Northern Star Academies Trust Archives

£250,000 early education centre to be created at Harrogate schoolHarrogate primary school appoints new headteacher

A Harrogate primary school has announced a new headteacher and deputy-head teacher.

Hookstone Chase Primary School has appointed James Hughes as the new headteacher and Hannah Norton as the new deputy headteacher.

Mr Hughes has been acting head since October 2023. He has worked in primary schools for 18 years.

Before starting at Hookstone Chase, he held the position of deputy headteacher at nearby Willow Tree Primary School for 13 years.

Mr Hughes said:

“I am thrilled to become the new Headteacher at Hookstone Chase Primary School and am committed to unlocking the potential of every one of our young learners.

“Alongside Hannah and our talented staff team we will nurture academic excellence and strengthen connections with our local community to cultivate a vibrant and diverse learning environment.”

Ms Norton joins the school from New Park Primary School, also in Harrogate, where she was assistant headteacher and special educational needs co-ordinator (SENCO).

Hookstone Chase Primary School

Hookstone Chase Primary School is part of Northern Star Academies Trust, a partnership of 15 primary and secondary schools across North and West Yorkshire, five of which are in Harrogate.

Harrogate High School, New Park Primary Academy School , Starbeck Primary Academy and Willow Tree Community Primary School are also in the trust.

The trust’s CEO, Jenn Plews, said:

“We’re delighted to welcome both James and Hannah to their new roles at Hookstone Chase Primary School and to support them as they lead the school into this new chapter.

“As a growing Yorkshire Trust we put people at the heart of everything we do and know that excellent education starts with excellent teachers. We take great pride in being able to provide career advancement prospects within our Trust partnership and are so pleased that both James and Hannah are taking the next step in their career at Northern Star.”

Hookstone Chase Primary School is also looking for a volunteer governor. If you would like to find out more about the role contact governance@nsat.org.uk.

Harrogate primary school receives ‘good’ Ofsted rating

New Park Primary Academy on Skipton Road in Harrogate has received a ‘good’ Ofsted rating in a report published today.

The report describes the school as “welcoming and friendly” and says it ensure pupils “get the support they need from the moment they start”.

It described the curriculum as “ambitious”, says children feel safe and leaders are “enthusiastic about their roles”.

It adds:

“Pupils settle quickly into the life of the school. Pupil buddies help those who are new to learn the school’s routines. They enjoy making friends.

“Most pupils achieve well, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.”

New Park Primary Academy is operated by Northern Star Academies Trust.

The trust has nine schools, with five in the Harrogate area. New Park, Harrogate High, Starbeck community primary, Hookstone Chase primary and Willow Tree community primary.

New Park was rated ‘good’ at its previous inspection in 2018.

Headteacher Sasha Bune, who joined in September last year, said:

“We are really proud to maintain our ‘good’ judgement. We are happy Ofsted have recognised our ambitions for the school and the how hard all of the staff work.

“They looked at all areas of the school and saw our warm and nurturing feel and the high expectations the children have for themselves and how well behaved they all are.

“We have an ambitious curriculum and we are a very inclusive school with a big mix of pupils. We are very well supported by Northern Star Academies Trust and we will carry on being ambitious and keep on learning.”

Harrogate’s ‘inner-city school’ is improving, says headteacher

When Harrogate High School held its autumn open evening on Thursday, there will have been some parents present who needed to be won over.

After 10 years of being rated ‘satisfactory’ by Ofsted, and then another 10 years rated ‘good’, the school was downgraded earlier this year to ‘requires improvement’ – the third-best out of four ratings.

But speaking to the Stray Ferret ahead of the open evening, headteacher Sukhraj Gill said the thorny subject of the school’s Ofsted report was not one he was going to duck. He said:

“It’s the first thing I talk about on parents’ evenings – it’s not an elephant in the room for me. On paper, we’re ‘requires improvement’, but we are improving.”

Mr Gill arrived at Harrogate High in January 2022 and had been in post little over a year when the Ofsted inspectors came the following spring.

A graduate of the University of Warwick, he completed his teaching qualifications at the University of Cambridge and taught maths for over 20 years in West Yorkshire, including a decade at Bradford Academy (then rated ‘good’), where he was vice principal.

He said:

“Before I started this job, people said to me ‘Harrogate High? That’s the worst school in Harrogate’. I heard all those descriptions of the school before I even set foot through the door.

