Cockburn John Charles Academy

Cockburn John Charles Academy:
(11-16 secondary school)
Cockburn John Charles Academy (formerly The South Leeds Academy) is located in Belle Isle, Leeds.

It was originally known as Belle Isle Middle School, before becoming a secondary school. It was then renamed Merlyn Rees Community High School. The school was formally merged with Matthew Murray High School in 2006 and was renamed South Leeds High School. The school then relocated to a new site near John Charles Centre for Sport in state-of-the-art modern facilities.

In 2009 the school converted to academy status and was renamed The South Leeds Academy. The academy was rated as Inadequate by Ofsted before joining Cockburn Multi-academy Trust, and being re-named Cockburn John Charles Academy.

In the first four years, results improved dramatically as did the number of students on roll as the academy earned a strong reputation in the local community.

Cockburn John Charles Academy was inspected by Ofsted in April 2022. During the inspection, inspectors judged the quality of education along with behaviour and attitudes as Good. Both personal development, and leadership and management were judged to be Outstanding, leading to an overall effectiveness judgement of Good.

As well as academic success, the academy has built up strong partnerships with a range of businesses including IBM as a founding school in the UK for the P-TECH programme. Students from the academy excel in the arts and sport and have represented the academy at regional and national levels.