Cheshire West and Chester Council have thrown their hat in the ring to be the new sponsor of Winsford Academy.

The move came after the Department for Education withdrew the right to sponsor the secondary school from multi-academy sponsors E-Act.

The Grange Lane school is one of 10 across the country which have been removed from the academy chain’s portfolio.

At a full council meeting on Monday night, executive member for education and children Cllr Mark Stocks said he would write to the Government to say that the council is ‘prepared to provide school improvement support to Winsford Academy in the medium term, until another suitable sponsor is found for the school’.

CWaC’s offer of support follows a call from local Labour councillors for the Government to allow the academy to return to local authority control.

Cheshire West Labour’s Children and Education spokesperson, Cllr David Armstrong said: “E-Act has failed to deliver an education of the required standard at the Winsford E-Act Academy.

“The Labour group calls on Cheshire West and Chester Council to demand that the Government allow the Winsford Academy to come back into local authority control to provide a decent secondary education for children in Winsford.

“The Labour Group strongly believes children in Winsford deserve an outstanding secondary school and the council is best placed to deliver it.”

In a statement on the school’s website, headteacher Andrew Taylor-Edwards sought to reassure parents that the DfE’s decision is ‘categorically’ not related to a recent Ofsted report - which scored the school Grade Three which means ‘requires improvement’ - and emphasised the strides the school has made since it became an academy in 2010.

Mr Taylor-Edwards said: “It is key to point out at this juncture that the concerns raised by the DfE are related not to our academy but to E-ACT, as a multi-academy sponsor, and their ability to transform the standards in 34 of their academies across the country.

“The 10 academies that will no longer be part of E-Act is not a list of the 10 worst performing E-Act academies.

“Indeed, there are a mix of Ofsted rated good, requires improvement, serious concern and special measures academies. Geography has had a part to play, with the vast majority of the academies on the list being those furthest removed from E-Act HQ in London.

“As an individual academy we are making rapid improvements as the Ofsted report points out. We are not a school in a category of concern. Our predecessor schools were before we became an academy but since then we have moved up two levels in terms of how Ofsted judge a school.”

Mr Edwards-Taylor added that the school’s day to day running will not be affected.

“There’s no change here for me, our students and the rest of our staff. It’s business as usual and we’ll continue to make the necessary strides to get us to good in the near future.”

Formerly a charity, E-Act is one of a number of sponsors responsible for the performance and financial management of academies.

Chief executive of E-ACT David Moran stressed that the move was not a reflection on the 10 relinquished schools.

In a statement, he said: “Our focus must be on where we can provide this and to do the right thing and allow others to deliver elsewhere. As a result, E-ACT has agreed with DfE ministers and officials to reduce the number of academies we sponsor from 34 to 24.

“This means that we are best placed to make a significant difference to those 24 academies by allowing us to focus our attention to best effect. This is not a reflection on the individual academies that are leaving us.”

Winsford Academy will now work with the academies division of the DfE to broker and secure a new sponsor.