Hope Academy Review 2026: Joint-faith secondary with a sustainability specialism

A school with a clear moral framework and a practical, place-based identity, Hope Academy combines joint Catholic and Church of England sponsorship with a stated specialism in Environment and Sustainability. The physical setting supports that agenda, with a focus on outdoor learning spaces and gardens designed for curriculum use.

The latest Ofsted inspection took place on 12 and 13 November 2024, and graded Quality of education as Requires improvement; Behaviour and attitudes, Personal development, and Leadership and management were all graded Good.

With 1,296 pupils on roll at the time of inspection, this is a large 11 to 16 academy serving Newton-le-Willows and surrounding communities.

Order and routine are central to the day. Movement between lessons is structured, and expectations are reinforced through systems that keep corridors busy but organised, helping lessons start calmly and on time. The tone is not one of constant sanction; it is more about predictable structure that makes a big school feel manageable for students.

The values language is explicit and consistently used: respect, courage, ambition and hope. Students are expected to know these and apply them in day-to-day choices, which matters in a mixed community where faith backgrounds and home experiences can vary widely. Collective worship is built into the rhythm of the week, and the faith dimension is not treated as an optional extra.

Leadership stability helps shape the culture. Marie Adams is the principal, and trust documentation records her appointment as principal from 01 January 2021. In practical terms, this has meant enough time for a multi-year approach to curriculum and behaviour, rather than constant resets.

A distinctive feature of student experience is the Inspire programme. Its purpose is personal development in the broad sense, helping students understand themselves, respect others, and contribute positively to the wider community. That provides a coherent route through key themes such as relationships, consent, citizenship and social issues, rather than leaving them to occasional assemblies.

This review uses proprietary FindMySchool rankings based on official data. Ranked 2615th in England and 1st in Newton-le-Willows for GCSE outcomes (FindMySchool ranking based on official data), performance sits in line with the middle 35% of schools in England (25th to 60th percentile).

The headline GCSE indicators present a mixed picture. An Attainment 8 score of 42.7 suggests outcomes across a student’s best eight subjects are solid rather than high-performing. Progress 8 is -0.23, which indicates students, on average, make slightly less progress than others nationally with similar starting points.

The EBacc profile is a clearer pressure point. 10.6% achieved grade 5 or above across the EBacc subjects, and the EBacc average point score is 3.68, below the England average of 4.08. For families who strongly value an academic EBacc pathway, it is worth digging into subject uptake, language continuity, and how options are guided in Key Stage 4.

If you are comparing several local secondaries, FindMySchool’s Local Hub and Comparison Tool can help you view these measures side-by-side, rather than interpreting them in isolation.

Curriculum intent is ambitious and broad at Key Stage 3, and the school has made deliberate adjustments at Key Stage 4 so students can study subjects in greater depth. That design choice has a straightforward implication: fewer superficial passes through content, more time to secure core knowledge before GCSE.

Subject offer is wide for an 11 to 16 school, covering arts, humanities, languages, technology and vocationally-adjacent options such as business and computing. The curriculum pages also show an emphasis on disciplinary habits, for example building students’ independence and critical thought in English, and using structured “big ideas” to organise science.

Reading is treated as a whole-school priority. The school identifies students who arrive with gaps in reading knowledge and targets support to the specific issues they face, while subject curricula reinforce vocabulary and language that is distinctive to each discipline. The implication is that literacy is not viewed as “English only”; it is positioned as a tool for learning in every subject.

Support for students with special educational needs and disabilities is designed to sit within the full curriculum, not outside it, with training provided to classroom teachers. What matters for families is consistency: where classroom expectations and strategies are applied reliably, students benefit; where they vary, progress can be uneven.

Hope Academy does not have a sixth form, so the main transition point is after Year 11. Careers education and guidance is a visible strength in the school’s wider programme, supporting students to make informed decisions about post-16 routes, including sixth-form study, further education and apprenticeships.

For many families, the practical implication is that you should think about the post-16 plan early, not as an afterthought in Year 11. A school with a structured personal development programme and clear careers guidance can reduce last-minute decision-making, especially for students who are not sure whether A-levels are the best route.

Admissions for Year 7 are coordinated through St Helens Local Authority, using the common application process. For September 2026 entry, the closing date stated in the school’s published admissions policy is 31 October 2025.

