West Lakes Academy is a vibrant 11-18 secondary school nestled in the western edge of the picturesque Lake District of Cumbria, serving a dynamic community of 1,200 students. Since opening in September 2008 and moving into our state-of-the-art £26m building in 2012, we have been committed to delivering the highest quality education in an environment that inspires success.
Our vision is to succeed in ‘Changing Lives through Learning’ by providing the very best possible educational opportunities for young people in West Cumbria. We have extremely high hopes for all of our students and our highly skilled and enthusiastic members of staff encourage children to have high ambitions and to work hard to achieve these.
Mr Stephen Grant
West Lakes Academy is committed to the creation of a fully inclusive, aspirational, high achieving Centre of Excellence, firmly rooted in the local community. Our vision is to succeed in ‘Changing Lives through Learning’ by providing the very best possible educational opportunities for young people in West Cumbria.
Changing Lives Learning Trust is a Multi-Academy Trust with Sponsor Status and is a not for profit charity which sponsors primary and secondary academies.
🏉YEAR 7 RUGBY
A huge congratulations to our Year 7 Rugby Union team, who delivered an outstanding performance in the Cumbria Cup Semi-Final with a 56–12 victory over Furness Academy. They now march proudly into the Cumbria Cup Final!
In the national cup rounds, the team faced Brigshaw High School yesterday. Despite an incredible effort and real determination, the Yorkshire champions edged the win with a 16–12 result.
Year 8, we’ll be back even stronger.
Well done, everyone!
3 CommentsComment on Facebook
Well done to our Pastoral Stars of the Week! ⭐
Additional shout-out to Year 10 Constantine Short for his fantastic entry into Miss Cresswell’s ‘design an egg’ competition. Entries close next Friday, good luck to those entering!
1 CommentsComment on Facebook
🐾 A lovely week of attendance encouragement at school!
Following on from the fantastic work our Year 10 prefects have been doing to promote strong attendance, our attendance dog Eva has been on site this week to help welcome students into school.
She’s had a very busy schedule, greeting students at the gate, joining a reading session in the library, and even meeting with the prefect team… proudly wearing her prefect tie of course.
It’s been wonderful to see how much joy and motivation she brings to our school community. Well done to our prefects for leading such a positive initiative, and thank you to Eva for her hard work supporting attendance and wellbeing. 🐶💙
4 CommentsComment on Facebook
WORLD OF WORK DAY 💬
Yesterday our Year 9 students took part in our annual World of Work Day.
They had a fantastic day taking part in speed‑networking sessions with local employers, learning about different career paths and what those jobs involve. They also enjoyed a Gen2 skills workshop, team‑building activities, and a short session on Unifrog, our careers planning and guidance platform.
Mrs Walter praised the confidence students showed stepping out of their comfort zones, and employers commented on how mature and focused they were throughout the day. ⭐
2 CommentsComment on Facebook
This week, our Year 7 and 8 students took part in assemblies led by PC Neil Hunton from the Cumbria Child Centred Police Team, focusing on knife crime. The sessions helped raise awareness of an important issue and supported our young people in making safe, informed choices.
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
✨ Author Visit Inspires Our Writers ✨
We were delighted to welcome author Henry Vyner Brooks on Wednesday. He shared his powerful story with Year 7, from struggling with dyslexia and boarding school to making his dad proud on a Munro‑climbing adventure with the help of his friend Bear Grylls. His honesty and humour had students completely captivated.
Henry then ran creative writing workshops with Years 7, 8 and 9, setting short challenges that students tackled brilliantly. He was hugely impressed with the students' talent and behaviour.
He left some generous prizes behind… and after a very tough decision, our winners are:
🎺 Year 7: Angel McCarron
🎺 Year 8: Amelia Long
🎺 Year 9: Rebecca Turpin
A fantastic day of inspiration for all our young writers.🖊️📖
1 CommentsComment on Facebook
Well done to Jay and Leila on completing their work experience last week, and thank you to Northern Warrior for supporting them.
We’re proud of how our students approached their placements and the skills they gained from stepping into real workplace environments. Thank you as well to all our local businesses who continue to offer these valuable opportunities.Last week we had Jay and Leila from West Lakes Academy join us at Northern Warrior for a week of work experience 👏
Jay will already be a familiar face to many of you from our Teens sessions, and Leila is the daughter of one of our members. Both were keen to learn more about how the gym operates and what goes on behind the scenes of running a busy training facility.
Throughout the week they got properly hands-on - helping demonstrate movements in classes, setting up sessions, supporting coaches, and seeing how we run community events like our Friday Night Lights for the Open 🔥
It’s always great to support young people who are interested in fitness, coaching and the industry, and both of them brought a great attitude all week.
Great work both of you - we hope you enjoyed the experience and got a real insight into life at Northern Warrior 💪
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
