Press release

Torquay Boys Grammar School joins South West Academic Trust

Torquay Boys Grammar School has joined forces with a group of other leading South West schools and the University of Exeter to form a new Academic Trust.

The other Trust members are also academically successful, selective state schools. They are Colyton Grammar School in East Devon and Bournemouth School and Poole Grammar School.

The Trust aims to raise academic standards and pupil aspirations by:

    • Closer joint working between the partners
    • Working with partner non-selective schools
    • Strengthening links with business and the wider community

The involvement of the University of Exeter as a research intensive university creates opportunities for research to inform further developments in teaching and learning.  The University will also support the Trust schools and their partner community schools in their efforts to prepare students for transition to higher education.

Professor Steve Smith, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, said: ‘Working with South West schools to raise the aspirations of pupils is very important to us. We have partnership agreements with 52 secondary schools in the region. In addition to the South West Academic Trust we are also members of two other Trusts in Devon, with Coombeshead College in Newton Abbot and South Dartmoor Community College in Ashburton. We are keen to support new initiatives which raise standards. The new South West Academic Trust has an important role to play in helping its members to develop and also in helping other schools in the region to improve.’

Mr Roy Pike, the Headmaster of Torquay Boys’ Grammar School, said: ‘The four member schools of the South West Academic Trust are all academically successful in their own right. However, there are things we can all learn from each other and the Trust will better enable us to do that. Each school also has a non-selective partner school and we will also be working closely with them to develop new, more effective ways of doing things. The key thing is that we enable all pupils, whatever their natural ability, to reach their full potential.’

The formation of the South West Academic Schools Trust has been approved by the Department for Education and Skills and will be formally launched on 1 April.