Star Academy Sandyford

‘Unlocking the star in every child’

Star Academy Sandyford, a small primary academy in the north of Stoke-On-Trent, has been on a true voyage of transformational discovery since converting under the wings of its sponsors Academy Transformation Trust in April 2013.

In our previous existence as “Hollywall Primary School”, the school had deep rooted problems leading to it becoming one of the first 200 sponsored academies whilst being the worst performing school in the city. Serving an area of high deprivation and societal issues such as domestic violence, child poverty, low adult literacy levels to name a few, our 195 pupils come from predominantly white British background with a quarter of those having a gypsy romany traveller heritage.

In June 2011, the school was put into special measures and considerable changes were made in staffing especially at leadership level. Failure to meet the government floor standards in 2011, when 0% of pupils achieved a level 4 in maths, meant the persistent demise in the school also led to a significant decrease in pupil numbers.