Leigh Academies Trust

NEWS

Summer 2021 | Issue 21

Contents

A message from the Chief Executive

As another hugely challenging year draws to a close I would like to pass on my gratitude to my staff and governor colleagues, plus our extraordinary pupils and parents. Everyone has made a commendable contribution to our success this year despite the very considerable setbacks.


You will see from the updates below and the many good news stories from across our academies contained in this newsletter that even a global pandemic has not held up progress within Leigh Academies Trust (LAT).


Simon Beamish

Chief Executive

Simon Beamish, Chief Executive

New academies


From September, four more secondary academies will be part of LAT. In Medway, we will open Leigh Academy Rainham, a brand-new secondary free school in state-of-the-art accommodation. The new academy has 180 places for girls and boys in each year group, but due to its popularity will have an intake of 240 pupils in its first year.


Joining us on 1st September are Ebbsfleet Academy, Hayesbrook Academy and High Weald Academy. We are excited at the prospect of working with new colleagues in these locations where LAT already has a footprint of academies. Their membership of LAT will take the total number of secondary schools to fifteen.

New academy logos

Digital Strategy


During the past eighteen months we have made accelerated progress to deliver the Trust’s digital strategy. Currently, all pupils in year 6, key stage 3 and key stage 4 are part of our one-to-one device scheme. In September I am delighted that all key stage 2 pupils will have access to their own Chromebooks and we will have enough iPads for every pupil in key stage 1. We also look forward to rolling out our personal device scheme to year 12 pupils as our strategy moves into the sixth form.

IB curriculum


All LAT academies are working towards or have achieved verification for at least one curricular programme offered by the International Baccalaureate Organisation. By the end of this year, nine LAT secondaries will be accredited to offer the Middle-Years Programme (MYP) in key stage 3 and five will offer the Careers-related Programme (IBCP) in the sixth form. Next year, all of our primaries will continue progressing towards Primary-Years Programme (PYP) verification; we expect many will achieve this status by Christmas. I would like to thank everyone involved in embedding these high-quality opportunities for our pupils across all age ranges.

International Baccalaureate Logo

Co-curriculum


We recognise that the pandemic has prevented us from offering many of the co-curricular experiences that our pupils relish. That is why the Trust Board has recently agreed to spend an additional £240k next year to provide an enhanced co-curricular offer for all pupils across our academies to make up for much of what has been missed. This will focus on extra-curricular opportunities and creative/practical elements of the curriculum that we know so many of our pupils enjoy. We look forward to launching our enhanced co-curricular offer to pupils in September.

National College logo
Chartered College of Teaching logo

National College and Chartered College


From September, all LAT academies will become members of the National College, which offers high-quality digital professional development for teachers, support staff and governors across all areas of school life. In addition, we are enrolling every one of our teachers as members of the Chartered College, which offers highly-regarded, evidence-based professional development in best-practice pedagogy across all subjects and phases. These are two very exciting developments and will further enhance our commitment to professional development for all staff and governors.

Peninsula East Primary Academy


The Minister of State for Schools recently approved the amalgamation of Stoke and Allhallows Primaries in Medway. The two primaries will be combined from September, on the Allhallows site, to create a thriving one-form-entry school for local parents. The new name is Peninsula East Primary Academy, or PEPA for short. We are investing further in the early years facilities over the summer break and look forward to welcoming all pupils and staff back next academic year to embark on what will no doubt prove to be a bright future for all concerned.

Peninsula East Primary Academy logo
Neil Willis, Chief Operating Officer

Neil Willis, Chief Operating Officer - retirement


It is with very mixed emotions that we say goodbye to Neil Willis, who retires from his post as Chief Operating Officer in August. Neil has worked very closely with me ever since LAT started to create one of the largest and most successful multi-academy trusts in the UK. His steadfast support and exceptional leadership cannot be overestimated. His unmatched knowledge and experience will be very difficult to replace, but we are delighted that he will continue with us, albeit in a very part-time capacity for at least one more year, as our Clerk and Company Secretary. We wish him and Maria a very long and happy retirement together.


