Acle Academy Review 2026: Rural Norfolk secondary with a clear focus on learning habits and wellbeing

Set in Acle, close to the Norfolk Broads, Acle Academy is an 11 to 16 state secondary serving local families across a largely rural area. It is part of The Wensum Trust and has been within the trust since 01 October 2016.

The most recent full inspection (23 and 24 February 2022) judged the school Good across quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management.

Day to day, the school’s published priorities are practical rather than slogan-led, with a noticeable emphasis on literacy, learning habits, and structured pastoral support. For families comparing local options, this is the kind of school where the overall experience is shaped as much by routines and relationships as by raw exam statistics.

Acle Academy opened as a secondary modern in 1959, and it still reads as a purpose-built mid-20th-century local school that has evolved with its community. The school also leans into its setting. Its own materials describe a small rural context and a desire to broaden horizons beyond it, which is a useful cue for parents assessing cultural fit.

Leadership stability is a feature. The Principal is Helen Watts, with the school listing her start date as 01 September 2016. That matters because the school’s recent history includes a period of significant improvement, and a settled leadership team tends to make routines and expectations more consistent for students.

Pastoral structures are visible in how the school organises students. The house system was revived in 2017 and the houses are named after local rivers, explicitly positioned as a way of building team identity and support across year groups. This kind of framing is often meaningful for students who benefit from belonging to a smaller sub-community inside a mainstream secondary.

This review uses FindMySchool rankings for national and local context, alongside the school’s latest available GCSE measures.

Rankings context

Acle Academy is ranked 2,385th in England and 19th in Norwich for GCSE outcomes (FindMySchool ranking based on official data). This reflects solid performance in line with the middle 35% of schools in England (25th to 60th percentile).

Headline measures

• Attainment 8: 44.2

• Progress 8: -0.08

• EBacc average point score: 3.92

Progress 8 at -0.08 is close to the England baseline, which typically indicates outcomes broadly in line with prior attainment rather than consistently above it. That does not mean students cannot do very well here, it does mean families should focus on how well the school matches their child’s learning needs and motivation.

A useful detail from the most recent inspection evidence is the emphasis on building vocabulary and supporting weaker readers, alongside careful checking for gaps in knowledge. That aligns with the school’s own published literacy strategy, which is unusually specific for a general secondary.

Acle Academy’s published approach is grounded in the idea that learning itself is a skill set that can be improved. Its Building Learning Power programme is presented as a practical framework to develop independent, active, curious learners, and it explicitly references Professor Guy Claxton’s model.

The value for families is in the implication: students who are capable but inconsistent often benefit from schools that teach organisation, reflection, and resilience deliberately, rather than assuming those traits are already in place by Year 7.

Literacy is treated as everybody’s business, not just an English department concern. The school’s 15 by 15 strategy, aimed at Years 7 to 10, sets out a structured reading journey with a large, level-coded text selection and routine time to read and review. For students who arrive with weaker reading stamina, that kind of routine can be the difference between coping across the curriculum and quietly falling behind in subjects like history, geography, and science.

As an 11 to 16 school, the main transition point is post-16, typically into sixth forms, further education colleges, or apprenticeships. The school’s latest inspection evidence highlights careers guidance and preparation for next steps as part of the wider personal development offer.

Because published destination statistics are not available in the provided dataset for this school, parents should treat post-16 planning as something to explore directly during a tour, particularly if a student is aiming for a specialist vocational route or needs a carefully supported transition.

Acle Academy is a state school with no tuition fees. Admissions for Year 7 are coordinated through Norfolk County Council rather than direct allocation by the school.

The school has been oversubscribed in recent cycles, and Norfolk’s published oversubscription criteria for the school give a clear sense of priorities. These include, in order, children with an Education, Health and Care Plan naming the school, looked-after and previously looked-after children, siblings already in Years 7 to 11, feeder school links (with catchment priority first), children of staff, then other applicants. Where a tie break is needed, distance is measured in a straight line.

