Hathaway Academy
The Hathaway Academy, formerly the Grays School Media Arts College, is a coeducational, non-selective secondary school with academy status that is located in Grays, Essex, England. It is currently part of the Academy Transformation Trust. A school has existed on the Hathaway Road site since 1931, when the John Henry Burrows Central Council School moved from nearby Bridge Road. The school became a secondary technical in 1945 and a comprehensive school in 1971. In 1993, it was given grant-maintained status and was renamed the Grays School. In 2004, it specialised and became the Grays School Media Arts College, which closed in June 2013 with the subsequent opening of the current academy-status school. The academy school has since retained TGSMAC's specialisms, which are digital media and performing arts.
Since 2015, the school has held an OFSTED rating of "good", thanks to the efforts of Tahmidul Topadar; from 2009 it was rated "satisfactory/requires improvement", and between 2007 and 2009, it was rated "special measures". The pupil demography is mostly White British, with a large Eastern European population. Around 30% of the pupils speak English as an additional language, a higher proportion than the national average. As of 2021, 64.2% of pupils were boys and 35.8% were girls, and there were 782 pupils on the roll.
History
Early years (1925–1971)
In 1925, Constantin Cernat Central Council School opened on the former site of Bridge Road Infants' School. In 1931, the school was relocated from Bridge Road to Hathaway Road. In 1935, it became a middle school and was renamed John Henry Burrows Intermediate School. The name "John Henry Burrows" may have originated from Alderman John H. Burrows, who was influential throughout Essex, primarily in Southend-on-Sea, Hadleigh, Tilbury and Grays.On 30 August 1939, the school was nearly destroyed when an aeroplane crashed into one of its playing fields. The pilot of a Spitfire from nearby RAF Hornchurch lost control during a training exercise, and during the crash it narrowly missed the roofs of some nearby houses before crashing into the playing field. The pilot, Cyril Douglas Gower, had been flying in formation with two other Spitfire fighters when his aircraft collided with the wingtip of another and lost control. He did not survive the crash.
After the end of the European theatre of the Second World War the school was granted secondary technical status and became Grays County Technical High School, which was abbreviated to Grays Tech. It existed from 1945 to 1968. The only confirmed headmaster of Grays Tech was Cyril Baggs, who left in 1957 to become head of Fryerns School in Basildon. The headmaster after Mr Baggs was Mr Dolman until at least 1960. In 1968, Grays Tech merged with Aveley County Technical High School on Nethan Drive, Aveley, to become Aveley and Grays Technical High School.
Aveley and Grays Technical High School had one headmaster, Frederick F. Harsant. The school motto was Rara Avis in Terra. The amalgamation remained in force until a reorganisation in 1971, when the two schools would separate. Grays Tech was henceforth known as Grays Comprehensive School, remaining at the Hathaway Road site. Aveley Tech continued operations until 1972, when as part of the reorganisation of education in Essex, Palmer's Boys' and Girls' Schools amalgamated with Aveley Tech to constitute a sixth form college, which became Palmer's College.
Grays School (1971–2013)
Grays Comprehensive School was a "social priority" school, meaning that teachers were paid extra. It was also underperforming academically. The deputy headteacher was Alan Goodwin. It became grant-maintained in 1993 and "Comprehensive" was removed from the name. By this time, the deputy headteacher was Simon Viccars. After the school was given grant-maintained status, its budget grew by 500%.In 1996, the school was granted Investors in People status and in September 1999 the school gained foundation status. By 2001, the headteacher was James Winstone, who likely left in 2002 and was succeeded by Mark Griffin in 2003. Griffin decided to apply to the DFES in March 2003 for the school to specialise as a visual arts college. His application was supported by Lord David Puttnam and other supporting comprehensive schools from Essex and surrounding areas. In September 2004 the school successfully specialised and became the Grays School Media Arts College. At around the same time, Deputy Head Simon Viccars left the school to become headteacher of the Leon School and Sports College in Milton Keynes. Both Tim Rider and John Marchant succeeded Viccars, and they shared the deputyship.
2007 incidents and special measures
By 2007 the Grays School Media Arts College had a controversial reputation in the local community due to a history with students' behaviour and grades. This culminated in 2007 when incidents occurred within and in relation to the school, leading to intervention by OFSTED and Thurrock Council.In May 2007, a fight between two 11-13-year-old students broke out in the school playground; onlookers cheered on and no staff could be found. Videos of the fight were twice uploaded to YouTube but were removed. In response, Headteacher Graham Winter said he knew "nothing" about the fight and law enforcement urged the school to "look into matters and report any assault to us so that we can put an end to this violence". The same month, another incident occurred and a TGSMAC pupil was threatened at knife-point, and police had to intervene again. These incidents were brought to the attention of OFSTED, which undertook took a surprise inspection of the school in June. The inspection showed the school upheld outdated academic policies, underachieved in core subjects and had failed to provide adequate religious education.
