Abbey Grange Church of England Academy is a thriving, highly successful and over-subscribed 11-18 secondary school which became an academy in 2011, and a founder member of the Abbey Multi Academy Trust in 2014. Abbey Grange wholeheartedly follows the Church of England’s vision for education to
‘live life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10).
Our academy serves communities right across the city of Leeds and our students come from all over the city to receive an education in which we all work together to challenge them academically, support them pastorally and help them develop socially and spiritually. “Abbey Grange has a Christian Ethos” was how Ofsted described us in their visit in 2022 and this safe, caring, Christian environment underpins absolutely everything we do ensuring we all continually strive for excellence and work to prepare students, not only for success whilst at school but sustain them in life after school. Our students flourish in an environment which is welcoming, caring, calm, disciplined, inspiring and powerful.
Our Christian Vision underpins everything we do:
We embrace Jesus’ call to life in all its fullness. As a diverse community, we celebrate difference and build character through innovative and imaginative practice that seeks to transform lives. Enabling everyone to flourish means identity, purpose and value in God as we journey together.
The academy is incredibly diverse with other 70 different home languages spoken and our students come from over 70 different primary schools. Families send their children to Abbey Grange from all over the City and further afield for our unique ethos of inclusivity and our celebration of diversity.
Our goal is to become an outstanding Academy that delivers on our mission - In Partnership to 'Educate, Nurture and Empower' and we are well on our way to achieving this. Ofsted graded us a 'good' school in March 2021 and we celebrated our GCSE results in 2022 with 68% of our students achieving 5-9 in English and Maths, and an above average Progress 8 score of +0.59. (Verified from last external exam data set) The academy has an incredibly popular Sixth Form with over 400 students studying a wide range of A Levels and BTECs. The destinations data for Sixth Form students reflects the high aspirations we have for our students and the aspirations of our families and students themselves.
The academy seeks to attract positive, ambitious and hard-working staff who have high expectations for student progress, attainment, behaviour and character. By following Jesus’ call to life in all its fullness, we recruit positive, enthusiastic, passionate caring staff who bring to life the lessons they teach.
“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” (Peter 4:10)
We seek out staff who nurture students by preparing them for life; being there to help them pick themselves up when they fall, empowering them to reach for the stars by gaining outstanding qualifications, and aspiring to be the best version of themselves that they can be. Ofsted tells us that our students “enjoy” school and crucially that they “want to come to school”. This is reflected in our fantastic rates of attendance. This is not only because students are able to focus on work without disruption due to our high expectations for behaviour but also because there is a calm, positive learning atmosphere in classrooms. We encourage students to learn to be intolerant of intolerance and to behave in an exemplary way inside and outside the academy.
“Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (John 3:18)
We ensure our students are great citizens and able to flourish in all aspects of life spiritually, morally and socially. Abbey Character is built through exemplary lessons, positive relationships, and a broad
extra-curricular and an enrichment programme is in place so that students can get out of their comfort zone. All talents are nurtured so students achieve their full potential whatever their talent may be – or discover new talents they never knew they’de be able to do.
“Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more” (Matthew 25:20)
Finally, Abbey Grange is a safe space for all our students where bullying is rare. Our Ofsted report earlier this year told us the “no stone is left unturned in order to keep pupils safe and well”. Again, through our Christian vision to build character through innovative and imaginative practice we are able to work with students when their conduct does not meet our expectations through fair and balanced sanctions but, crucially, the essential restorative practice is deployed afterwards to help those students transform their lives and become better versions of themselves.
If you are considering sending your child, or applying for a position at Abbey Grange we welcome a diverse community