“That just tells me that these students need good-quality education, and good-quality people who value them and can help them grow and move on to their next destinations.

“I’m not saying I’m anybody special, but I think I can bring a bit of experience and strategy.”

He came to Harrogate High at a time when the school – like many around the country – was still reeling from the covid pandemic. The school had lost its sixth form, and a lot of students – even those from secure, well-off backgrounds – were displaying the traits of social disadvantage: disorganisation, lack of focus, and persistent absenteeism.

Mr Gill, who is the school’s third headteacher since the last Ofsted inspection in 2017, said:

“At that time, we [already] had some turbulence among the teachers and leadership here. We own that – we’re not going to hide from that. But we’re part of the Northern Star Academies Trust, and they were all over that, hiring a school improvement officer and replacing the senior leaders here. I was the last piece, as the headteacher.”

But the changes didn’t stop at new staff. The Ofsted report highlighted several areas where the school, which has around 750 students, needed to improve, and Mr Gill is introducing best practice strategies to effect the necessary changes.

One criticism of the school was that the implementation of the curriculum in some subjects was not as effective as in others, so he has developed a teacher toolkit, which lays out the different phases that every lesson must feature.

Ofsted also pointed out that some staff didn’t not use the school behaviour policy consistently, so Mr Gill has created scripts for teachers to use in the most common situations.

Another observation was that the personal development curriculum was not planned to the same level as subject curriculum planning, so the school identified its core values under the acronym CARES – courage, aspiration, respect, equality and self-control – which permeate school life.

The watchword is consistency – in expectations, behaviour, lesson structure and planning. Mr Gill said:

“This is an evidence-based approach, and it’s effective for all students, even high attainers. If you have consistency in learning, language, the way teachers teach, it helps students make an impact quicker.”

Beyond the classroom, there is a wide range of extracurricular activities, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards have been reintroduced, there’s a farm twinning project with Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and there are even plans to create an urban farm at the school at some point over the next three years.

For the more academically minded, Mr Gill says the curriculum was built “from the top down” rather than from the bottom up, and is delivered with high expectations.

The overall mission is to be a school for the community which supports every child regardless of background, says Mr Gill:

“My experience of working in inner cities is good for Harrogate High School, because this is effectively an inner-city comprehensive school – even though Harrogate is a town. This is a true comprehensive school. We’ve got affluence and high attainers, and we’ve also got some real disadvantage, and that’s not always appreciated by the wider community.”

The data reinforces the point. Harrogate High School has the highest percentage of children with special educational needs and disability (SEND) of all the mainstream schools in North Yorkshire. Nearly 30% of children receive free school meals, compared with 15% across the county and around 24% nationally. Mr Gill said:

“We’ve got children here who are looked-after children, we’ve got children who are young carers for parents who are drug abusers, we’ve got children who we feed breakfast to, because they can’t get it at home. But we’re an inclusive school. We won’t let any child down.”

Whether Mr Gill is successful in his mission could be measured in various ways, but he says his mindset has never been based around his personal success – it’s always about the students. He said:

“When you make a difference to students who need the difference made, that brings the greatest sense of fulfilment.

“I’m a very spiritual person – I do a lot of meditation – and I’ve always thought we’re chosen to be here, at this point in time.”

The other obvious measure of success will be the next Ofsted inspection – whenever that may come – but that doesn’t seem to faze him. He said:

“We’ve put strategies into place and we’re now starting to see a culture shift. If Ofsted came in a year’s time, I believe we’d have a completely different report.

“But we don’t work just to an Ofsted inspection – it only reflects a point in time. We work for the students. We serve our community. That’s who we’re here for.”

Harrogate school to create city farm

Leaders at Harrogate High School aim to create an urban farm in the school’s grounds, it has been revealed.

Harrogate High is part of the Northern Star Academies Trust, which also includes Skipton Girls’ High School and seven primaries, including New Park, Hookstone Chase, Willow Tree and Starbeck.

Jenn Plews, chief executive of Northern Star, told the Stray Ferret the trust was “really ambitious” for the school’s Ainsty Road site.

She said:

“We have an ambition to open a city farm here, probably within the next three years.

“As part of our environmental and sustainability priority, all of our schools are really focused on the farm-to-fork agenda, the walk-to school agenda, and also bringing nature in, so a lot of our schools have got a lot of plants and nature brought in from outside.

“We’ve had a farm-twinning project with AONB Nidderdale [Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty] over the last year, and last year we had over 1,000 children going out to farms as part of their education, which has been incredible.”

