Leigh Academies Trust
NEWS
Summer 2022 | Issue 24
Contents
A message from the Chief Executive
In September we are launching Vision 2030. This supersedes Vision 2025 which sets out the Trust’s vision, mission and values as well as its strategic targets for the year ahead. We are doing this because the world has changed fundamentally in recent years and despite the pandemic, the Trust has achieved the vast majority of the goals it set for 2025 already. As a result, we are publishing even higher ambitions than before in Vision 2030 which will shape our work in the years to come as we emerge from the pandemic.
The Trust recently published its new logo for use from September. Vision 2030 confirms a new mission statement which is “Education for a better World”. This is the same mission statement as the International Baccalaureate Organisation to further cement our commitment to these transformative curriculum programmes.
Education for a better world
The impact of the Trust was shown again in two recent Ofsted inspections. The report for Wilmington Academy was published just after Easter. The academy first joined Leigh Academies Trust (LAT) when it was in special measures. Recently, inspectors converted their inspection in the belief that Wilmington is now outstanding overall. They will return within 1-2 years to hopefully confirm their judgement.
More recently, at The Halley Academy in Greenwich, inspectors judged that the academy has outstanding leadership and management, personal development and sixth form. This is a remarkable turnaround from the school that joined LAT in 2018 with profound weaknesses in almost every area. Staff and pupils have worked extremely hard to transform the quality of education offered and we are now proud to receive Ofsted’s judgement confirming that The Halley is doing an excellent job for its pupils and community.
As we end this summer term, we say goodbye to two much-cherished senior leaders who are retiring after many years of superb service to LAT. The first is Steve Leahey who is Principal of The Leigh UTC. He has guided the academy through its first successful decade and leaves behind an extremely positive legacy to his successor, Kevin Watson. The second is Nigel Jones, who for the last year has been Principal of High Weald Academy and before that the three times outstanding Milestone Academy. We wish both of them a very happy and long retirement and thank them for their enormous contributions to the Trust.
It’s been another very busy and successful year with much to celebrate as we now contemplate the summer holidays. I wish you all an enjoyable break and look forward to the next academic year when it gets going in late-August.
Simon Beamish,
Chief Executive
Trust Governance
As the number of academies within the Trust has grown so has the governance function. Today there are 217 governors, from a diverse range of backgrounds, serving across 22 different boards and committees.
To support all governors in their role, Neil Willis, Governance Professional, and the central Trust governance team have this year:
launched a social media platform providing daily updates about LAT academies and national issues;
developed an electronic Governance Handbook, as a one-stop-shop for all key information;
undertaken a wide ranging audit of governance knowledge and skills;
delivered a comprehensive training programme comprising of both face to face and online sessions; and
held a governors’ event, to enable members of different boards across the Trust to meet and to celebrate what had been achieved.
Over the next year the team will be building upon all of these and launching other new, exciting initiatives, which enable all governors to expand their skills and expertise to assist and challenge our academies in their quest towards educational excellence. If you are interested in joining our outstanding team of governors do not hesitate to contact governance@latrust.org.uk.
Schools are delighted to be part of the partnership
Kent and Medway Training (KMT ) is the largest school based ITT provider in the South-East region. Having recently been inspected by Ofsted, a team of 8 HMI inspectors have judged the provider to be good in all areas of the ITT framework.
The inspection took place between the 3rd and 6th May of this year and inspectors met with the CEO and the people director from LAT, members of the strategic board, the senior director of ITT, the hub directors and their deputies, the primary director and deputy primary director, the head of recruitment and operations and director of professional learning and development for the teaching school hub.
The inspection team conducted focused reviews in a sample of subjects. In the primary phase, these were in: early reading, mathematics, science, history and physical education. Inspectors looking at the secondary phase covered: art, chemistry, design and technology, English, history and modern foreign languages. To carry out the focused reviews, inspectors met with leads for the subject, scrutinised course documents and, in some instances, observed training. Inspectors visited schools to talk with trainees, mentors and senior leaders. They looked at evidence of trainees’ learning and, where possible, observed them teach.
