New principal to take the helm at Lancaster school

A new principal will be leading Ripley St Thomas CE Academy in the autumn.
Martin Wood.Martin Wood.
Martin Wood.

The Ripley governors have appointed Martin Wood as the new principal of the academy. He will take up the post from September.

Current principal Liz Nicholls is moving on to become the CEO of The Bay Learning Trust, a multi-academy trust set up by Ripley in 2016.

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Mr Wood joined Ripley in 2007 as assistant principal, with responsibility for teaching and learning, from Ormskirk School, where he was head of sixth form.

An economics graduate, he has taught a range of subjects during his career, most recently economics and history.

Mr Wood has held a number of roles at Ripley and is currently the senior vice-principal.

He has worked closely with the current principal over the last few years and has been able to gain experience of all aspects of the work of the academy.

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Outside work, Mr Wood is a keen rugby league fan and, with his family, is actively involved in his local church.

Mr Wood is greatly looking forward to his new role and said: “It is an honour and a privilege to have been appointed as Principal at Ripley and I am greatly looking forward to serving the school as it goes from strength to strength over the coming years.”

Ripley has served its community for 153 years.

It has more than 17,00 pupils on role with 380 in the sixth form.

The academy has been rated Outstanding in its last two Ofsted inspections and retained its Outstanding grading in its very recent church school inspection.

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The academy was featured in an hour long documentary on reading on BBC2 last year and its music department is currently Classic FM’s music department of the year.

Ripley is also a Teaching School and a National Support School and has its own teacher training faculty.