Academies are independent, state-funded schools, which receive their funding directly from central government, rather than through a local authority.

The day-to-day running of the school is with the Headteacher or Principal, but they are overseen by individual charitable bodies called academy trusts and may be part of an academy chain. These trusts and chains provide advice, support, expertise and a strategic overview.

They control their own admissions process and have more freedom than other schools to innovate.

No, a business makes a profit for its shareholders. An academy is a charitable trust which cannot make a profit

Academies are required to follow the law and guidance on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions.

No, academy funding agreements state that they must ensure that the school will be at the heart of its community, collaborating and sharing facilities and expertise with other local schools and the wider community. Outwood work hard to ensure that the school remains at the heart of its community and that it invests in these relationships.

Academies are independent of the local authority. However, we wish to continue working with the LA, other local schools and local partners.

Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) has a Board of Trustees who are ultimately responsible for the work of the Trust and the academies. However, we devolve as much responsibility as possible to the individual academies. The Board of Trustees is responsible for appointing the majority of the governors on each academy council. Each academy has its own academy council who work with the Principal to check that the academy is making good progress. Each academy council has parent/carer representatives and a staff governor. The Principal is always a governor for the time they are employed in that role. The scheme of delegation is the same across each of the academies within the Trust.

The Department for Education meets the running costs for an academy in full. Academy funding is calculated on a like-for-like basis with local authority schools. Therefore the academy will have a similar budget to that of its predecessor maintained school. With greater freedom to procure services from other providers and to realise cost efficiencies across the network, the academy will be able to make more efficient use of resources to support school improvement. Like other schools, an academy cannot run at a loss or agree a deficit budget, i.e. it has to break-even.

An academy is governed by the rules and regulations for charitable trusts, e.g. we will be required to produce and file accounts and trustees cannot be paid. There will be robust systems with an audit conducted by an external independent auditor.

We will be working with the school over the next few months in preparation for an official conversion later this year. Whilst it is not definite, the school will likely convert to an academy on 1 September 2021. We will ensure that parents/carers are kept fully informed as we move forward.

Decisions regarding academy sponsorship are usually made based on the success of the Trust and the capacity of the Trust to drive and sustain further improvement in new and existing academies. Geographically, Outwood currently has three regions; a Central region which is based in Yorkshire; a Southern region which extends down to Derbyshire and east across to Lincolnshire; and a Northern region which extends north as far as Middlesborough.

In addition to sponsoring Hindley High School, Outwood has also been asked to sponsor Haydock High School in St Helens. These two schools will be the founding academies in the new Western region. The Trust has already recruited leadership capacity for this new region from its existing team of highly successful school leaders. The school improvement team of expert Subject Directors work across all of the Trust's geographical regions and have done so, successfully, for a number of years. Even prior to the official conversion of Hindley High School, this team have already started professional development and support for teachers and subject teams at the school. A full programme of professional development for leaders and teachers at the school will get underway in the summer term as the school prepares for the academy conversion.

SEN funding will come directly from the government through the Education Funding Agency. Funding allocated to a named child would continue to be funded directly by the local authority.

The local authority will be required to grant a 125 year lease to the academy trust.

The school was given a Directive Academy Order by the Secretary of State for Education following the inadequate Ofsted judgement. The Regional Schools Commissioner has a responsibility to select an appropriate sponsor for the school. In Hindley's case, that match was Outwood Grange Academies Trust.

When a school converts from a local authority maintained school to a new academy, all permanent staff are entitled to transfer to it under the same employment terms and conditions.

All staff are protected under a process called TUPE and will transfer across to employment with Outwood Grange Academies Trust at the point of final conversion.

As part of staff transfer (TUPE) arrangements, staff are entitled to transfer to the new academy under the same employment terms and conditions. However, it is essential that the academy is able to respond to the changing curriculum requirements and educational demands. This may therefore require consultation with staff and trade unions, once the academy has been established, on changes to terms and conditions of employment. This would be necessary if, for example, the Trust wished to introduce a particular organisational change to the academy’s term dates, or if curriculum demands and the need for improved educational outcomes required a different leadership and organisational structure.

