Northumbrian Water Limited, Building a better future for Castle View

Northumbrian Water started out with one simple aim; to raise educational performance and aspirations for the young people of Castle View School. Working alongside Sunderland City Council and other partners, NWL helped to develop and propose a new academy model to government.  The result was leveraging significant funding to build new schools in Sunderland and also to create the NWL sponsored academy on the Castle View School site. Over four years NWL volunteers led the planning, design and completion of the new school building.  Alongside this, NWL formed a new trust board to govern the school, recruited an inspirational head teacher, supported her to form a new leadership team, design an engaging curriculum and implement a set of new policies which would fundamentally change and improve school life for the students.

The new state of the art Castle View Enterprise Academy opened in September 2009. Aside from the leadership team and the new building, the academy retained the same staff and students. This academy was designed with and for the local communities of North Sunderland. Uniquely. As a Sunderland model academy, the local authority are co-sponsors and the academy follows a policy of open applications to all students who live in the vicinity.

During the first year, 43% of Castle View Enterprise Academy students achieved A*-C at GCSE, including English and Maths compared to the previous year when only 26% of students achieved this. Persistent absences decreased from 10% to 6.3% in the first year of operation in the Academy. NWL employees, students and parents of Castle View Enterprise Academy and the communities of North Sunderland are immensely proud of what has been achieved by working in partnership.