Outwood Grange Academies Trust
Formation | April 19, 2009 |
---|---|
Type | Multi-academy trust |
Focus | Education |
Headquarters | Wakefield, England, United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 53°42′32″N 1°30′47″W / 53.70895°N 1.51292°W |
Interim CEO | Lee Wilson |
Website | outwood |
UID 4118 |
Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) is a multi-academy trust (MAT) that operates forty schools (twenty-eight secondary and twelve primary) across northern England and the East Midlands.[1] It is an exempt charity, regulated by the Department for Education.[2] Its interim chief executive is Lee Wilson.[3]
The trust was founded in 2009, led by Sir Michael Wilkins who was principal of the trust's namesake,
The trust operates using an "80:20" principle, where about 80% of how its schools operate is standardised and 20% is open to local innovation.[6]
Windfall
In 2015, the Conservative Education Minister,
Academic performance
In July 2016, a report by the Education Policy Institute found that at the secondary level "Outwood Grange is the best large academy group (10 schools or more)".[8] In the multi-academy trust league tables released January 2017, the trust was ranked in the top 5 nationally for secondary progress, and also for both primary writing and maths progress.[9]
Discipline
This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. (May 2024) |
The academy trust operates a zero tolerance discipline policy with children internally isolated or excluded and sent home for any minor breach of the uniform code as well as serious offences. In September 2018 The Guardian published an article[10] criticising the use of isolation booths as a form of punishment within schools, describing them as a form of internal exclusion (where exclusion is a policy by which pupils are forbidden from attending school for a period of time as a punishment).
A report from the Department for Education, highlighted in an August 2018 article in The Guardian, revealed that 45 English schools had excluded over 20% of their pupils in the last academic year. Outwood Grange was stated to run nine of them, with Outwood Academy Ormesby in Middlesbrough topping the list by excluding 41% of pupils in the last academic year. Notes were drawn in the earlier article to the risk of disabled pupils with challenging behaviour being overly at risk of exclusion. The trusts' policy for “consequence rooms”, as isolation booths were called, stated pupils must not "tap, chew, swing on their chairs, shout out, sigh, or [engage in] any other unacceptable or disruptive behaviour" and a spokesperson stated "The trust employs all reasonable adjustments for students with special needs within their behaviour policy". However, the banned activities include many self-stimulatory behaviours used by people on the autism spectrum to cope when under stress, and would be considered reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.[11]
A parent of a child who was subjected to this treatment for 35 school days has taken a Yorkshire school to court to challenge the legitimacy of “consequence rooms”; lawyers have applied for a judicial review. The issues to be judged are to be loss of education, the lack of a review procedure, and the lack of monitoring by the
In September 2019, the trust launched a new behaviour policy. Schools Week reported that the new policy included "more praise, a further safeguard to pick up – and provide support for – those pupils stuck on the “merry go round” of sanctions, and more teaching for pupils about how to behave."[14]
Ofsted noted that this resulted in much-improved behaviour and, consequently, a significant reduction in the need to use exclusions."[15]
In 2019 former teachers at Outwood Academy Bishopsgarth reported a practice of intimidating and humiliating assemblies, which the trust denied; other teachers reported that these assemblies were trust policy and took place at other schools in the trust.[16]
On 1 May 2019, the trust announced its intention that pupils will have to repeat a year, and be separated from their peer group, if their behaviour is deemed inadequate. The trust insists this is their legal right, no extra support is being provided for the students in spite of a warning that this type of zero tolerance creates child mental health problems, and violence against teachers.[17]
Schools
Primary