Yes, the school will need a new name as it will open as a new school when it converts to an academy. The new school name will begin with Outwood Academy to recognise that it belongs to the Outwood family of schools. The second part of the name will be chosen by the school to reflect its own community. For example, Outwood Academy Acklam.

Hindley High School is joining a Family of Schools. Outwood is the family name; in reality all our schools are usually referred to as, for example 'Hindley'.

Hindley will retain its identity; all our schools are very different and are representative of the communities that they serve. The new name will be Outwood Academy Hindley. There is no financial incentive to sponsor the school. What we will be able to do is to accelerate the progress of the school and move more quickly to outstanding by bringing additional resources and expertise to the school community. We will, as part of the due diligence, carry out a full condition survey of the buildings and enter into discussions with the Department for Education regarding capital investment for the school to improve its buildings.

Yes, we will provide a free bundle of uniform for all children including incoming Year 7 in 2021. The bundle will include: a blazer; two shirts, tie, trousers or skirt, PE shorts, PE socks, rugby top and a PE polo t-shirt. We currently expect to switch to this uniform in September 2021.

The new uniform will be for all year groups from Years 7 to 11.

It will be available to all students. Every child will get a free uniform bundle. Details of the uniform bundle have been made available in the answer to a previous FAQ.

A new uniform marks a new step-change in the transformation of the school. We are pleased to be able to provide the initial free bundle of uniform to all students. The cost of the new uniform bundles will be met by additional funding secured by the Trust and will not be at the detriment of any resourcing that children need as part of their education.

We want students to look as smart as possible. Students across our 26 secondary schools wear skirts and tights, and we haven’t had any concerns or complaints. We do feel this is an important part of making our uniform look as smart as possible.

Girls can choose to wear trousers in the summer (as boys have to) should they not wish to wear tights in warm weather. We do not anticipate that the cost of replacement tights or the laundry of tights would be any more than that of socks but thank you to parents for raising this point. As with all our uniform items, a hardship policy is in place to support any families who may struggle financially. Further details on this will be found on the new academy website once launched. Students are also further supported by the school holding its own stock of brand new tights which can be given to any student who has a “ladder” during the day.

As well as introducing the new academy uniform, we will be introducing a staff dress code to ensure that our staff also look as smart and professionally dressed as possible.

We appreciate that some parents/carers won’t be able to attend the uniform collection event on their child’s allocated day and timeslot. Where this is the case, please contact the school to make alternative arrangements to pick your child’s uniform up over the summer holidays. With very few staff on site during the holidays, it is important that the school is notified in advance so that staff can be available to assist you. Please note, uniform will not be available to collect prior to 17 August 2021.

If you cannot attend your child’s uniform exchange event, you can ask a friend or relative to attend in your place. They will need a rough idea of the replacement size as it won’t be possible to try garments on due to COVID restrictions. All items being exchanged must be taken to the exchange event. Where this isn’t possible, please contact the school for further advice.

The legislation will request that schools keep branded items to a minimum. To this effect, we now only require two items of uniform as branded items: the blazer and skirt/trousers. Blazer sizing is always done to take account of growth and to try and ensure that students get long-wear from their blazer. All other uniform items such as school shirts, purple PE polo shirts etc are available as branded but can be purchased from any supplier in an attempt to support as many parents as possible. The procurement of the uniform service from Trutex demonstrated that their items present excellent value for money in terms of the longevity and quality of the items meaning that items will have to be replaced less often. This is certainly backed up in the feedback that we get from parents in our existing academies. We are one of the only academy trusts in the country that provide a free bundle of uniform every year for the new Year 7 students to support their transition and help families at a time when all the items have to be purchased at once. We do operate an excellent hardship policy that supports families where needed. Please do contact the school if you require any hardship support.

In addition, Trutex have worked with us to provide a pre-loved service. This is where good quality items of pre-owned uniform are donated, washed and any minor repairs made before being sold at a heavily discounted price. Pre-loved items can be purchased by visiting: https://www.trutex.com/ and using LEA Code: LEA00980SC.

