Introduction to the partnership of Falcon Education Academies Trust and Thornaby Academy

Falcon commenced informal support of Thornaby in January 2020, and officially became sponsor to the school on 1 September 2020, at which point the school transferred to the Trust. Falcon was chosen to sponsor Thornaby Academy due to the number of challenges the school had historically faced.

The Trust is committed to providing high level, quality support and investment to the school, with the ultimate aim of ensuring that the school becomes the school of choice in the local community and gives students the highest standard of education.

Upon beginning to support the school, the Trust undertook a detailed due diligence exercise to identify areas most in need of transformation, from which a bespoke plan of support has been developed.

Support for the school

To date, the school has benefited from a range of support incorporating development of strong leadership and management, along with improvement in the quality of teaching and learning. Additionally, professional development of staff is an ongoing facet of our support, with Subject Directors across core subjects providing coaching and resources to ensure quality and consistency within teaching. The Trust has also undertaken a review of the curriculum to be able to provide the best offer for all students and at the same time, has reviewed financial management to ensure money is spent in the best possible way and is always focussed on students.

Investment in the school

Falcon have already supported the school to transform the quality of IT within classrooms to improve the learning environment for all students by installing 30 state of the art Promethean interactive panels and have provided all teaching staff with new laptops to further enhance the teaching and learning experience. We also secured grant funding of £130,000 to completely overhaul the network and server infrastructure to enable secure and safe access to systems, data and the internet. This work was completed in Summer 2021. 

In September 2020, Falcon commissioned several external consultants to gather information about the condition of the estate, and the findings from those technical reports helped secure over £1.8m of DfE funding. This was spent on improvements to the Academy, with works to including roof and window replacement and updating security features, alongside mechanical and electrical upgrades.

In addition, in May 2021 automatic gates which are controlled via secure card access or link to reception, were installed to the rear of the Academy which has significantly improved site security for both pupils and staff.

As a Trust we are pleased to be collaboratively involved in working with the school, investing in education and changing outcomes.