KMT logo

KMT

On behalf of KMT, I would like to once again begin by saying a huge ‘thank you’ to LAT for its continued support in its role as our single legal entity. At the start of this academic year, providers of initial teacher training (ITT) had the new ITT core content framework to embed, a new Ofsted inspection framework to consider and a global pandemic to navigate. As if this was not enough, KMT began the year with its largest cohort ever.

At an unprecedentedly challenging time for all, the Trust and all of its academies have gone above and beyond to provide KMT’s trainees with support, guidance and reassurance, and for that we are all extremely grateful. In light of the challenges that Covid19 posed for us all, academies could very easily have relegated ITT in the priority list, but this did not happen and our trainees have been given remarkable support and training throughout the year.

This year, our trainees will leave us with far broader skill sets and levels of resilience not achieved by previous cohorts. It has been an inspirational year in which everybody has rolled up their sleeves and done their absolute best to support learners in difficult times. We are very proud of this year’s cohort this year, who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to support schools and pupils. 2020/21 will not be forgotten quickly, especially at KMT, where it will be remembered as a year of extraordinary achievement.

Thames Gateway Teaching School Hub

Thames Gateway Teaching School Hub logo

It has been an exciting and rewarding process to put in place plans for the Thames Gateway Teaching School Hub, and we are delighted to be forming strategic partnerships across our region.


The most significant area of our work has been our partnership with the Education Development Trust (EDT), working with them to prepare a fantastic offer for our early-career teachers (ECTs). All LAT ECTs and their mentors will have access to the EDT’s DfE-funded, evidence-based curriculum. This will ensure that they receive the very best quality professional development at the start of their careers. We will be supporting their induction in our role as an appropriate body, working with colleagues across LAT to evidence the success of our new colleagues as they complete the final stages of their induction.


We are also playing a pivotal role in this delivery across North Kent and beyond, working with approximately 250 colleagues to roll out these programmes across the region. These plans will be enhanced by our strategic partnership with Kent and Medway Training, in which we not only act as a lead school, but work together with KMT to ensure a continuous thread from ITT to ECT and beyond!


Plans are also well underway to deliver the full suite of National Professional Qualifications with colleagues across LAT and our wider networks. It is our strategic aim for over 500 delegates to benefit from our delivery of Leadership Learning South East’s fantastic curriculum.

These courses will prepare leaders for roles in senior leadership, headship and executive headship, as well as supporting those leading teaching, teacher development and behaviour and culture.


To support this work, we have been delighted to expand our own leadership team. Faye McGill joined us in April as Deputy Hub Director, and has already made a huge impact in the planning of our NPQ offer in particular, as well as our wider professional-development offer. Jodie Byham joins us in September as our Head of Early Career Teacher Training, overseeing our ECF programme and appropriate-body work.


This comprehensive work is supported by a number of wider strategic partnerships delivering CPD across LAT. We are excited to be rolling out our partnership with the National College, extending the opportunity to engage with high-quality digital resources for professional development to all our colleagues. We are also pleased to be expanding our relationship with the Chartered College of Teaching and accessing their world-class opportunities.


We look forward to seeing these plans come to fruition in the coming months and to working with colleagues across LAT and beyond to support their professional-development journeys.

Education Development Trust logo
LLSE logo


The Thames Gateway Teaching School Hub is one of the DfE’s school-led centres of excellence for teacher and leadership training and development.


National Online Safety

As lives become increasingly tech-integrated, we must ensure that the appropriate boundaries, barriers and safeguards are in place to protect all digital citizens while not unduly limiting the natural curiosity and diverse opportunity that technology engenders. This is no easy challenge.


As a Trust, our development of the use of technology in education over the past few years has been exponential. With this comes new opportunities, but also added responsibilities. It is our aim to ensure that our staff and students are equipped with the appropriate skills and knowledge to thrive in the digital world.


National Online Safety is another tool in our digital toolkit that provides a wide range of resources to support our staff, students, parents and governors with regard to digital safety and citizenship.


