ONE of Bury’s top performing and most popular schools is looking forward to a even brighter future as it joined a Church of England multi-academy trust.

Greenhill Primary School has officially become part of the Bolton-based Forward as One CE Academy Trust, which also governs Gorsefield Primary School in Radcliffe, meaning it is no longer an local authority school run by Bury Council.

The school celebrated the new chapter in its history with a tree planting ceremony.

Under the Government flagship academy programme, schools are encouraged to become academies.

This opens up funding streams - but says the trust, more importantly ‘MATs’ provide close collaboration and support between schools to raise standards even further.

The trust runs eight schools, the majority of which, including Greenhill School, opted to join.

The other two schools it sponsored to raise educational standards.

The trust is headed up Karen Bramwell, a national leader in education and executive principal.

She was head of St Paul’s CE School in Bolton which today is an Ofsted rated outstanding primary school, with Mrs Bramwell now responsible for the success of all school, staff and children across the Forward as One Trust.

Mrs Bramwell, CEO of the trust, said: "I am absolutely delighted Greenhill Primary School has joined the trust family of schools.

“Schools are stronger when all working together to achieve our mission to meet the needs of all our children and our communities to provide the best possible education.

“We have been working with Greenhill School for a while and it already feels like part of the family.”

She added teachers from across the schools could learn from each other, as regular seminars are held between the schools, to raise standards in the classroom and are able to draw on more resources to help pupils achieve their potential.

Forward as One Academy Trust’s work is described as being rooted in the Christian values of service, justice, faith, grace and love and those values are promoted in all its schools including those without a Christian heritage to improve educational outcomes for all.