Trust tops the Eastern region for results

An academy trust is celebrating after being named the best performing school in the region for Key Stage 4 results.

The newly-named Unity Schools Partnership, formerly the Samuel Ward Academy Trust, achieved the recognition in a recently-published report by the Education Policy Institute.

The Trust, which has 22 schools, has spoken of its delight at the news.

Tim Coulson, chief executive, said: “We are very proud of the teachers and leaders that have achieved these GCSE results with their pupils and it is great to see that this has been recognised in such a prestigious report.

“This news is rich reward for the hard work and commitment of all our staff and students and I would like to congratulate them all.”

The report compared the performance of secondary schools in different groupings, in multi-academy trusts and local authorities.

The trust's secondary schools had an aggregate score that put them eighth best academy group in the country and the best in the Eastern Region.

The Unity Schools Partnership has five secondary schools in West Suffolk – Samuel Ward and Castle Manor academies in Haverhill, Newmarket Academy, Sybil Andrews Academy in Bury St Edmunds and Thomas Gainsborough School in Great Cornard.

In April, it also took on St Edward’s Academy in Romford in a bid to increase educational links between Suffolk and London - and to utilise the successes in Suffolk to turnaround a failing London school.

The full report, entitled ‘School performance in academy chains and local authorities 2017’, can be viewed at www.epi-ork.uk.