Andrew Jordon, the new executive principal at Ryton’s Thorp Academy, which is sponsored by the Northern Education Trust (NET), has confidently set the bar higher for its students and staff by announcing ambitious plans to make even stronger progress in the future.
With a vast amount of experience in school leadership, Mr Jordon is a National Leader of Education, leading another NET academy for which he is jointly responsible, Dyke House Sports and Technology College in Hartlepool, as a Teaching School.
His arrival in January at Thorp Academy, follows the best ever set of GCSE results last summer for its students and its sixth form is also showing steady progress with two current sixth formers recently gaining offers from Oxbridge while a raft of other students have received offers from other Russell Group universities.
Since taking up his new role his priority has been to forge closer links with the many primary schools on Thorp Academy’s doorstep. For these schools, his message is one of collaboration and he is providing every opportunity for teachers and their pupils to come into Thorp Academy and see how it is changing. As an accomplished sportsman, he is also pushing the sports agenda and has plans to announce a new initiative in the next few weeks.
As he settles into his new role, building contractor Sir Robert McAlpine, is putting the finishing touches to Thorp Academy’s brand new, purpose-designed school building which will be handed over at Easter, ready for occupation in the summer term. With the completion of the new building, Thorp Academy will be able to provide some of the best secondary school facilities in Gateshead.
Confident about Thorp Academy’s future, he said: “It’s all about progress. I aim to considerably raise the standard of teaching and learning and I want to see more students staying on through sixth form. My predecessor, Jonathan Morris, made a tremendous start in terms of getting the school back on track and it is now my job to build on this to ensure that students aspire even higher.
“There are really talented students at Thorp Academy with high ability on entry and we are now working towards making progress at every stage of our journey towards becoming an outstanding academy. There is still a lot of work to do, but I am confident that we have the foundations in place to make that journey a real success.”