Key dates for September 2026 Year 7 entry (Norfolk secondary transfer)

• Applications open: 11 September 2025

• Applications close: 31 October 2025

• National offer day: 02 March 2026

• Appeals closing date: 27 March 2026

Families trying to judge realistic admission chances should use FindMySchoolMap Search to check their precise home-to-school distance and compare that with recent local patterns, then validate details against Norfolk’s published criteria.

The school is explicit that wellbeing support sits both in the curriculum and in its response to concerns. It describes an Engage Team spanning heads of year, attendance, and pastoral roles, plus an Inspire Team that includes wellbeing and medical needs support.

There is also clear named staffing for inclusion. The SENDCo is Miss L Frary (also Assistant Principal for Inclusion), supported by two assistant SENDCos, with the team describing specialisms that include ADHD, autism, dyslexia, wellbeing and mental health, and visual and hearing impairments. The SEND area is described as being within the Inspire building, which also houses the library. For families of students who need a reliable safe base during the day, that kind of defined, resourced space can be important.

The most recent inspection confirmed safeguarding arrangements are effective. Beyond compliance, the school’s safeguarding page emphasises a child-centred culture and clear designated safeguarding lead roles, which matters most when students need early help rather than formal escalation.

Extracurricular life reads as practical and character-building, with a few clearly defined strands that will appeal to different student types.

Cadets and leadership

The Army Cadets offer a structured route for students who enjoy challenge, teamwork, and outdoor activity. The school’s page describes Acle Troop as meeting weekly on Wednesday evenings and positions cadets as a major youth organisation with adventurous training and competition. For some students, cadets can be a strong alternative to more traditional sports clubs, particularly if they respond well to clear progression and responsibility.

Duke of Edinburgh Award

Duke of Edinburgh is available from Year 9, offering a recognised framework that combines volunteering, physical activity, skills development, and expedition. For students who need a reason to try something new, DofE often works because it turns self-improvement into a set of manageable stages.

Reading culture and learning routines

Not every extracurricular strength is a club. The 15 by 15 reading strategy is essentially an enrichment programme for literacy, and it can be particularly valuable for students who like collecting goals and working through structured challenges.

Relationships and wellbeing education

The school also references a whole-school healthy relationships initiative (RE:SET) delivered with an external partner and notes that it was one of only two schools in Norfolk selected for that programme at the time of writing. For parents focused on personal development and safety culture, that is worth discussing during a visit, especially in how it translates into day to day expectations and language.

The published school day runs from registration at 8:55 to the end of Period 5 at 15:30, with break and lunch built into the timetable. Total weekly time at school is listed as 32 hours 55 minutes.

For transport, Acle is a village setting, so families typically consider a mix of walking, cycling, bus routes, and rail links via Acle station, depending on where they live in the wider area. For attendance reliability, it is worth stress-testing the commute in winter conditions, not just on a fair-weather trial run.

• A school on a steady, improvement-led journey. Leadership has been stable since 2016 and the most recent inspection describes a school that has changed for the better. Families should still probe consistency across subjects, especially for students who need strong behaviour routines in every classroom.

• Progress is close to the England baseline. A Progress 8 score of -0.08 suggests outcomes tend to be broadly in line with prior attainment. If your child needs a stretch-heavy environment, ask how top sets are extended and how ambition is translated into day to day practice.

• Oversubscription makes early planning important. Norfolk’s published criteria include feeder and catchment priorities plus a distance tie break. If you are outside the local priority groups, it is sensible to model realistic scenarios rather than relying on hope.

• Wellbeing support is prominent, but fit still matters. The school describes substantial pastoral and inclusion staffing. Parents should still explore how a student accesses help in practice, for example whether support is proactive or mainly referral-based.

Acle Academy is a mainstream rural secondary that puts real weight on learning habits, literacy, and structured wellbeing support, backed by a Good inspection outcome and a clear set of pastoral systems. It suits families who want a grounded local school with a strong focus on routine, reading, and personal development, and whose child will respond well to taught learning behaviours rather than purely exam-driven pressure. The main challenge is admissions competitiveness in an oversubscribed context, so shortlisting early and using tools like Saved Schools and local comparisons can make decision-making more disciplined.