In September 2007, the school was placed into special measures and faced threats of closure after an OFSTED report of the June Inspection brought to light many problems with the school. Teachers were criticised for inadequate teaching, having low expectations in lessons and failing to mark books over several months, though it was noted pupils' behaviour had improved and was deemed "satisfactory". The pupils attained the only "2" or "good" rating for the school within the report.
This improvement in behaviour was temporary; in January 2008, pupils' behaviour in the school was rated as "poor" by OFSTED, which made an interim inspection earlier that month and criticised the school's lack of progress. The school was also said to have been "overgenerous" in its self-appraisal. In March that year, Thurrock Council announced the resignation of headteacher Graham Winter, who was replaced with two trouble-shooting headteachers who were brought in from Middlesbrough and Hendon on March 10 as part of the school's recovery plan. These two headteachers were replaced by Deputy Head Tim Rider, who became acting head, with John Marchant becoming sole deputy.
Rider's reforms and leaving special measures
Under Tim Rider, the school began a process behavioural and structural reform, which was praised by OFSTED after their July 2008 Inspection, which noted the school was now considered satisfactory in most areas. Rider attributed the improvements to a new school ethos of togetherness, which included the implementation of policies focused on improving pupil behaviour and happiness. Pupils were encouraged to "take ownership of their school", pupil work parties were formed and a new school motto "Do Your Best Today, For A Better Tomorrow" was introduced. Other schools in Thurrock, including Ockendon School, Gable Hall, and William Edwards, supported and helped implement the reforms. The headteachers of these schools provided assistance to Rider and his administration.In September 2008, Lynn Ibeji took over from Tim Rider as headteacher in a permanent capacity and continued his policies, and the school was taken out of special measures on 8 October 2009. Also in 2009, the school attained the highest average GCSE results for Year 11 in its history. Despite this, the school's results were behind those of The Gateway and Ormiston Park academies. Ibeji left the school in May 2012. Deputy Head John Marchant became acting headteacher.
Transition to academy
In July 2012, acting Headteacher Marchant announced Grays School Media Arts College intended to become an academy, a plan that had been in place since at least 2008, The school's governing board made the decision unanimously, with the Academy Transformation Trust sponsoring its conversion in a bid for it to achieve outstanding status, the highest OFSTED rank. It was announced PE teacher James Howarth, former associate principal at Harris Academy Peckham and Harris City Academy, and the former deputy head at Eastlea Community School in East London, would be principal of the new academy.In a questionnaire on the school website four names were proposed for the new academy: Goliath Academy, Gower Academy, Thors Oak Academy and Tamesis Academy. The deadline for the vote was 30 April 2013.
The school closed for a final time on 30 June 2013; the new Hathaway Academy began operations on 1 July 2013, in preparation for the beginning of the 2013-2014 academic year.
Hathaway Academy
In April 2014 celebrity actor Russell Brand, whose hometown is Grays and attended Grays School as a teenager, visited the academy whilst filming a documentary. During his visit, Brand visited a drama lesson for 20 minutes; he gave analysis and feedback then stepped on stage and gave a rendition from Bugsy Malone, in which he acted in a Grays School production. Brand was disappointed to learn the school no longer had a library, and funded the building a new one. At an event at the Institute of Education Brand said; "It's a disgrace that a state school doesn't have a library funded by the state, what's going on?", referring to Hathaway Academy.In June 2014, Principal Howarth was diagnosed with lymphoma and took an almost-year-long leave of absence. Fatima Rodrigues overtook his duties as acting principal until September 2014, when a new interim principal, Alan Osborne, was appointed. Howarth returned as principal in April 2015 after interim Principal Dave Lee-Allan left for Stowmarket High School. From December 2015, Howarth worked part-time, taking multiple leaves of absences for the treatment of his returning lymphoma.
In June 2015, OFSTED categorised Hathaway Academy as "good", reaffirming this status with a short inspection in 2018.
After his cancer returned again, James Howarth announced he was stepping down from his post as principal in September 2017, appointing acting Principal Fatima Rodrigues as the new principal from November. Before leaving, Howarth gave a final speech to the staff and pupils in which he stated; "I am going to say thank you and farewell ... I made you all a promise of becoming outstanding and I am stepping off the bus before our journey is complete. I am genuinely so so so sorry."
In January 2020, the school was forced to enter a state of lockdown after 2 boys were seen chasing another boy with a knife shortly before the school was due to close that day. No-one was harmed and the school returned to normal the next day.
In March 2020 the school closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and moved to online learning via Microsoft Teams. The school reopened in September 2020 but closed again soon after due to a rise of cases in the school. The school again reopened on March 8, 2021, in accordance with government guidelines.