Academy trust which includes schools from Spalding, Bourne, Donington and Old Leake named number one in region… and 12th in the country

A schools trust has been ranked as one of the performers in the country - and number one in the region.

The Department for Education has named the South Lincolnshire Academies Trust (SLAT) as the 12th top performing trust in England.

Bourne Academy, Spalding Academy, Cowley Academy and Giles Academy are the four education centres under the SLAT umbrella, which was also ranked as number one in the East Midlands.

"We are delighted that the achievements of our staff and students are recognised in this way,” said Lucy Conley, SLAT chief executive officer.

“At South Lincolnshire Academies Trust, we firmly believe that we have got the right balance to be a highly successful multi-academy trust.

“As a small trust with four schools that are geographically close to each other, this allows the leadership team to work across all schools in our trust, so all schools benefit and are fully supported.

“Whereas some other MATs have a combination of primary and secondary schools, our leadership team can purely focus on providing the very best education for ages 11 to 18 years in non-selective local schools."

These figures were revealed following the latest Progress 8 scores, with SLAT in a category with 213 other multi-academy trusts (MATs) with three or more schools.

Progress 8 scores are a key performance indicator used by the DfE to calculate the progress students make from Key Stage 2, before they start in Year 7, to Key Stage 4, the end of Year 11.

South Lincolnshire Academies Trust are one of only 14 MATs in England to be ranked as performing well above average, with a MAT Progress 8 score of +0.56, compared to the national average of -0.03.

This puts SLAT as 12th in the rank order in the top 6% of MATs in England and the only MAT in the East Midlands to be performing well above average.

South Lincolnshire Academies Trust was founded in 2016.

Figures revealed that:

* Spalding Academy is performing well above average and is in the top 5% of all schools nationally based on a Progress 8 score of +0.67.

* Bourne Academy is performing well above average and is in the top 5% of all schools nationally based on a Progress 8 score of +0.63.

* Giles Academy is performing above average based on a Progress 8 score of +0.08.

* Cowley Academy is performing above average based on a Progress 8 score of +0.08.