A TOP York secondary school will become an academy after governors have decided to go-ahead with plans to start a new trust.

Fulford School, which has about 1,400 pupils and is rated outstanding by Ofsted,will opt out of local authority control.

The governing body at the school has agreed to apply to the Department for Education to convert to academy status and to establish a Multi Academy Trust (MAT).

The Press reported in October that the school want to become a MAT with eight of its feeder primaries making it the largest multi-academy trust in the city if all eight join.

In a letter to parents, head teacher Lorna Savage and chairman of governors Andrew Pennington said: “This decision has been taken after considerable deliberation over many months and is rooted in our desire to secure the best future for our school and all those in its community.

“We would like to thank all those who contributed to the consultation process either in person or via written submission.

“All responses received were considered and discussed as part of the decision-making process and a response to the key points raised will shortly be circulated to staff and parents and will be shared on our school website.”

York Press:

The other schools named in the consultation - Archbishop of York’s CE Junior School, Dunnington CE School, Elvington CE School, Escrick CE School, Lord Deramore’s School, Naburn CE School, St Oswald’s CE School and Wheldrake with Thorganby CE School will be making their own individual decisions on academy conversion and MAT membership in the next few weeks.

Mrs Savage said: “Once this process is completed we will then know who will seek to join us in the MAT and we can begin to work on the detail of the application process and to make the decisions about the operating arrangements of the MAT - including the phasing of its establishment and expansion.

“This will be done in discussion with the schools involved, City of York Council, the Regional Schools Commissioner, the Church of England Diocese and other relevant parties.”

Fulford’s governing body have just agreed to retain the existing catchment area and admissions criteria for 2018/19.

The city already has four established academy trusts.

They are Ebor, The Hope Learning Trust, The Pathfinder Multi Academy Trust and Southbank MAT which is comprised of Scarcroft, Knavesmire and Millthorpe schools.