What form the farm would take, and what it would include, have yet to be decided. Ms Plews said:

“We’d have to work out what animals we’d have, to start with. We’ve already got goats and chickens at New Park, and ducks, and we’ve got two apiaries in the trust that produce honey.

“What this school needs is a really great partner, because we can’t do it on our own.”

She said the ideal partner would be a care farm. Care farms use farm-related activities for therapeutic purposes and provide healthcare, social care and specialist educational services.

She added:

“A farm would also allow us to give our students opportunities in animal care and husbandry qualifications.”

Harrogate High headteacher Sukhraj Gill added:

“If children are having mental health needs and wellbeing needs, the farm would be a different environment that they can get involved in. All the research shows that extracurricular things like that will help.”

Mr Gill gave the Stray Ferret a wider-ranging interview, which will be published over the weekend.

Harrogate primary school’s first and only headteacher retires

Pupils and staff at a Harrogate primary school will be saying a sad farewell on Friday, when their headteacher retires after 15 years at the helm.

Dr Helen Davey has led Willow Tree Community Primary School since it was created.

Before that, she was headteacher of Wedderburn Infant and Nursery School, which merged with Woodlands Community Junior School to form Willow Tree in 2011.

James Hughes, deputy headteacher, said:

“Helen has been a wonderful headteacher to work for. She has always put the children first and created a truly inclusive community school. She has impacted so many children’s lives, having led the school for 15 years and we know that she will be sorely missed by children, staff and parents alike.

“From everybody at Willow Tree, we would just like to say the biggest thank you to a very special person and we hope you enjoy your retirement.”

Dr Davey, who first wanted to be a teacher when she was just five years old, completed her Doctorate in Education through Durham University in 2016, having previously obtained her Masters in Educational Leadership from the University of Chichester.

She said:

“I would like to thank the staff, parents and most importantly the children who I have worked with over the past 15 years at Willow Tree. We are a great team and I will miss them all.”

Willow Tree, which has about 540 children on the school roll, is now a member of the Northern Star Academies Trust, which also includes Harrogate High School, Hookstone Chase, New Park and Starbeck primary schools in Harrogate, Skipton Girls’ High, Greatwood Community Primary in Skipton, and Holycroft and Eastwood primary schools in Keighley.

Jenn Plews, CEO of the Northern Star Academies Trust, said:

“Helen has made a lifelong contribution to education, influencing the lives of thousands of children across Harrogate and Craven. She can be proud of what she has achieved. We wish her well with her retirement.”

Harrogate High School ‘requires improvement’, says Ofsted

Harrogate High School‘s Ofsted rating has been downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ in a newly released report.

Inspectors said the quality of education had declined and older pupils in particular “do not achieve well in external examinations”.

They also said some parents had raised concerns about pupil behaviour and some students with bad attitudes were “not challenged quickly enough” and some truant pupils were “disrespectful to staff and cause disruption”.

However, the report acknowledges new school leaders understood the problems and their actions “have secured improvements in the quality of education”.

It also says arrangements for safeguarding are effective, staff are well trained and leaders have developed an “ambitious curriculum”, including for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities – and that pupils with additional needs are “well supported in lessons”.

Two-day Ofsted visit

Harrogate High, which was founded in 1973 as Harrogate Granby High School, has more than 700 pupils. It is part of the Northern Star Academies Trust – a partnership of nine schools across Harrogate, Skipton and Keighley. Ofsted visited the school on April 25 and 26.

The report, which the school has released but has not yet been uploaded onto Ofsted’s website, gave it an overall rating of ‘requires improvement’ and awarded the same grade for all four sub-categories assessed: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management.

The school’s last full inspection was 10 years ago, when it was rated ‘good’ overall. It retained the grading following a short inspection in 2017.

‘Good’ is the second highest of four possible ratings; ‘requires improvement’ is the third highest.

The report says leaders have prioritised improving the curriculum and changed the subjects pupils study at key stage 4 to offer a more broad and balanced curriculum. But it adds “the academic experiences that pupils receive continue to be mixed” and goes on to say:

“Teachers do not consistently check if pupils know or understand what has been taught. As a result, misconceptions are not always identified and addressed. In particular, older pupils, who have not benefited from improvements in the curriculum, do not achieve well in external examinations.”

Ofsted says there is a range of extra-curricular activities but “the wider development of pupils needs to be a sharper focus for leaders”.

