Bebington High Sports College has become the third school on the Wirral, and the first secondary school, in the past few months to join the Co-op Academies Trust, which is on course to achieve its ambition of operating up to 40 academies across the north of England by 2022.

The Co-op Academy Bebington, as it will now be known, follows the Co-op Academy Woodslee and the Co-op Academy Portland in Birkenhead, which both joined the Trust at the end of last year.

Bebington was judged inadequate by Ofsted in 2016 under previous leadership but in 2017 inspectors recognised the rapid improvement the school had made.

The Co-op is delighted to be supporting Bebington in its further journey to good. Since the Co-op announced in April 2018 that it was putting a further £3.6m into its academies programme to kick-start the next growth phase, eight new academies, including the three from the Wirral, have now joined the trust bringing the number under its guidance to 20.

The Trust divides its academies, which are mainly in economically deprived areas, into three hubs: Greater Manchester; West Yorkshire and Merseyside and North Staffordshire.

The Co-op academies inspected by Ofsted have seen significant improvement underlining the success the Trust has had in implementing ambitious turnaround plans for the schools it has adopted.

Catherine Kelly, Headteacher at Co-op Academy Bebington, said: “We’re delighted to be joining the Co-op Academies Trust. It has a proven track record of supporting and improving schools and so everyone is really excited about the future for Bebington.”

Frank Norris, Director of the Co-op Academies Trust said: “We look forward to supporting Bebington on its continuous journey of improvement. The Trust has demonstrated that co-operative values and principles, strong governance and the ability to leverage the support of the Co-op in areas such as brand, communications, HR, property, insurance and IT, can have a dramatic impact on school improvement.

“The Co-op also has a purpose beyond making a profit, and supporting schools is seen as part of its community engagement and support. Indeed, a good school can do so much to enhance an area for all those living there

“Co-op colleagues serve as school governors and provide mentoring and careers advice along with work placement support.

“A step change increase in the number of Trust academies will improve efficiency, provide better value for money, increase the scale and variety of school improvement services and enhance effectiveness for existing academies.”