Sponsors Declared for £50m Ellesmere Port Academies
Sponsors and recommended sites for two state-of-the-art Academies in Ellesmere Port have now been unveiled.
Chester Diocese, University Of Chester, West Cheshire College and Cheshire County Council will back the creation of the ‘super schools’ for the town’s 11 to 19-year-olds.
They will replace the Ellesmere Port Specialist School of Performing Arts, Whitby High School and Cheshire Oaks High - Specialist Sports College.
Introduced by the Department for Education and Skills, (DfES) academies are independent, fully inclusive, all-ability schools designed to make a difference to the education of all pupils in the area they serve.
Independent faith or private sector sponsorship works in partnership with Government and local authorities using specialist expertise to achieve improvements in standards through innovative education strategies.
Sponsors contribute up to £2m towards the creation of a trust for the benefit of each academy with the remainder, together with all revenue costs, met by the DfES.
The Church of England’s Chester Diocese and benefactors David and Anne Crossland - founders of the international package holiday company Airtours - will sponsor one of the academies.
The second will be sponsored collectively by Cheshire County Council, the University of Chester, West Cheshire College and Chester Diocese.
The County Council’s School Planning Panel recommends that the academies should be established on the sites of the present Whitby High School and the Ellesmere Port Specialist School of Performing Arts.
That recommendation - made following an independent architect’s report on all three sites - was being considered in early April by the County Council’s decision-making elected Executive.
No names have yet been chosen for the Academies and discussions are on-going with other potential sponsors.
‘Expressions of Interests’ now await ministerial approval, and if given the go-ahead, will enable the project to proceed onto a feasibility stage of full public consultation.
No final decisions will be taken until that has been completed.
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