Burntwood school gears up to become an academy

A Staffordshire school is gearing up to become an academy —- and may even change its name.

Chasetown Specialist Sports College in Burntwood is part-way through the application with the Department for Education (Dfe).

The application has recently been received and accepted by the government department and they now need to discuss the funding agreement being transferred from Staffordshire County Council's local education authority to be funded from central government.

Councillor Liz Staples, cabinet member for education and skills at Staffordshire County Council, said: "As far as I know they have applied to transfer to become an academy.

"We have said in Staffordshire that we will support schools that want to transfer to become academies.

"We work very closely with our schools in Staffordshire — we always say they are the Staffordshire family of schools and we will support their decision."

A recent Ofsted inspection marked the school as being 'Good with Outstanding features'.

It is also understood that the school is discussing changing its name, and one of the names being considered is the Erasmus Darwin Academy.

An academy is a school which can benefit from greater freedoms to innovate and raise standards.

These include freedom from local authority control, the ability to set their own pay and conditions for staff, freedoms around the delivery of the curriculum and the ability to change the lengths of terms and school days.

Some academies, generally those which are underachieving, also benefit from being sponsored

The school is just one of a number in Staffordshire which have applied to become independent of the local authority.

Currently five schools in Stafford — the King Edward VI High School, Sir Graham Balfour High School, Stafford Sports College, Walton High School and Weston Road High School — have opened a consultation with staff, parents and communities over becoming academies in September.

No-one from the school was available to comment.