The new all-through school at Oakley Grove in South Leamington will be joining the successful Stowe Valley Multi Academy Trust when it opens in September 2023. The school, a £56m investment by War...
The new all-through school at Oakley Grove in South Leamington will be joining the successful Stowe Valley Multi Academy Trust when it opens in September 2023.
The school, a £56m investment by Warwickshire County Council, is one of the authority’s largest ever investments. The funding to build the school was approved to meet the need for over 1000 additional school places in the area with 4,500 homes being built at the Oakley Grove Housing Estate.
The Regional School Director’s office has confirmed that the high profile new school will be welcomed into the local Stowe Valley Multi-Academy Trust which has nine schools within its family.
Among these are Southam College, rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted and Southam Primary School, top rated by The Sunday Times.
Ranjit Samra, chief executive officer of Stowe Valley Multi Academy Trust, and Head of Southam College, said: “We are over the moon to be given this exciting opportunity to run the new school. Our success at Southam College and throughout the trust is built upon a moral purpose to give every child the very best education possible.
We intend to use our wealth of experience from all our schools in creating an exceptional school which will sit at the heart of its community.
All of our staff are passionate about giving young people the very best chance in life, and giving parents confidence that their children will grow to be kind confident and resilient.
The new school will be Stowe Valley Multi Academy Trust’s first all-through school and adds to the Trust’s varied portfolio of successful local schools, all of which are within a short radius of its location.
Warwickshire County Council is commissioning the new school build at Oakley Grove. Its first cohort of Year 7 pupils in Sept 2023 will be catered for in a specially constructed site at Myton School in Warwick. In the following year the school will welcome its first reception year group and a further Year 7 cohort into its new state of the art facilities.
The ultimate aim, to meet local need, is for the new school to provide 50 early years places, 420 two-form entry primary school places, 900 six form entry secondary places and further SEND provision across both age ranges.
Cllr Kam Kaur, Warwickshire’s portfolio holder for education, said: “The all-through school at Oakley Grove demonstrates a huge commitment by the County Council to education in that area and to meeting the massive increase in need for school places that we will soon be seeing.
“This all-through, state-of-the-art facility promises to meet the expectations of that commitment. I am delighted that it will be in the stewardship of the Stowe Valley MAT which has shown that it can deliver outstanding results for children across the age spectrum.
“I’m excited by the vison that the trust has for the children, where exceptional education will be delivered at the heart of the community. This shares our ethos and I am confident that the Trust, the school and the County Council will work together to make sure that all children at the school have the very best opportunities possible.”
Mr Samra said the fact that the new school would accommodate children aged from four to sixteen presented highly exciting educational opportunities that he and fellow trust leaders were looking forward to developing.
He said: “We want the young people who come to our new school to have the most brilliant experience. Our vision is for this to be a school of the community, that is run for the community. We want our young people to have wonderful memorable experiences that will be with them for the rest of their lives. We will be working closely with the leaders of the new school in developing a really vibrant curriculum that builds on everything we value at our multi academy trust. Having a curriculum stretching from age four to sixteen will enable our children to make seamless transitions from subject to subject as they travel through our school. We’ll have older children mentoring younger ones, and secondary specialists working alongside primary specialists to deliver a truly unique and inspirational education.”
Applications for the first cohort of pupils will be open until October 31st this year, with capacity for 180 new starters in its first Year 7.
Mr Samra said: “I want this founding group of children and their families to feel very proud of being the first to come to our brand new school. In 50 years time, we want them to look back and know that they had their stake in the history of this area. That’s something really special and it’s not a chance that necessarily comes up very often. We want to start the process of building our new school together straight away and invite our local community to vote for their favourite school name by visiting oakleygroveschool.com
Our values are for students to be happy, confident and resilient and we will be instilling in them that ethos from the word go. At all our schools, we inspire all our pupils to achieve their very best at whatever they enjoy and are good at. The pupils in our new school will be given a fabulous opportunity to join our family and do just that. We can’t wait to meet them all.”
More information about Oakley Grove, can be found online: https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/school-planning-policies-performance/new-schools/4