United Learning
Paddington Academy is part of the United Learning group.
United Learning is a group of schools which aims to provide excellent education to children and young people across the country. We seek to improve the life chances of all the children and young people we serve and make it our mission to bring out the best in everyone – students, staff, parents and the wider community. We are uniquely united across both the state and the independent sectors; we make learning and improvement our focus. Together, we are one of the country’s leading education providers, currently educating over 30,000 students and employing over 5,500 members of staff including over 2,500 teachers.
We provide a broad education, which prepares young people to progress in learning and to make a success of their lives. We focus sharply on the evidence of what makes it more likely that young people will progress and succeed, apply that to our practice and continue to learn and develop our schools. We make it a priority to provide teachers with excellent professional support and development, so that every child receives an excellent experience.
Through being a group, we can offer more to both staff and young people that any single school could offer alone. The growing range of outstanding group-wide activities that we can provide will mean that more young people will have truly exceptional and inspiring experiences. Already, we believe that our group contains the most developed relationships and practical interaction between independent and state schools in the country, creating benefits for all the schools involved.
United Learning ethos and values
Our approach is underpinned by a sense of moral purpose and commitment to doing what is right for children and young people, supporting colleagues to achieve excellence and acting with integrity in all our dealings within and beyond the organisation, in the interests of young people everywhere.
We summarise this ethos as the best in everyone. This ethos underpins our core values:
- Ambition - to achieve the best for ourselves and others
- Confidence - to have the courage of our convictions and to take risks in the right cause
- Creativity - to imagine possibilities and make them real
- Respect - of ourselves and others in all that we do
- Enthusiasm - to seek opportunity, find what is good and pursue talent and interests
- Determination - to overcome obstacles and reach success
As a single organisation, we seek to bring together the best of independent and state sectors, respecting both traditions and learning from each. We believe that each of our schools is and should be distinctive – each is committed to developing its own distinctive strengths and identity while sharing our core values as institutions which promote service, compassion and generosity. This ethos is our expression of our Christian roots, in schools which are fully inclusive and both welcome and respect students and staff of all faiths and none.
We expect Paddington Academy students to be smart, proud and confident.
This means that they should be dressed in the correct uniform, worn in the correct way. We have designed our uniform to be accessible form all the major high street shops. Please click on the links below to find out a full guidance to PA uniform:
General uniform guidance
Additional notes on uniform