Emmanuel Schools Foundation

The Emmanuel Schools Foundation (ESF) is a charitable trust which has been involved in education since 1989.

ESF sponsored four schools: Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead (opened 1990), The King's Academy in Middlesbrough (2003), Trinity Academy in Thorne, Doncaster (2005) and Bede Academy in Blyth, Northumberland which opened in September 2009. In 2004, the Foundation's former chairman, Sir Peter Vardy, discussed an aim to sponsor seven schools in the North of England that would educate a total of 10,000 students.

Its four schools have been oversubscribed every year.

Although the Government allows academies to select 10% of pupils by ability, ESF Academies do not do so, being fully comprehensive schools for local children. They have a Christian ethos, but are not faith schools and welcome staff and students of all faiths and of none.

In 1988, Sir Peter Vardy responded to the then Government’s appeal to local businessmen to become involved in the education of young people in the most socio-economically deprived parts of their home regions through sponsorship of the City Technology College initiative. The aim of the initiative was twofold:

The first ESF school, Emmanuel City Technology College, was founded in 1990 as Tyneside’s City Technology College and opened with just 150 students in Year 7. John Burn (Headteacher of Long Benton) had been instrumental in persuading Peter Vardy to engage in the CTC programme. Originally specialising in Technology, the College was awarded a second specialism in Business and Enterprise (2005), allowing it to build upon its Beacon School and current Leading Edge Status through its extensive work in delivering specialist teaching programmes within Primary Schools.

...
Wikipedia