The College of West Anglia and Eastgate Community Primary School are pleased to announce that the Minister of State for Education has granted approval for Eastgate to become an academy school under the sponsorship of the CWA Academy Trust, with a provisional opening date of 1 April 2014. The school’s governing body decided earlier this year to apply to convert to an academy with the college as the preferred sponsor. Eastgate will be the fourth school to convert to academy status as a member of the CWA Academy Trust.  King’s Lynn Academy and Downham Market Academy are already members of the Trust and, in January 2014, Clackclose Primary School in Downham Market will be replaced by the Nelson Academy to become the CWA Academy Trust’s first primary school. Eastgate’s head teacher Linda Hothersall said: ‘We are very excited by the prospect of working with the College of West Anglia and the other academies in the CWA Academy Trust.  Alongside many other benefits, I feel that the children will have the chance to be inspired by the wide range of opportunities offered by the college.  This can only serve to raise the aspirations and standards of the children at Eastgate Community Primary school.’ CWA principal and chief executive of the CWA Academy Trust, David Pomfret said: ‘Our approach is to develop a mutually-supportive family of academies with strong leadership practices to bring out the best in each other and, most importantly, in all of our students. "We have already seen a striking improvement in performance at the King’s Lynn Academy, our first sponsored academy, where GCSE results in June 2013 were the best in their history, and the leadership team at Downham Market Academy, which became an academy in July this year, are making great strides in driving improvement there. "I am confident that we can harness the support, expertise and commitment to excellence within the Trust to help Eastgate to deliver an outstanding education for its pupils.’ The sponsors will be working with the school head teacher and consulting with parents in the coming months in preparation for the opening of the new academy in April 2014. Picture   Confident for the future: Eastgate headeacher  Linda Hothersall with CWA Principal and CWA Academy Trust chief executive David Pomfrett.