Hope Academy is a joint-faith school, and the admissions framework reflects that. In the St Helens secondary admissions booklet for 2026 entry, 50% of places are allocated through Catholic criteria and 50% through Anglican and community criteria, with named associated primary schools and faith pathways. The same booklet sets out how distance is used as a tie-break, measured in a straight line using the local authority’s geographical information system.

Demand varies year to year, and the local authority publishes recent allocation patterns. For September 2025 entry, the booklet records 353 total applications for 270 places; it also notes that allocations can change substantially from year to year.

Families considering Hope Academy should use FindMySchoolMap Search to check how close they are to the academy compared with local demand patterns, and to sanity-check school-run transport options against the daily commute.

Pastoral support is built around relationships. Students are expected to know who to speak to if they feel worried or upset, and the culture leans on consistent adult presence rather than leaving students to manage issues alone.

Behaviour is typically calm once lessons begin, supported by clear routines such as one-way systems on corridors and regular reinforcement of expectations. Older students report that behaviour has improved, which is often a useful indicator that systems are working in practice, not just on paper.

Attendance is treated seriously. The school sets clear expectations on punctuality, including a defined threshold after which students are recorded as late, and links prompt arrival to participation in morning routines such as Inspire time and collective worship.

Safeguarding arrangements are effective, which matters most for families weighing a large secondary with many moving parts.

The enrichment offer is positioned as more than a list of lunchtime activities. The school explicitly frames extracurricular life as a way for students to extend learning beyond lessons, with sporting provision and a programme of clubs and societies.

Two named opportunities stand out as useful markers of breadth and aspiration. First, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is open to all Year 9 students, combining volunteering, physical activity and skills development. The implication is that personal development is designed to be experiential, not solely classroom-taught.

Second, mathematics enrichment includes UKMT Maths Challenges and a Key Stage 3 Maths club, which gives capable or motivated students an avenue to stretch beyond the standard scheme of work. That matters for families with children who enjoy problem solving and benefit from structured challenge.

Facilities reinforce the school’s sustainability identity. The site is described as a major investment and is presented as one of the most sustainable and highly specified education buildings in the UK and Europe, with 12 outdoor interactive learning spaces, including a kitchen garden, science garden, sustainability garden and an attenuation pond, plus site-wide wireless coverage to support outdoor working. In curriculum terms, this creates obvious opportunities for science, geography, design and citizenship work that feels grounded in the environment students can see and use.

This is a state school with no tuition fees.

The published teaching week totals 32 hours 30 minutes. Punctuality expectations indicate students should arrive by 8.35am; families should confirm end-of-day timing directly, as the same page summarising weekly hours does not list start and finish times in text.

Travel planning is eased by school-published bus timetable information, including a service that runs via Newton-le-Willows station forecourt, as well as other listed services from surrounding areas. For rail, Newton-le-Willows and Earlestown stations are the obvious hubs for families combining train travel with bus or lift-sharing.

• Quality of education varies by subject. Inspectors highlighted inconsistency in curriculum delivery, and that matters because it can mean different classroom experiences depending on teaching approaches in specific departments.

• EBacc strength is a clear development area. With 10.6% achieving grade 5 or above across the EBacc suite and an EBacc APS of 3.68, families prioritising languages and a strongly academic route should ask how option choices are guided and supported.

• Faith criteria can shape admission routes. As a joint-faith academy, published admissions criteria include Catholic and Anglican and community pathways. Families should read the criteria carefully and plan evidence requirements early if applying through a faith route.

• Large-school logistics require maturity. With a school roll of 1,296 at inspection, routines and systems matter. For some students, the scale is motivating; for others, a smaller setting can feel more contained.

Hope Academy offers a structured, values-led secondary experience with distinctive sustainability-linked facilities and a clear commitment to personal development, including an established Inspire programme and accessible enrichment routes such as Duke of Edinburgh in Year 9. Behaviour, personal development and leadership were graded Good at the most recent inspection, while the quality of education remains an area in active improvement.

Best suited to families who want a joint-faith setting with clear routines, strong pastoral relationships, and opportunities that connect learning to the physical environment, and who are comfortable engaging with subject-level variation while improvements bed in.