IT’S the Southampton school with an exciting future.

Pupils at Sholing Infant School have been welcomed into the Hamwic Trust – one of Southampton’s biggest school trusts.

It means the school has now converted to an academy, and pupils and teachers will have the chance to work with other schools sharing resources and skills

Head teacher Lisa Houghton, who has been at the school for nine years, said: “We created the Mayflower partnership with Sholing, Ludlow and Thornhill junior schools and then that partnership is part of the Hamwic Trust. I went to visit academies in Poole to share some of their good practice – for example we were looking at how they deliver their early years provision. Every school we go into we learn something new.

“We can probably work with a better range of schools now and access the support the trust can offer. We want to make sure we are providing the highest standards.”

Sholing Infant is the latest school to join the Hamwic Trust. One of the largest in the country the trust now includes 26 academies, 16 of which are in Southampton.

In 2014 Ofsted inspectors said teaching at the school was “exciting, engaging and well planned” and rated it outstanding across the board. They said children make “rapid progress.”

Of Ms Houghton they said: “The school is led by an ambitious headteacher who is relentless in her commitment to improvements for pupils.”