At Bishop Young Academy it is our fundamental belief that all children have an entitlement to high-quality education and we are committed to providing outstanding teaching and learning, pastoral care and additional opportunities for our students to enable them to flourish academically, socially, spiritually and emotionally in a supportive and caring environment.

Bishop Young is a welcoming, caring, calm, disciplined, inspiring and purposeful environment.  One of the greatest strengths of the academy is our focus on quality teaching and we are committed to ensuring that all our students achieve outstanding results.

We have high expectations of all of our students and aim to equip them with the knowledge, skills and self-confidence they need to achieve life-long success.  Our dedicated and forward-thinking staff focus on our culture of challenging and inspiring students, in an environment of mutual respect where each child is recognised as unique and special.  Our teachers put a great deal of emphasis on challenging students at all levels in order to stretch them and provide them with individualised, personal support to enable them to reach their full potential.

At Bishop Young we have provided young people and their families with a therapeutic, nurturing, and academically rigorous learning environment. We have established an outstanding pastoral team which includes Counsellors, Family Support Workers, and an SEMH and Wellbeing Lead, who will work alongside Cathedral Leaders to ensure that individual student needs are met.  Our students thrive as a result of our innovative and forward thinking approach to therapeutic support, particularly around social, emotional and mental health.  Many of our students have tremendous latent abilities and we are passionate about ensuring that we nurture and empower them to reach their full potential.

Through a bespoke and tailored Character Education Programme, “The BISHOP Character”, we are committed to ensuring that our students are given opportunities to develop ‘soft skills’ such as perseverance and integrity, so that they are able to sustain success when they leave us and move on to Higher Education or work.  Timetabled Enrichment lessons and leadership opportunities at all levels, alongside a full and broad range of extra-curricular clubs and societies, ensure that this is the case.

It is incredibly pleasing that we are able to report a significant improvement in our GCSE results in 2019, making us one of the most improved schools in the region.  Students have achieved on average, half a grade better in every subject when compared to 2018.  More pleasingly, our disadvantaged students and those with special educational needs have improved at an even more rapid rate.  We are now one of the few schools in the country to be able to boast that there is no gap between the progress of our disadvantaged students and other students in the academy.  This is as a direct result of the stand-out provision in place at Bishop Young to support our most vulnerable learners.

This year will see us inspected by Ofsted for the first time and I am incredibly excited about sharing our success with the inspection team.

Mr Paul Cooper

Executive Principal