Mosley Primary School converted to academy status on 1 November 2012, becoming The Mosley Academy. It is a small, high-performing village primary school of 125 children on the outskirts of Burton on Trent.

We decided to explore academy status because along with our partner primary schools, we received minimal support from our local authority. It was really important to us to retain our individual identity and our ethos and values and we felt that academy status would help us to do that. As a small village primary school we also wanted to be able to be more responsive to and better serve the educational needs of our pupils and community.

We involved staff, pupils, parents and our community in the decision to become an academy. Our pupils came up with our name and were really involved and excited about our conversion.

To act as a cushion over conversion, we have initially stayed with many local authority services such as HR, payroll and finance. We have, however, found that we have more influence with the local authority as an academy and have been able to negotiate a lower price for our finance package, saving £4000.

We are getting a better service from an outside contractor for our grounds and have withdrawn from school library services so we can spend the money on resources which will stay with the school. We have invested in tablet computers for classroom use. This is already having a big impact on teaching and learning, saving staff time and engaging pupils. We also plan to look at employing our cleaners ourselves.

In terms of future plans, we are oversubscribed and always full, so we are keen to expand and become a one-form entry primary school – the school site is big enough to allow this without detracting from the educational opportunities for the children already at Mosley.

We support two satisfactory schools with leadership and management and with teaching and learning. We hold joint staff development meetings and have found that working closely with other schools helps to develop the staff here. We will be continuing to build on this relationship into the future.

At the academy celebration held to mark our conversion, Mosley’s pupils wrote about what the school meant to them. It was a joy to read what they had to say and made me incredibly proud to be leading our school as we move forward into our exciting new future as The Mosley Academy.

Mrs Anne James
Headteacher
The Mosley Academy