Best Practice

A phoenix from the ashes: Rebuilding our school

Senior leadership
Four years ago, the buildings of Rudheath Senior Academy were devastated by an arson attack. Now a transformed school has emerged from the ashes. Emma Lee-Potter finds out how


An eight-foot wooden sculpture of a phoenix is a symbol of just how far Rudheath Senior Academy in Northwich has come in the last four years.

The Cheshire school suffered extensive damage when fire ripped through its buildings in February 2018. However, in the intervening years it has risen phoenix-like from the ashes, metamorphosing from a crumbling, fire-ravaged school into a thriving 11 to 16 school with happy, purposeful pupils and motivated staff.

To mark the transformation local wood sculptor Andy Burgess created the phoenix, which now stands proud and tall in one of the school’s two gardens. In years gone by the school badge depicted a phoenix so the sculpture is particularly apt.

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