Mark Hall Academy, formerly Mark Hall Specialist Sport College, is a

coeducational Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to ...

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

with academy status, located in

Harlow Harlow is a town and local government district located in the west of Essex, England. Founded as a Planned community, new town in 1947, it is situated on the border with Hertfordshire, and occupies a large area of land on the south bank of the ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

History

The school was previously a

specialist A specialist is someone who is an expert in, or devoted to, some specific branch of study or research. Specialist may also refer to: Occupations * Specialist (rank), military rank ** Specialist (Singapore) * Specialist officer, military rank in ...

Sports College Sports Colleges are senior secondary schools which promote sports alongside secondary education. United Kingdom Sports Colleges were introduced in 1997 as part of the Specialist Schools Programme in the United Kingdom. The programme enabled sec ...

under the Harlow Education Trust. In September 2013 the school converted to an academy under the sponsorship of the Academy Transformation Trust (ATT) as a result of an Inadequate rating by

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a non-ministerial department of His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament. Ofsted's role is to make sure that organisations providing education, training ...

, with Corinne Franceschi as its first Principal and Allan Osborne as Associate Principal. It was judged Good in 2016 but a further inspection in 2020 judged it Inadequate. This led to the transfer of the school's sponsorship from the ATT to the Harlow based BMAT education trust under the advice of the

Regional Schools Commissioner Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) or academy chain is an academy trust that operates more than one Academy (English school), academy school. Academy schools are State-funded schools (England), state-funded schools in England which are directly funded by t ...

. The transfer concluded on 1 January 2021.

Academic performance and Ofsted

In 2012, 25% of all pupils attained five

GCSE The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools ...

s at grades A* to C including English and Maths. This is a decrease of 18 percentage points since 2011. The school was subsequently put into special measures by

. In 2013 this figure was at 27% and, after the school became an academy, improved to 38% in 2014 and 46% in 2015. Ofsted visited the Academy in May 2016 and awarded the 'Good' grade with outstanding behaviour. The leadership of the Principal was described as inspirational. The Academy's 2016 GCSE results showed a Progress 8 score of -0.08, which is in line with the national average. 51% of pupils earned grades A* to C in GCSE English and Maths. The Academy was rated 'Inadequate' following an inspection in March 2020. The report noted high staff turnover, "weak teaching" and a failure by "too many" teachers to effectively manage the behaviour of their pupils. Additionally, the school's provisions for safeguarding were described as "not good enough to keep pupils safe."

References

External links

* Secondary schools in Essex Academies in Essex Educational institutions established in 1950 1950 establishments in England {{Essex-school-stub