No. No jewellery is allowed other than a wrist watch.

The skirt is available in lengths: 18”, 20” and 22”.

Uniform mannequins are now on display and sample pairs of girls and boys trousers are also available from Reception for parents/carers and students to see the new uniform before ordering.

A single pair of trainers is suitable for outdoor and indoor PE but should have non-marking soles. There is no set policy for this. Some students doing dance/drama also like to wear pumps rather than trainers but that is left to personal preference.

Girls are very welcome to wear leggings under their PE shorts. Black jogging bottoms without any logo (eg. from Asda/Primark etc) are also permitted for outdoor PE. We have had questions about “skorts”. Black skorts without any logo would be permitted but we are unable to include them in the uniform bundle.

Absolutely, we understand the important part that Hindley High plays in the community and we very much want this to continue. This is really important to us.

Yes, but it would have more freedom to try different things in the curriculum and make sure that what is taught is relevant to our pupils and their specific needs.

We will follow the school holiday pattern set by the Local Authority. Where we make any changes to the timings of the school day this will be done with a consultation with the community to take into account any local issues such as transport and other local school timings however, we will most likely be changing the timings of the school day to start at 8:25a, and finish at 2:30pm. We also run enrichment after school from 2:30pm to 3:30pm encompassing an extensive range of additional opportunities outside of the formal "taught" day. This will include such things as additional support in core subjects, to STEM and science clubs, sports teams, drama society etc. Every Tuesday, from 2:45pm will be dedicated to high quality staff professional development to ensure that the teaching in our classrooms is of the highest possible standard.

The following link will take you to the website of the Confederation of School Trusts, where myths about academies and academy trusts are explained: https://cstuk.org.uk/guidance-improvement-hub/myth-busting

A letter has gone out to families explaining the change. We will also be speaking to children and staff in more detail. We have already visited the school and met many staff and children and the next stage of the process is to carry out a due diligence.

Communication with families is a priority in any school and this is very important to us. We operate a 6 weekly assessment cycle called Praising Stars. Parents and carers will receive a Praising Stars report every 6 weeks detailing their child's predicted grade and an effort grade for all of their subjects. Where necessary, the report will also indicate whether a parents' evening appointment would benefit and whether there have been any concerns regarding homework and coursework. Lots of the systems that we use for homework eg. Sparx in Y7 also send weekly reports to parents and carers via email. The new academy will have a brand new website which will have a wealth of information to parents. We will also work with the various social media platforms as a way to celebrate and share the success of our students. We hold a Y11 information evening annually at the start of September to ensure that parents have all of the key information about how they can best support their child during the most important year of their education. We also hold various other information evening eg. for our guided pathway (option) events and for our new Y7 parents.

Our aim is to improve all elements of school life to ensure the very best experience for students and staff. We were one of the first Teaching Schools to be designated in the country and we have vast experience in teacher training and professional development with a view to recruiting, retaining and developing the very best staff. Our Teaching School is called Outwood Institute of Education and our plan is to establish a North West Hub. Here is the link to the Outwood Institute of Education website (oie.outwood.com) where you can find out more about our work in developing our colleagues.

Yes, Outwood does not believe in selection as part of their admission policies; with one of its core values being that local schools should cater for all local children, without selection. Academies are required to follow the law and guidance on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions as if they were maintained schools. It is the aim of the Trust to ensure that our academies provide high quality, inclusive education for local children.

We will be working to improve all elements of school life to ensure the very best experience for the students. Regular feedback from parents and families will form a vital part of this transformation. Our vision is Students First: Raising Standards and Transforming Lives. You may wish to take a look at the online prospectus for Outwood Grange Academies Trust which gives some more details about our vision and priorities for our academies. We look forward to working with all parents/carers.

All of our academies follow both the National Curriculum and the guidance set out in the local SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education). This is in line with both schools' and academies' funding agreements and the requirements of Ofsted.