Huddersfield's biggest school has taken a major step towards becoming an academy.

Mirfield Free Grammar and Sixth Form (MFG) has just been accepted as sponsor of Colne Valley High School – triggering the beginning of the official consultation period on academy conversion, which runs until November 29.

Yesterday 4,000 leaflets were distributed to parents of all secondary and primary school pupils and to Colne Valley community organisations.

The consultation letter outlines the background and asks one simple question: “Do you agree that Colne Valley High School should become an academy sponsored by the Mirfield Free Grammar and Sixth Form?”

Two public meetings have been organised. The first, for parents of secondary school pupils, will be at the Linthwaite school at 6.30pm tomorrow, followed by another meeting at the same time on Tuesday, October 22, for feeder school parents.

The government is legally obliged to consult before an academy is created. However in practice, no other options are on the table and every English school placed in ‘special measures’ so far has converted to academy status.

If everything goes to plan, Colne Valley would become an academy on April 1, 2014 run by the MFG Multi-Academy Trust, which would appoint a permanent headteacher after this date. Following overwhelming support, the school changed its name back to Colne Valley High School last month – dropping Specialist Arts College – and would retain this name.

The Trust will take over from the Interim Executive Board (IEB) which is currently running Colne Valley and which replaced the governors after the school was placed in special measures last December.

It was the IEB which approved the Mirfield school as sponsors.

School leaders are delighted by the latest developments. They believe, and Ofsted backs up their view, that Colne Valley has made rapid strides towards improvement since the two schools were linked. The unique ‘shadowing’ system, where each Linthwaite member of staff is supported by one from Mirfield, is pushing the school forward at pace.

MFG’s headteacher Lorraine Barker assured parents and staff that the admissions policy, term dates and acceptance of trade unions would all continue with academy conversion.

She added: “MFG and Colne Valley are a similar size with similar catchment areas and it is a really, really good match. There are certain freedoms that academies have which people worry about, but in practice they are not going to happen.

“We want a vibrant school which parents will support and where staff want to work. We have Colne Valley’s best interests at heart and look forward to the partnership.”

Colne Valley acting headteacher Maggie Dunn said she hoped parents would attend the two meetings and ask many questions.

She said: “The consultation process is really important, it allows people to ask questions and to find out how good the match with the other school is.

“Colne Valley staff are now very well supported and we are moving forward rapidly. We have just had a very, very positive open evening, a lot of parents can see the vibrancy and sense the buzz about the place. There is a real feel that things are changing.”

Ofsted is due to make its next monitoring visit in late November or early December.