By Hayley Robinson

hrobinson@thekmgroup.co.uk

A secondary school rated outstanding by Ofsted inspectors has become the first in the county to become a new-style academy.

After 10 weeks of hard work, The Westlands School, Sittingbourne, finally received news from the Department for Education early on Wednesday morning that its application had been approved.

Staff were told the good news when they arrived for a teacher training day.

The news was broken to Year 7 and sixth-form students when they returned to school yesterday (Thursday). The rest of the pupils were told when they arrived this morning for their first day of term.

Head teacher Jon Whitcombe said: "To become the first outstanding school to become an academy in the county is something I am truly delighted with.

"It's such good news for Sittingbourne - as a town in Kent it puts us very much on the map and it's brilliant news for staff and students. We wanted to start the year as an academy rather than the middle of the year as we wanted the benefits to be sooner rather than later.

"We must not forget that only schools that have outstanding Ofsted judgement have been able to became the new-style academies - these are obviously different to the old-style academies which were born out of schools that have not been successful.

"New ones are those schools that have proven themselves to be outstanding in terms of what they deliver and so have been given the chance to run their own affairs." There will be no changes to the school name, school uniform, the length of the school day or term, but academy status will allow the school more flexibility in other areas such as admissions, pay and what they teach.

Mr Whitcombe added: "With academy status there is a significant amount of additional funding, and we want to use it to help improve the quality of eduction we provide the children with.

"We want to do things differently to invest in additional textbooks, refurbish parts of the school we wouldn't be able to, employ additional teachers and make classroom sizes smaller. All those things will help the children and raise the standards here further.

"We won't sit on our laurels we are always looking at different things to do to improve students' life choices and give them the best possible chances in life and with academy status we can do that."

Westlands Primary School, formerly Woodgrove Primary School, has also been awarded academy status. The school, in Homewood Avenue, Sittingbourne, was taken under the wing of the secondary school in July to improve standards.

The heads of two other secondary schools in Sittingbourne are still waiting to be told whether they have been given approval to become academies.

Fulston Manor School and Highsted Grammar School, both of which were rated outstanding by Ofsted, had hoped to begin the new academic year as academies, like The Westlands.

Alan Brookes, head of Fulston, said: "We have completed all the requirements set by the Department for Education and are expecting our conversion to be confirmed at any moment.

"It is frustrating not to have achieved this status on September 1, but we appear to have been caught up in a debate between the government and the local authority, which has delayed matters.

"While we are keen to make the change, it is vital that all terms are right for us, and I am prepared to wait a little longer if it means that our new status enables us to deliver the best possible education for all our students."

Jennifer Payne, head of Highsted, said: "I regret we are not in a position to say anything yet. Although we as a school have fulfilled all the conversion requirements, we understand that KCC and the DfE are still in negotiations about the details of Kent schools conversion."