Our aim over the past year has been to ensure that each of our academies becomes an NOS certified school, and we are very nearly there. The certification recognises engagement from all key stakeholders, but we don't want to stop there.

Our aim is to continue to integrate these resources into our curriculum, to help our staff better understand the digital world and its impact on education, and to support the wider school community to stay safe in this fast-paced digital world.


Some of the great work we have already seen includes:

  • Sharing guides with parents via newsletters, Twitter and Facebook;

  • Using resources to support Children's Mental Health Week and Safer Internet Day;

  • Developing safer remote-learning practice; and

  • Continued CPD for staff.


Here is what some of our academies have said:


"NOS has opened up an enormous amount of resources for us. It was implemented at a time which supported us in being more confident about remote learning."

Karen Cronin, The Halley Academy


"Our governors always engage well in UTC life and they did exactly the same with the National Online Safety materials"

Neil Arnould, The Leigh UTC

"Our schools became accredited with little need for direction. This wouldn't happen without the 'want' from staff - so they obviously saw the impact for themselves."

Libby Fidock, Marden and Langley Park Primary Academies


"NOS materials have been regularly shared with our families and have been especially effective at supporting them to deal safely with concerns around their son’s or daughter's use of social media."

Dee Pickerill, Snowfields Academy


"Having easy access to quality, up-to-date resources means that our teachers can provide the best online safety support to our pupils."

Tanya Shaw, Tree Tops Primary Academy


"We have found the site very useful in offering up to date CPD for our staff."

Hannah Penning, Stoke Primary Academy


We now move into year two of our partnership with NOS, in which we will seek to build on the good work done so far in preparing everyone to use technology innovatively and safely across Leigh Academies Trust.

IB Middle Years Programme

International Baccalaureate Logo

The IB experience is not just a way to learn, it’s a way of life and, for more than 1,250,000 students each year, the way to a better, more peaceful world. The implementation of the Middle-Years Programme goes from strength to strength across our LAT secondary academies. Six academies in our North West Kent and South East London clusters are now officially IB World Schools and we await the final reports for the remaining three academies in phase 1 of the roll-out. Despite lockdown, MYP coordinators and LAT’s MYP subject leaders have continued to network and share best practice. We have engaged with the MYP community in the UK, including non-LAT member academies, conducting moderation and training as part of this collaboration.


LAT’s four Dartford secondary academies have been involved in a pilot with the IB Organisation’s development arm to ensure that all elements of the third year of the programme are in place, particularly the MYP community project that all year 9 students must undertake. Never has giving back to the community been so significant.

Thanks to the endeavours of LAT’s Curriculum Advisor for Modern Foreign Languages, Stewart Dearsley, all academies are developing international-mindedness through engagement with British Council projects, some of which include connecting classrooms across the globe, partnerships with schools overseas and achievement of the International Schools Award.


Opportunities for further MYP staff development have been funded by the central Trust as we continue to pursue our aim to provide a world-class education for students.

“I really enjoyed the freedom that the community project gave me. I was able to complete a project that I cared about which made me work harder. I think it’s important to do things to help others and this is what I was able to do with my project.”

Year 9 student, Wilmington Academy

LAT Apprenticeships

The last term has certainly been a whirlwind of activity for the team at LAT Apprenticeships, so much so that we have had to grow our own team to support the increasing demand for training!


With our own academies and external employers alike embracing apprenticeships as a way of recruiting new talent and upskilling existing staff members, our numbers have soared with 56 new apprentices joining us between June and September!


Many of these will be coming on board in Teaching Assistant and Administration support roles for our new school year in September, we even have some new apprentices joining us from schools outside of the Trust. We're also implementing new cohorts into our Property Maintenance and Engineering programmes.

In September, LAT Apprenticeships will launch two new programmes - Commis Chef at Longfield Academy and ICT at The Leigh UTC. So much hard work has gone into creating these new programmes and we can't wait to start.


If you would like any information on the benefits of apprenticeships or the programmes we run, please get in touch!


info@latapprenticeships.org.uk

or

jo.buck@latapprenticeships.org.uk