St Michaels Church of England Academy Review 2026: A faith secondary in Crosby, rebuilding outcomes and culture

A large school site with its own woodland walk and seasonal pond is not the usual picture of an 11 to 18 secondary in Crosby. Here, environmental projects such as student allotments and the St Michael’s Mere woodland route sit alongside a clear push for consistent classroom routines and a shared teaching language.

Leadership has shifted recently. Mr Roy Bellmon took up post as headteacher on 22 April 2025, following the school’s fresh start conversion on 01 April 2025 and its move into All Saints Multi Academy Trust (the operating name of The Liverpool Joint Catholic and Church of England Academies Trust).

The school day is structured and punctual. Students are expected in the building by 8.35am for registration at 8.45am; the official end of day is 3.15pm.

This is a Church of England school with a stated ambition to make faith visible in daily routines rather than keeping it as a badge on the prospectus. The school describes itself as the only Church of England secondary in Sefton, and frames its vision around growing spiritually, personally, and academically, supported by values including love, peace, forgiveness, courage, and equality.

For families considering a faith school, the key question is how strongly the ethos shapes admissions and day to day experience. On admissions, faith is not cosmetic. The policy includes a specific faith priority supported by a points system linked to church attendance, with a supplementary form and clergy confirmation required for applicants seeking faith priority.

On day to day life, the tone is more inclusive than narrow. The sixth form pages explicitly position the community as respectful of students and families and their traditions, which matters in a mixed intake that includes families who value a Christian framework and those who prioritise the school’s local offer.

The school also emphasises culture and conduct in plain language. The headteacher references high expectations of behaviour and a shared culture, which is consistent with the school’s wider focus on routines and consistency in teaching and learning.

A distinctive part of the site’s identity is sustainability work that uses the grounds as a practical learning space. Students are described as being involved in projects such as allotments, memorial gardens, and habitat work. The St Michael’s Mere project is presented as a transformation of an overgrown area into a woodland walk with a seasonal pond, used both for environmental learning and for calm space.

For some students, that kind of project becomes a hook into school life. For others, it is simply a sign that the school has breadth beyond lessons and exams, which is often an important confidence builder during Years 7 and 8.

This is a state school with published performance measures that present a mixed picture across key stages, and it is important to separate the GCSE story from the sixth form story.

At GCSE, the school’s Attainment 8 score is 36.6 and its Progress 8 score is -0.89, indicating that, on average, students made less progress than similar students nationally from their starting points across the measured period. (These are the most recent published figures in the provided performance dataset for this review.)

In the English Baccalaureate subjects, 0.8 of pupils achieved grade 5 or above in the EBacc element, as recorded.

A straightforward England rank is not available for the school’s GCSE outcomes in the current FindMySchool table, so parents comparing local secondaries will need to use outcomes and Progress 8 directly, rather than relying on a placement in the FindMySchool GCSE ranking list.

The sixth form picture is clearer because the dataset includes a formal ranking and a full grade distribution. Ranked 2,390th in England and 37th in Liverpool for A level outcomes (FindMySchool ranking based on official data), the school’s A level results sit below England average, placing it within the bottom 40% of schools in England on this measure.

0% of grades were A*, 6.06% were A, 16.67% were B, and 22.73% were A* to B combined. England averages are higher, at 23.6% for A* to A and 47.2% for A* to B.

The practical implication is that families should treat sixth form choice as an active decision, not an automatic default. Students who do best post 16 tend to be those who want the pastoral structure and close oversight the school describes, and who engage fully with the support and guidance offer, including mentoring and careers advice.

The school’s teaching and learning strategy is unusually explicit for a mainstream comprehensive. It sets out ten principles intended to create consistent classroom practice, including assessment use, challenge, modelling, deliberate practice, retrieval practice, feedback, and reading and summarising texts.

The school also describes a common lesson structure with a warm up routine, knowledge goals, an “I do, we do, you do” approach, planned handling of misconceptions, and a cool down routine.

For parents, this matters because it signals that the school is trying to reduce variability between classrooms. If a student is anxious, distractible, or simply needs predictable routines to learn well, consistency of structure can be a material advantage. For very high attainers, the key question becomes how well challenge is delivered in practice, particularly in core subjects and in Year 10 and Year 11.

Reading is also positioned as a cross school priority. The school describes a whole school initiative that includes a Key Stage 3 Accelerated Reader approach, dedicated reading lessons as part of English, participation in national literacy events, and staff development linked to subject literacy.

The strongest version of this approach is when reading support is not limited to English, and when students who struggle with fluency are identified early and supported in a way that helps them access every subject.

The school publishes a clear intent for post 16 pathways, even where it does not publish a full destinations dataset in the review inputs. The sixth form describes a core offer that includes A level and Level 3 vocational qualifications, alongside signposting to alternative provision where that better fits a student’s planned pathway.

The destination work that is most visible in the published information is around careers education and practical preparation. The sixth form describes support with work experience, apprenticeship applications, and UCAS processes, and notes that a careers adviser is available on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

It also references external speakers such as apprenticeship providers, the NHS, and universities, which is useful in a local context where students may be choosing between employment, college style study, and university routes.

A distinctive enrichment detail is the school’s involvement as a lead hub school in Merseyside for the University of Cambridge HE+ programme, which signals an attempt to widen access and raise aspiration for students who might not otherwise see selective higher education as realistic.

The honest implication is that aspiration programmes help most when they sit alongside strong subject outcomes. Families should look closely at subject availability, teaching stability, and the student’s own study habits when making a sixth form decision.

