David Hampson of Tollbar BEC describes his experience of becoming one of the first new wave Academies.

Tollbar Business and Enterprise College in North East Lincolnshire has opened one of the first secondary academies under the Government’s latest proposals. Its opening marked the beginning of the plans for outstanding academies to take a significant local leadership in school improvement.

Tollbar is an outstanding school, providing high quality education for over 2200 students and delivering some of the best results found in a comprehensive school anywhere in the country. Any visitor to Tollbar will be impressed by the ordered and calm atmosphere with its clear focus on efficiency and achievement.

Tollbar Principal David Hampson believes that the new Tollbar Academy, will build naturally upon the success already achieved, taking advantage of the additional freedoms available to an Academy and benefitting from over £1 m additional funding. He comments:

"The College already contracts services from the best available providers and we have no intentions to change our approach or alter the terms and conditions for staff. We think we can use the additional funding to really good effect and we also expect to find extra value from the curriculum freedoms an Academy will enjoy."

The second part of David Hampson’s planning is equally significant. Tollbar is the sponsor of a second Academy in Cleethorpes, and David Hampson has been made the Chief Executive of both Academies.

The Cleethorpes Academy replaces the Lindsey School which was in special measures and where performance and results have significantly deteriorated over recent years.

This is exactly what the Government’s new policy for outstanding schools seeks to achieve. In Tollbar Academy the Government will have an exemplar case study of a new academy directly delivering improvement for another school in difficulties.  Already a new curriculum is in place for September and a new timetable. The two Academies link their administrative and financial expertise and a completely new infrastructure for ICT has been introduced for the Cleethorpes Academy.

David Hampson and the new Principal for Cleethorpes, Martin Brown, have identified immediate improvement in ICT delivery for learning as a fundamental and immediate investment.

This is far more important than a complete new building; in fact, although supporting some refurbishment of the buildings that exist on both sites it will not require the complete rebuild that Building Schools for the Future programme may have led to. The emphasis will be to deliver the building improvements needed at a reduced cost than any external system like BSF.

The commitment of the Principal is matched by the Governors of Tollbar who are determined that they will support the wider system of education by taking on the challenge that Lindsey presents.

Phil Bond, Chair of Governors comments:  

"The Tollbar staff have already committed considerable time to preparing the curriculum and organisation of the new Cleethorpes Academy, to planning its organisation and to preparing new financial systems. The proposals include the sharing of some resources and dual use of expertise, including crucially, the use of expert teachers from Tollbar in the Cleethorpes Academy.  We believe that this is the next step. As an outstanding school we have the potential and also an obligation to support and improve education for the wider community of young people. We want to make that happen."

David Hampson has approached the planning with enormous personal commitment but also by swiftly identifying additional assistance from specialist academy support company Appleyards.

"By using external assistance we gave ourselves the best chance to open in September. The advantages far outweigh the costs and are balanced by the time saved from my senior staff. One of the lessons is to identify where the skills and experience of my own staff can best be used and acquire the extra elsewhere."

The Principal David Hampson is outstanding -  a man who has a vision of the highest quality education for all students and knows how to achieve that. His direction and energy are key components and has ensures that parity in high quality is achieved right across the college. Success really does deliver success and the staff really seem to thrive in this environment.

The new academies provide secondary education for over 3000 students (this approximates to one third of secondary students in North East Lincolnshire). The potential for this model to develop and see other academies leading education improvement across the country is one of the key impacts which Michael Gove’s new legislation seeks to deliver. And this particular example will be an  interesting test case for his ambitious plan to revitalise secondary school performance across the country.