What would joining Achieve and Learn Trust mean for your school, your staff and your pupils?

Choosing whether to join a Multi-Academy Trust is one of the most important decisions a school community can make.

At Achieve and Learn Trust, we believe that partnership should strengthen a school, not diminish what makes it special.

Our approach is collaborative, supportive and rooted in the communities we serve. We want schools joining our Trust to benefit from the strength, expertise and opportunities of a wider organisation while continuing to value their own identity, relationships and place within their local community.

Whether your school is performing strongly and looking for greater opportunities to collaborate, or facing educational, financial or operational challenges where additional capacity and expertise would make a difference, we want to start with a conversation about what your school needs.

 

Joining the Trust means becoming part of a wider team with access to specialist expertise, shared resources and professional networks.

Most importantly, it means that school leaders do not have to tackle every challenge alone.

We recognise that every school has its own history, culture and community.

Joining a Trust should not mean losing that identity. Our aim is to provide the support and infrastructure that enables school leaders to concentrate on providing an excellent education for their pupils, while valuing the individual character of each school.

This is consistent with the Trust's existing proposition that joining schools retain their local identity while benefiting from the protection and opportunities created by the wider network.

 

"If you choose to join our trust, rest assured that the experience of the children in your school will be enhanced through the rigour of support that you'll receive here."

Darren Moroney, Headteacher, Reddish Vale High School

Strength through collaboration

Schools joining Achieve and Learn Trust gain access to expertise and support across:

• Teaching and learning including leadership and strategic support, curriculum and staffing reviews, timetabling, quality assurance and inspection preparation.
• SEND and inclusion including strategic leadership, reviews and audits, assessment, complex casework and professional development.
• Safeguarding and attendance including DSL/DDSL supervision and coaching, safeguarding audits, attendance improvement, policy development and casework support.
• Finance including financial procedures, staff training, budget management and support for Headteachers, Governors and Business Managers.
• People and HR including complex case management, organisational change, culture and wellbeing, engagement, retention and support with challenging people decisions.
• Estates and health & safety including estates oversight, capital funding bids, statutory compliance, risk assessment, audits and preventative maintenance planning.

More opportunities without having to leave

One of the greatest advantages of belonging to a wider family of schools is the opportunity it creates for staff.

Achieve and Learn Trust wants talented people to be able to develop their careers within our family of schools, rather than feeling they need to leave in order to progress.

Through Trust-wide collaboration, staff can benefit from opportunities to broaden their experience, work alongside colleagues from other schools and develop their leadership expertise.

Our developing approach includes opportunities for secondments, specialist roles, cross-phase collaboration and wider Trust leadership, creating pathways for talented people to grow while retaining their knowledge and experience within the Trust.

Professional networks that bring people together

Being part of a Trust creates something individual schools cannot always reproduce alone: a larger professional community.

Teachers and leaders can collaborate on curriculum development, share resources, moderate together and exchange effective practice across schools. Your strategy specifically identifies collaborative curriculum development, moderation and sharing evidence-based pedagogy as part of this proposition.

The result we are aiming for is simple:

Less professional isolation, more shared expertise.

Support when it matters

Running a school has become increasingly complex.

Curriculum, safeguarding, SEND, finance, estates, employment matters, compliance and inspection all compete for leadership capacity.

Our central teams provide specialist support in these areas so that Headteachers and their teams have people to turn to when they need advice, additional capacity or specialist expertise.

It is not about taking leadership away from schools.

It is about making sure school leaders don't have to lead alone.

Every school has its own culture, traditions and areas of excellence.  We're not looking to change that, but celebrate and share this across a learning community."

Kim Earle, CEO Achieve and Learn Trust.

 

If you believe that the Achieve and Learn Trust is a good match for your school, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch with us at: info@achieveandlearntrust.co.uk