Plans to make Whitby School an academy were not progressed due to its location, the Department of Education has revealed.
Responding to questions from The Anchor, a spokesperson for the government department said the decision not to approve Whitby School’s conversion to an academy with The Wonder Learning Partnership (WLP) stemmed from the breakdown of a potential agreement between WLP and the Yorkshire Endeavour Academy Trust (YEAT).
It meant Whitby School would not be close enough to work with other schools, with geographical proximity being a key aim of the Department for Education’s (DfE) vision for school trusts.
The WLP is made up of four schools in the East Riding of Yorkshire and in 2025, WLP proposed a trust transfer with Yorkshire Endeavour Academy Trust, a six school primary trust based in Whitby.
However, WLP withdrew from this process in March this year.
The government’s Schools White Paper has previously set out expectations for collaboration between schools, local authorities and trusts with a vision for all schools joining or forming high-quality school trusts.
However, they would need to be geographically close enough to collaborate with each other and partner with other local services.
A spokesperson for the DfE said: “Without the linked primary schools, the proposal for Whitby School to join WLP did not meet the DfE’s ambition for geographical coherence within the trust system.
“As the application for Whitby School to join WLP did not meet the DfE’s ambition for geographical coherence, it was not brought forward to a formal meeting of the Yorkshire and the Humber Advisory Board. This position was communicated to the local governing body of the school, local authority and the academy trust.”
Whitby School had been working with WLP since July 2024 but the arrangement will now come to an end this summer. The school has announced Julie Caddell will take over as headteacher from September.
Meanwhile, the DfE added it is working with the local authority and the local governing body to bring about the “continued improvement of Whitby School”.
The DfE has also recently announced Mission Coastal Scarborough which covers the former Scarborough Local Authority District, including Whitby School.
Mission North East and Mission Coastal brings expert support into classrooms and new opportunities beyond the school gates for children and communities where “too many young people have been held back for too long, with persistently low results”.
The missions were announced by Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, last month and have been driven by stark data.
The national average score for exam results is 46.0. Disadvantaged pupils in the Scarborough region (which covers Whitby) scored around 27.
To make changes under Mission Coast, expert practitioners will work directly with leaders and teachers to build teacher capacity and raise standards. Schools will work together in local clusters, learning from each other rather than tackling challenges alone.
Outside of school, the plan is to create partnerships with employers, sports clubs, faith groups and youth organisations to provide vital mentoring, careers support and cultural enrichment.
The government said it will, over time, look to form a wider alliance of other coastal areas with similar challenges, where children and families can benefit from the approach being taken in Whitby and Scarborough.
