partnership.

April: Parents criticise college’s new zero tolerance policy, with pupils getting sent home for minor breaches of school rules such as having the wrong jumper, forgetting a rubber and having a mobile phone out in class. Forty-six students were excluded and 25 given detention in one day.

June: Teachers in Kent warned against using social networking websites after a Daily Mail article claimed college headteacher at the time Belinda Langley-Bliss left comments about her breasts and a joke about asylum seekers on her Facebook page.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)