June 5, 2017

Dear Parents and Carers,

ACADEMY CONVERSION

I have received a letter from the Secretary of State for Education informing me that an agreement has been made  to enter into a Funding Agreement with the Sherborne Area School’s Trust to allow St Mary's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, Bradford Abbas to become an academy.

She went on to say that she was delighted that our school recognises the benefits academy status will bring and that  the date of conversion would be 1^st June.

This is a very exciting time for the school with new opportunities but also new challenges. The school name will change slightly as we will drop the ‘voluntary controlled’ term which is linked to the Local Authority. However we will retain our Church School status and will be known as St Mary’s Church of England (CE) Primary School.

The Steering Group  have worked very hard over the past few years to bring us to this point for which we are very grateful and in particular, I would like to thank Miss Grunnill and Richard Weekes for their efforts on behalf of St Mary’s.

St Mary’s has been an outstanding school since 2002 in OFSTED terms and in our terms, even longer. The Headteacher and Governors have worked incredibly hard to maintain the outstanding status of the school and St Mary’s is amongst only a handful of schools nationally that has not been subject to an OFSTED inspection since 2006 demonstrating that the school has continued to meet  very high standards. This is testament to the drive and vision of the Leadership team and the hard work and commitment of all the staff in giving the children an excellent all-round education.

Upon conversion, each school reopens as an academy and is branded a ‘new school’. This means that St Mary’s will lose its outstanding OFSTED status. We know that the outstanding badge is incredibly difficult for schools to achieve under the new OFSTED framework, especially smaller schools, however that aside, we know that our staff will continue to do their very best for our children, pastorally and academically, as we move forward with our new academy status.

With very best wishes

Mrs Judith Hayward

Chair of Governors