Our story
Journey through our timeline of key milestones and successes
Reach Academy Feltham was founded because we believe passionately that all young people, regardless of background, can achieve great things.
Our goal is to provide all of our pupils with the opportunity to go to university if they wish and to live happy, healthy and productive lives. We have created a community of pupils, parents and teachers united by the highest expectations of what every young person can achieve, and by the commitment to help young people to excel.
2010
The school’s founders, Jon McGoh, Rebecca Cramer and Ed Vainker OBE came together and agreed that they would apply to the Department for Education to open a small, all-through school.
2011
Founders visited Feltham and built relationships in the community, including collecting hundreds of signatories interested in a new school. The application to the DfE to open ‘Reach Academy Feltham’ was submitted and in October 2011 the founding team gained permission to move into the pre-opening stage!
2012
We recruited our first cohort of pupils in Reception and Year 7, and our founding teachers. We moved into a temporary building which had previously been a job centre. On September 6th the school opened its doors to its frontier cohorts. In December the school held its official opening ceremony hosted by then Schools Minister Andrew Adonis.
2013
We welcomed the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to the school. Work began on our permanent building on Feltham High Street. We recruited our second cohort of pupils and the school grew to 220 pupils in September.
2014
We were the first all-through free school to be judged outstanding by Ofsted. We achieved exceptional results, including 83% with a Good Level of Development in Reception and 90% passing the Phonics screen. The school moved into its permanent home in November with 340 pupils on roll.
2015
RAF opened its nursery and welcomed 2 year olds. The school featured in a range of media, including the Times, Guardian, ITV news and as a case study in Polly Tonybee’s book, Cameron’s Coup. The school grew to over 500 pupils and the frontier cohort moved into GCSE courses in Year 10.
2016
David Cameron visited Reach on his last day as Prime Minister. Rebecca was interviewed about the visit on the LBC breakfast radio show. The second school in the Reach Academy family was approved for opening.
2017
The school achieved excellent GCSE results which placed us 16th in the country, with a progress 8 score of 1.11.
2018
We were delighted to welcome the Duchess of Cambridge visited the school. The Duchess, who is the patron of our partner charity, Place2Be, wanted to learn about how we support pupils and parents from Nursery all the way to Sixth Form. The school again performed impressively in its GCSEs with 27 new grade 9s and 25% achieving five 7-9 grades including English and Maths.
2019
In 2019 we received our first set of A-Level results and our first year 6 cohort going into Year 7.
2020
During the period of school closure, twelve Reach teachers were amongst the 40 who set up Oak National Academy, providing 180 lessons a week for pupils unable to attend school.
2021
A return to a degree of normality following Covid lockdowns was welcomed by all. Residential trips and community events such as the Summer Fair resumed and demonstrated the strong community cohesion at the heart of Reach Academy Feltham’s core values.
2022
This year saw a move to a co-headship model as the opening of our second school in 2024 drew closer. The first sets of exam results post-covid showed that excellence remains at the heart of Reach Academy Feltham.
2023-24
Preparations for Reach Academy Hanworth Park’s opening in September 2024 were well underway! Recruitment for the founding team occurred in the autumn term, seeing Louis Everett and Matilda Browne successfully named as founding co-headteachers. Full cohorts for the Reception and Year 7 classes were recruited, with Summer School and home visits happening throughout the summer term. September saw the opening of Reach Academy Hanworth Park, with a state of the art new school building coming soon and continued success across all key stages for all pupils.
2025
In August 2025 we say goodbye to Co-headteacher Beck Owen and welcome Manjit More in her place. We welcome our second ever cohort of pupils in Reception and Year 7 to Reach Academy Hanworth Park in September.