- Outwood Junior Academy Brumby, Scunthorpe
- Outwood Primary Academy Alne, Easingwold
- Outwood Primary Academy Bell Lane, Pontefract
- Outwood Primary Academy Darfield, Barnsley
- Outwood Primary Academy Greystone, Ripon
- Outwood Primary Academy Kirkhamgate, Wakefield
- Outwood Primary Academy Ledger Lane, Wakefield
- Outwood Primary Academy Littleworth Grange, Barnsley
- Outwood Primary Academy Lofthouse Gate, Wakefield
- Outwood Primary Academy Newstead Green, Wakefield
- Outwood Primary Academy Park Hill, Wakefield
- Outwood Primary Academy Woodlands, Doncaster
Secondary
- Outwood Academy Acklam, Middlesbrough
- Outwood Academy Adwick, Doncaster
- Outwood Academy Bishopsgarth, Stockton-on-Tees
- Outwood Academy Brumby, Scunthorpe
- Outwood Academy Bydales, Redcar
- Outwood Academy Carlton, Barnsley
- Outwood Academy City, Sheffield
- Outwood Academy City Fields, Wakefield
- Outwood Academy Danum, Doncaster
- Outwood Academy Easingwold, Easingwold
- Outwood Academy Foxhills, Scunthorpe
- Outwood Academy Freeston, Wakefield
- Outwood Academy Hasland Hall, Chesterfield
- Outwood Academy Haydock, Haydock
- Outwood Academy Hemsworth, Wakefield
- Outwood Academy Hindley, Hindley
- Outwood Academy Kirkby, Kirkby-in-Ashfield
- Outwood Academy Newbold, Chesterfield
- Outwood Academy Normanby, Middlesbrough
- Outwood Academy Ormesby, Middlesbrough
- Outwood Academy Portland, Worksop
- Outwood Academy Redcar, Redcar
- Outwood Academy Ripon, Ripon
- Outwood Academy Riverside, Middlesbrough
- Outwood Academy Shafton, Barnsley
- Outwood Academy Valley, Worksop
- Outwood Alternative Provision Eston, Middlesbrough
- Outwood Grange Academy, Wakefield
References
- ^ "Outwood Grange Academies Trust". get-information-schools.service.gov.uk. Department for Education. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
- ^ "Regulation of schools and academies with exempt charity status". gov.uk. Department for Education. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
- ^ a b "About Us". Outwood Grange Academies Trust. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
- ^ a b "OUTWOOD GRANGE ACADEMIES TRUST: People". Companies House. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
- ^ "Boss of two Scunthorpe academies set to take charge of 16 others across the country". Scunthorpe Telegraph. Local World. 16 October 2015. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
- ^ "'A MAT gains power only if an academy loses it – but it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game'". Tes. 18 May 2017. Retrieved 15 June 2017.
- ^ Dickens, John (2 November 2015). "What do we know about the five academy chains set for £5m windfall to improve northern schools?". Schools Week. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
- ISBN 978-1-909274-33-4.
- ^ George, Martin (19 January 2017). "League tables rank the best and worst performing academy trusts". TES. TES Global. Retrieved 1 February 2017.
- ^ Use of isolation booths in schools criticised as 'barbaric' punishment. The Guardian (Report). September 2018.
- ^ Perraudin, Frances; McIntyre, Niamh (31 August 2018). "Dozens of secondary schools exclude at least 20% of pupils". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
- ^ Staufenberg, Jess (11 December 2018). "Outwood Grange Academies Trust faces legal challenge over isolation booths". Schools Week. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
- ^ Perraudin, Frances (11 December 2018). "Pupil brings legal action against school's isolation policy". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
- ^ "OGAT explains his new behaviour policy". Schools Week. 4 May 2019. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
- ^ Ofsted Communications Team (9 July 2019). "Find an inspection report and registered childcare". reports.ofsted.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 13 September 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2019.
- ^ Perraudin, Frances (16 March 2019). "Academy trust accused of using assemblies to intimidate students". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
- ^ Perraudin, Frances (2 May 2019). "We'll make badly behaved pupils repeat a year, say academies". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
Sources
- "Outwood Grange Academies Trust". get-information-schools.service.gov.uk. Department for Education. Retrieved 1 May 2018.