RUDHEATH Senior Academy has ambitious plan to get pupils playing sports on a state-of-the-art artificial pitch for the first time in more than five years.

North West Academies Trust (NWAT) took over the running of the Middlewich Road secondary school late in 2018 and embarked on a programme of improvements.

The first focus was a multi-million pound rebuild of the main school buildings and surrounding areas.

Now, the school is exploring ways to obtain funding to refurbish an astroturf pitch which has long been condemned for safety reasons.

Rudheath senior business manager Jack Jevons said: "Our young people deserve the highest quality of sporting opportunity, and the combination of the astroturf being condemned and poor field drainage means the current PE curriculum is limited.

"We are working so hard to make the school a first class learning environment, and we are so proud of the fantastic strides we have made so far.

"But we will not stop striving to improve things and physical education is a key part of the curriculum.

"We are determined to make our outdoor facilities as impressive as the rest of the site.

"We are now looking at different streams of funding which would enable us to move forward with the project, and the hope is that we'll have a brilliant new pitch for our pupils in the near future."

The current synthetic surface is owned by Brio Leisure, under a shared-use agreement with the school.

But it fell into disrepair and was deemed unsafe long before NWAT took over the running of the school.

Rudheath, like the other schools run by NWAT across Cheshire and Shropshire, place a high value on the wide-ranging benefits of sports as part of the curriculum.

NWAT CEO Steve Docking said: "Headteacher Lee Barber and his team have worked tremendously hard, and have made great strides towards getting Rudheath Senior Academy where we want it to be.

"Improving the sporting facilities is just another step along the way, and we are determined to make sure this plan comes to fruition because the need is clear, and a new pitch will also be a valuable community asset.

"I know no stone will be left unturned in the mission to provide the best possible education for our children."