Admissions are coordinated through Sefton. For September 2026 entry into Year 7, the national closing date for applications was 31 October 2025, and the national offer date is 02 March 2026.

The school’s published admission number is 125 for September 2026.

Where applications exceed places, priority is given first to children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school, then looked after and previously looked after children, then siblings, then children on roll at specific contributory primary schools, then a faith criterion route, and finally distance.

Two admissions details are especially important for parent planning:

1. Contributory primary schools are explicitly named, and this can materially affect the probability of entry for families living near the school but outside those feeder routes.

2. The faith route is formal and evidential. Applicants seeking faith priority need a supplementary form, completion by a minister of religion, and submission by 31 October 2025 for September 2026 entry.

The school also describes an open evening in September each year and Head of School tours. Given that exact dates vary, parents should treat September as the typical window and check each year’s calendar directly with the school.

If distance becomes the deciding criterion for a family, the most practical step is to use the FindMySchoolMap Search to measure your route distance precisely in the way local authorities typically assess priority, and to sanity check it against recent allocation patterns.

A faith school is often judged by whether the pastoral offer feels structured rather than merely well intentioned. The sixth form information provides a concrete example: staff presence in the sixth form area from 8.30am until 4pm on weekdays, and support that includes study skills, work experience preparation, and help with post 18 applications and funding questions.

The staffing structure also points to specific roles linked to inclusion and support, including a Deputy Safeguarding Lead and a school chaplain listed within the support team.

For families, this can translate into more than crisis management. It can mean accessible adults who know students well, and a clearer sense of how concerns are routed and followed up.

The school’s admissions arrangements also make explicit provision for pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans, and the earlier inspection history for the predecessor school describes specially resourced provision for cognition and learning needs and for autism across Years 7 to 11 at the time.

In practice, parents of children with SEND should ask detailed questions about current resourced provision capacity, staffing, and integration with mainstream classes, because the quality of support is often determined by operational detail rather than policy statements.

The most recent Ofsted inspection for the predecessor school, conducted on 19 and 20 June 2024, judged overall effectiveness as Inadequate.

The same report stated that safeguarding arrangements were effective.

A school’s co curricular life is most useful when it gives students two things: a reason to belong, and a structured way to build confidence through competence. The published clubs and activities show several strands.

Creative and practical work includes Art Club, run at lunchtime with limited places for Key Stage 3 due to space constraints, and positioned for GCSE Art students as a way to build coursework skills and momentum.

The implication here is simple: if a student is choosing GCSE Art, sustained practice time matters, and a lunchtime structure can help students who are not well suited to unstructured independent work at home.

The environmental strand is unusually developed for a local comprehensive. Eco work is described as including allotments, memorial gardens, habitat support, and work at a local duck pond, plus the longer term St Michael’s Mere woodland project.

For some students, that hands on, outdoors element becomes the thing that keeps them engaged during a tough academic patch, and it can also offer leadership opportunities without the pressure of performance in front of an audience.

Sport and wider activities are also signposted through PE clubs and Duke of Edinburgh. Even where the published detail is timetable based rather than narrative, the school explicitly frames co curricular activity as part of joining and settling, particularly around Year 7 transition and summer school.

Sixth form enrichment includes student committees such as charity and events, mentoring of younger students, and opportunities such as the National Citizen Service programme, which are designed to build leadership and contribution, not just personal statements.

The published timings are clear. Students should be inside the building by 8.35am; registration is at 8.45am; the official end of the school day is 3.15pm.

Transport is also unusually specific. The school publishes a dedicated school bus service (SM1) operated by Presidential Travel, starting at 7.25am from Netherton and travelling via Bootle, Seaforth, Waterloo, and Crosby to arrive for 8.30am. The same information includes later services aligned to after school clubs on certain days.

For families balancing travel time with extracurricular commitments, that detail can matter as much as the formal school day.

Because this is a secondary school, there is no wraparound childcare offer in the primary sense. The practical equivalent is supervised time through clubs, study support, and sixth form duty arrangements. Families should ask directly about current before school supervision, after school study, and which activities run reliably each term.

• Recent inspection context. The most recent Ofsted judgement for the predecessor school (June 2024) was Inadequate. Families should look for clear evidence of improvement actions since the April 2025 fresh start, including staffing stability, curriculum sequencing, and consistent behaviour routines.

• Sixth form outcomes. The A level profile in the available dataset is below England average, and the FindMySchool A level rank is 2,390th in England. Students considering staying on should scrutinise subject fit, teaching strength, and the support structures described by the sixth form team.

• Faith based admissions complexity. Applying under the faith priority requires additional evidence and a supplementary form by the Year 7 deadline. If a family is not applying through the faith route, the contributory primary school and distance priorities become the relevant factors.

• Routine and punctuality expectations. Being inside by 8.35am for 8.45am registration is a tight expectation for some families. If a student struggles with mornings, transport planning becomes part of safeguarding attendance and wellbeing, not just convenience.

St Michaels Church of England Academy is a local faith secondary with an unusually explicit teaching playbook and a clear attempt to create consistency across classrooms. The move into All Saints Multi Academy Trust and the headteacher appointment in April 2025 place the school in a reset phase, with improvement priorities that are easy for parents to test through visits and conversations.

This will suit families who want a Church of England ethos that is present in school identity and admissions, and students who respond well to routine, clear expectations, and structured support through Key Stage 3 into post 16. The main challenge is ensuring that academic outcomes, particularly in the sixth form, catch up with the ambition expressed in the curriculum and teaching model.