It adds:

“Leaders recognise the need to improve behaviour across the school. They are working with external support to implement new systems to tackle poor behaviour.”

The report highlights “there have been many changes in leadership since the last inspection”, which “has led to delays in addressing some of the weaknesses in the school” and although there have been improvements “there is much more work to do”.

‘Exciting time for Harrogate High’

Sukhraj Gill

Responding to the report, headteacher Sukhraj Gill said:

“This is an exciting time for Harrogate High School. Inspectors have recognised the improvements we have already made and confirmed that we are on the right track to make Harrogate High a great school. We have achieved a great deal at Harrogate High School – with a lot more to do.

“We will continue our relentless drive to make Harrogate High the best school it can be for all the young people that we educate.

“We’re especially pleased that inspectors recognised that we provide good support for pupils with additional needs. We value every young person in our school, whatever their needs. Ofsted’s findings are a vindication of our values as a truly inclusive school.”

Jenn Plews

Jenn Plews, chief executive of Northern Star Academies Trust, said:

“Harrogate High School has made massive strides forward under its new leadership. The Ofsted report is clear: leaders’ actions have improved the quality of education. The fact that the school is full and has been oversubscribed is a testament to the work our school and our trust across Harrogate.

“Inspections are always an opportunity to learn from the inspectors’ feedback and recommendations to help us develop and improve. We welcome this report as a positive contribution to continue Harrogate High School’s continuing journey to become a great school”.

Learning goes outdoors at Hookstone Chase Primary School

A new play area has opened at Hookstone Chase Primary School in Harrogate.

The new equipment is part of investment the school is making in facilities especially for reception age children.

The school is part of Northern Star Academies Trust, which runs four primary schools in Harrogate.

Constructed from natural timber to reflect the school’s commitment to the environment, the play area gives children a new learning space to get physical and creative – with a water stream, sand play and jungle planters.

A new shelter offers a place to act out plays, have outdoor lessons, or even an alfresco story time.

The play area is the first part of a development plan for the school being led by new headteacher, Joe Cooper, who joined the academy at the start of September.

Joe Cooper head at Hookstone Chase Primary School

Headteacher, Joe Cooper, tries out the new outdoor learning area.

Mr Cooper said:

“Learning should be engaging and fun – whether it’s inside the classroom or outside it.

“Our new play area for our youngest children is a safe place where they can let their imaginations run free. Whether children want to run and climb or play quietly with friends in specially created seating areas, there is something for everyone. Outdoor play is a great way for children to build social skills and friendships”.

Jenn Plews, chief executive of Northern Star Academies Trust, said:

“Learning outdoors is an important part of the curriculum in every Northern Star Academy. Getting outside has benefits for children’s wellbeing and health, as well as their learning”.

New headteacher for Harrogate primary school

Hookstone Chase Primary School in Harrogate is set to welcome a new headteacher this term.

Joe Cooper joins from All Saints’ Primary School in Ilkley where he spent three years as deputy headteacher.

Mr Cooper settled in Harrogate in 2005 from London. He has since developed his career in North Yorkshire, with short periods teaching in New Zealand and as a music specialist.

Mr Cooper said:

“It is a great privilege to have been asked to lead Hookstone Chase Primary School. We have a proud history as an inclusive school for all children – with space for everyone to grow and develop their knowledge, skills and abilities.

“Straight away this term we will be opening a brand new outdoor play and learning area for our youngest children who are just joining us. We are a school that is investing in the future.”

Mr Cooper shares a ukulele lesson with pupils. Pic: John Furlong

Hookstone Chase is part of the Northern Star Academies Trust, which includes four other Harrogate schools, as well as schools in Skipton and Keighley.

Its other Harrogate schools are Harrogate High School, New Park Primary Academy School, Starbeck Primary Academy and Willow Tree Community Primary School.

Craig Goold, chair of Hookstone Chase’s local governing body, said:

“Joe has hit the ground running. It’s going to be a busy year ahead. Joe has a huge amount of energy and drive. We are definitely a school that is going places in 2023.”

Jenn Plews, chief executive at Northern Star Academies Trust, said:

“It is great to have Joe on board. Joe has really embraced our trust’s deep commitment to sustainability, the environment and outdoor learning. He is just the kind of creative leader that schools need to bring education to life”.

Read more:

Read more:

Read more:

Read more:

Read more:

Two-day Ofsted visit

‘Exciting time for Harrogate High’

Read more:

Read more:

Read more: