Headteacher

Ripley St Thomas Church of England Academy is situated in the historic city of Lancaster within easy distance of Morecambe Bay and the wonderful scenery of the Lake District, the Forest of Bowland and the Yorkshire Dales.

Ripley was founded in 1864, the gift of Thomas and Julia Ripley, who established the school to provide an education for children from impoverished families.  The school was built as a boarding school for 150 boys and 150 girls and has grown to be the largest school in Lancashire with over 1700 pupils, c300 of whom are in the sixth form.  Ripley became an academy in 2011.

The academy seeks to combine innovation with its strong traditions.  Our buildings provide an excellent symbol of this with our Grade 2* listed chapel alongside a modern glass dining hall and a state of the art new library facility.  The working farm, a feature of the building from its earliest days, continues to thrive and all our young people study Agriculture and Horticulture at KS3.  The lambing season is one of the highlights of the year!

Our Christian foundation underpins all we do; our desire to develop young people in body, mind and spirit is evidenced by the strength of the academy chaplaincy work, the strong ethos of service and the breadth of our curriculum and extra-curricular activities.  Our desire is that every young person should find a niche at Ripley where he/she can succeed, develop and make a positive contribution to the academy community and beyond.

Ripley is a successful and ambitious academy. We have been graded outstanding by Ofsted in all areas.  We are a SCITT (School centred initial teacher training) provider.  Pupils enter the academy with high previous attainment and leave with results well above the national average.  Results are outstanding across nearly all subject areas at each Key Stage.  Our A-Level result consistently place us in the top 25% of providers nationally for value-added.

An exciting range of co-curricular provision at the academy offers young people great opportunities to develop and learn new skills.  Music and Sport are particular strengths at Ripley with hundreds of young people taking part in practices and rehearsals during the week.  A system of leadership challenges through each of the year groups enables pupils to develop the wider skills so essential for success in today’s society.  The Duke of Edinburgh award is one of these challenges with almost 400 pupils enrolled; we offer the Bronze, Silver and Gold awards.  The academy has a long tradition of service with pupils raising significant amounts of money for local, national and international charities and getting involved in charitable ventures.

There are c100 teaching staff and 70 support staff at the academy; all benefit from personalised professional development available to staff at all stages of their career. The staff community at Ripley is very supportive and friendly and make Ripley a great place to work.

The culture of this school is one of hard work, of service and of commitment to providing the highest quality of educational experience possible for our young people.  This is not a school for those who seek a quiet life.  We need talented, committed teachers and high quality leadership to enable Ripley to continue to improve the quality of educational experience for our young people.

Ripley St Thomas CE Academy is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.