Since Brooke Weston Academy was established, we have offered a distinctive model, including a five-term structure and an extended school day.
The world of education has continued to evolve, and many of you will be aware of the significant challenges schools are facing, particularly regarding school funding and the national issue of recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers. Although Brooke Weston Academy continues to be a highly desirable school, we are not immune to these pressures.
To maintain our high standards and ensure the long-term sustainability of the school, we need to address these challenges and consider changes to both our term dates and the length of our school day.
No decision has been made, and we want to listen to the views of our entire school community first. Your feedback is incredibly important to us.
Complete Our Online Survey: Please share your feedback by completing our online survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BWAConsultation
The Challenges We Face
We believe these changes are necessary to secure the future of our school and our ability to provide the best possible education. The challenges we need to address include:
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Staff Recruitment and Retention: Our unique five-term model makes it difficult to recruit talented staff who have families in other local schools which operate on a different schedule. This also impacts our ability to attract and retain the very best teachers in a competitive market.
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Family Schedules: The five-term model can create difficulties for our own families with children attending different local schools.
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Student Exams: Our current term structure creates challenges for students during exam periods, as they are required to sit national exams during our scheduled holidays.
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Budgetary Pressures: Our extended school day places significant pressure on the school budget, as we must resource and remunerate staff for working longer hours than their peers in other schools.
Our Proposal
We are launching a consultation on two proposed changes, to take effect from September 2026.
1. Change to a Six-Term Model
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This would mean our holiday dates would align with the pattern used by other schools in Brooke Weston Trust, the North Northamptonshire local authority and other schools in our area.
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To retain some of our distinctive model, we would plan to keep a two-week half-term break in October.
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The total number of teaching days per year (190) would remain the same.
2. Shorten the Length of the School Day
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The proposed new school day would be from 08:35 am – 15:05 pm.
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This will help ease the funding pressures we are facing and allow the school to continue offering the same breadth of support and opportunities.
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Students will continue to have the same amount of high-quality lessons across 65-minute lessons. This means BWA students will continue to have more classroom time than students in other schools locally and nationally during their time with us.
Have Your Say
We want to hear your views. This consultation will run from Tuesday 30th September 2025 to Monday 10th November 2025.
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Complete Our Online Survey: Please share your feedback by completing our online survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BWAConsultation
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Drop-in Session: We will be holding a drop-in session where you can ask any questions on Date and Time: Tuesday, 28th October at 17:00 Location: Brooke Weston Academy, Lecture Theatre.
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Submit your feedback via email to consultation@brookeweston.org
What Happens Next?
All feedback received through our survey will be carefully reviewed by the school leadership team and governors. A final decision will be made before the end of the Autumn term (December 2025).
Thank you for your continued support of Brooke Weston Academy. We look forward to hearing your views.