Wath Academy


Wath Academy is a mixed secondary school on Sandygate in Wath-upon-Dearne in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England.
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Admissions

The school is a specialist Language College, though it is non-selective. It has approximately 2,000 pupils between the ages of 11 and 18 on roll, including around 400 in the sixth form.
There is also a school council, which contributes to the decisions made by the head and speaks on behalf of all the students in all years. The school is within the Maltby learning trust.

History

The school was founded in 1923 as Wath Secondary School. Initially, the school was situated on Park Road, sharing the building of Park Road Infants School. The school was controlled by West Riding County Council.
Wath Secondary School rapidly outgrew its original accommodation, which led to lessons taking place in a number of borrowed locations scattered throughout Wath-upon-Dearne. To rectify this, the school moved into new, purpose-built accommodation on Sandygate in 1930. The institution became known as Wath Grammar School in 1931. The school was expanded with many new buildings and extensions in the early 1950s.
In January 1964 the school absorbed the neighbouring Wath (Park Road) Secondary Modern School. The expanded school initially still divided students into 'grammar' and 'basic' streams and it was some time before it was formally designated a comprehensive school in 1972 and renamed Wath Comprehensive School in 1974. The Park Road site initially continued to be used for the secondary modern stream, but later became a wing for first form students. Due to further expansion, the school also occupied a corner of Wath Central Junior School site on Festival Road for a period, making a total of three sites.
On 31 December 1998, two students of the school, aged 14 and 15, died in a meningitis outbreak. Other students at the school were given antibiotics as a precaution. This was followed by an immunisation programme for all 1,700 students, which delayed the school reopening for lessons after the Christmas holiday by two days. The school itself was not thought to be the source of the outbreak.
The school was awarded language college status in 2001 and appended this to its name to become Wath Comprehensive School: A Language College.
Over time, the school's buildings, on all three sites, aged badly. In its 1997 report on the school, Ofsted described the accommodation as 'quite appalling', 'debilitating' and 'some of the worst working conditions the inspection team has seen'. The Inspectors highlighted 'damp seeping through the walls and ceilings', 'decaying door and window fittings', 'areas of crumbling asphalt and potholes' and 'falling plaster', before going on to conclude:
The school was rebuilt from 2003 to 2005, under the Private Finance Initiative initiative. A new building on Sandygate, opened after Easter 2005, now makes up the majority of the school accommodation. Some parts of the school dating back from the 1950s survive, though none of the older 1930s buildings were retained. The loss of the oldest buildings was not without controversy, particularly the traditional 1930s part of the school which was set around two quadrangles. The Park Road site was demolished completely and was replaced by housing. As a result of the rebuild, the school became single-site for the first time since the 1960s. In 2008, the rebuilding was fully completed with the addition of a public leisure centre, including a swimming pool. The old caretaker's house on the school grounds is now used as the isolation block.
The school transitioned from being a community school to a foundation school, within the newly-formed Wath Learning Community Co-operative Trust, on 1 September 2013.
Less than a decade after it was built, the school had already outgrown its new building. The school has an official capacity of 1,740 students, but numbers have grown to over 1,900. Plans were drawn up for a 12 classroom overspill building, but the school has twice been denied the funds for construction. In 2014, Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council chose not to fund the building because a third of Wath's students do not live within the local authority's boundaries, meaning the building would not, in the council's eyes, benefit the people of Rotherham enough. The funding therefore went to a similar building at Wickersley School and Sports College, which was not as overcapacity as Wath, but does draw all its students from the borough of Rotherham. In 2015, the school secured funding from the Department for Education for the building, but this was withdrawn as part of cuts in 2016. Later in 2016, the local council proposed an extension of five classrooms, in return for the school taking on 20 additional students a year. After many delays, construction of this extension began in July 2018 and was completed in February 2019.
Following the controversial Ofsted inspection in March 2017, the school was forced to academise against its will. The regional schools commissioner proposed Maltby Learning Trust as the academy sponsor in July 2017. Originally, the school was due to become an academy on 1 April 2018. After being delayed 12 times, the school finally academised – a full year late – on 1 April 2019 and became known as Wath Academy. It immediately became the largest and highest performing school in Maltby Learning Trust.
On 17 September 2023, the school celebrated its 100th anniversary with an open day and the publication of a centenary book entitled Meliora Spectare: 100 Years of Wath Academy.

School periodicals

Wath Academy's school magazine, Torch, has been published in its present form since September 2022. Previous publications include The Wath Magazine, The Wathonian, The New Wathonian, The Wath Chronicle, Connexions, In Touch and The Torch. The school also publishes a weekly newsletter during term time.

School size

The school opened with 77 students in 1923, though had 520 students by 1929. Numbers then grew gradually, though were boosted to around 1,500 in the 1960s due to the closing of Wath (Park Road) Secondary Modern School. The school expanded again from the late 1970s, particularly boosted by the closure of the nearby Brampton Ellis Comprehensive School in 1985, and eventually reached 1,750 students. Numbers were at this level until as recently as 2007. However, further rises in student numbers have taken the total number of students to over 1,900: 300 students in each of Years 7 to 11, with 200 in each year of the sixth form. As of 2013, the school is the 24th largest in England.

Academic performance

The school's results, whether measuring progress or raw attainment, are all above national averages.
In 2017, the school's Progress 8 score, which measures the progress made by students between the end of Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4, was +0.07. Its Attainment 8 score, which converts GCSE and other qualification grades into points, was 47.1. The percentage of students achieving GCSE grades 9–5 in English and Maths was 41%. The percentage of students achieving the English Baccalaureate was 35%, with entries for the EBacc being 70%.
The sixth form results for 2017 showed an A Level/academic progress rate of +0.20. The progress of vocational students was +0.77. The progress rates for students resitting GCSEs were +1.00 grades for English and +0.88 grades for Maths.

Ofsted inspections

Since the commencement of Ofsted inspections in September 1993, the school has undergone seven full inspections. This includes the highly controversial inspection of 2017, where the school's results – officially classed as 'average' by the Department for Education – were inexplicably called 'dire' by Ofsted. As Wath Academy is legally a new institution, it received its first inspection in 2023.
Date of inspectionOutcomeReference
14–?? February 1994???
3–7 November 1997Good
10–14 February 2003Good
14–15 February 2006Good
5–6 October 2011Good
15–16 March 2017Inadequate
3–4 July 2023Good

Headteachers/Principals

  • Rev. A. T. L. Grear, September 1923 – August 1940
  • Mr John Ritchie, September 1940 – May 1954
  • Miss Sylvia Swift, May 1954 – April 1955
  • Dr C. R. T. Saffell, April 1955 – August 1972
  • Mr A. R. H. Murphy, September 1972 – April 1977
  • Miss Elsa Clegg, April 1977 – August 1977
  • Mr John Brothwell, September 1977 – February 1991
  • Mr Derek E. Kirby, February 1991 – August 1997
  • Mr Robert Godber, September 1997 – August 2002
  • Mr Eric Sampson, September 2002 – May 2003
  • Mr Jim Chisholm, May 2003 – December 2003
  • Mrs Pat Ward, January 2004 – August 2016
  • Mr Jon Taylor, September 2016 – August 2020
  • Mr Liam Ransome, September 2020–present

Notable former pupils

Notable former staff