KMT is delighted by the outcome of the inspection and feels that the inspection and the report captures the strengths of the organisation and also its desire to move forward in the ITT sector. Trainee teachers are at the centre of everything that we do so we were delighted when Ofsted commented that
“Trainees choose Kent and Medway Training (KMT) because of its commitment to ensuring that trainees emerge fully prepared for the profession and equipped to continue to develop and thrive.”
And as if that wasn’t enough success…
Kent and Medway Training were one of only 80 providers awarded accreditation by the DfE in Round 1. 8 days after the Ofsted inspection, Kent and Medway Training were informed that they had been successful in their bid for re-accreditation to deliver Initial Teacher Training under the new Quality Requirements being introduced in 2024.
ITT reforms
Alongside the development and introduction of the Core Content Framework (CCF) for ITT and the Early Career Framework in the past two years, ambitious new Quality Requirements for the delivery of ITT were recently released. All providers have had to go through a rigorous re-accreditation process based around how they will meet the new Quality Requirements in order to continue delivering ITT from September 2024.
Of the 240 ITT providers nationally, KMT was one of just 80 providers awarded accreditation in Round 1. Feedback provided by the DfE describes how KMT fully met the criteria in every aspect of the accreditation process, outlining how KMT “will provide high-quality ITT and benefit trainee outcomes” and that proposals demonstrate “a good level of knowledge, expertise, experience, capability and capacity.”
Phased Implementation of the New KMT Curriculum
This academic year, KMT introduced a new cross-phase ITT curriculum. This bespoke curriculum was designed to fully incorporate and go beyond the minimum entitlements of the CCF. KMT’s six key curriculum strands and their associated key content areas are deliberately interwoven, providing Associate Teachers (ATs) with repeated opportunities to develop wider, more critical understanding in phase and subject-specific contexts. Close links between KMT and partner schools ensure purposeful integration of learning on a weekly basis between central-based training and school practice.
During Phase 2 of implementation, which spans the next two academic years, the focus will be on further development of subject specificity within the KMT ITT curriculum. The duration of the programme will be extended for 2022/23 and again in 2023/24 to allow adequate time for this increased focus on subject at both primary and secondary levels, supporting ATs to acquire a deeper understanding of the breadth and depth of substantive and disciplinary knowledge.
The 2024/25 academic year will see the introduction of Intensive Training and Practice (ITP). This experience, which is in addition to the standard placement programme, enables ATs to observe and practise selected, specific elements of the ITT curriculum and receive highly targeted feedback from experts. A new ‘Faculty Lead Mentor’ role will also be established. These subject experts will play an integral role in the design and delivery of ITPs, ensuring KMT continues to be at the forefront of evidence-informed initial teaching training, as well as supporting lead mentors and school-based mentors to deliver the full KMT curriculum under the new Quality Requirements.
If you are a school looking to expand your ITT and Assessment Only provision and are interested in working with us, please contact Stuart Russell, Senior Director of ITT at KMT
'Our ambition is to provide excellent professional development opportunities to support educators as they shape the lives of every child in our region.'
Our first year of operation as Thames Gateway TSH has surpassed our hopes and seen our targets met across all areas of our work. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with over 350 schools, supporting professional development from ITT to Executive Leadership and beyond.
Our annual school leader satisfaction survey has supported these key performance indicators, providing some great examples of the ways we have been able to work with our partners. Colleagues have included feedback such as:
“The TGTSH is our go to provider for high quality CPD” and “the quality of experiences offered is first class.”
Early Career Teachers
Our work in supporting ECTs has been a great joy to us this year. Colleagues have joined us throughout the year and been welcomed into our Full Induction Programme with the Education Development Trust. Plans and dates for next year for Year 2 have been shared, and also for the new cohort of Year 1 ECTs who are being registered daily.
As the role of Appropriate Bodies undergoes national review, the place of TSHs within this has been strengthened. Our successful and scalable model is proving essential in providing the robust capacity required as the system undergoes changes. At the heart of this are our Induction Moderators, with one colleague commenting that:
“As an induction assessor I have the privilege of reading the reviews of many Early Career Teachers. I have been impressed by the detailed responses and reading them you get the sense that tutors and mentors know their ECTs really well. ECTs are aware of their next steps and are relating them to the Teacher Standards. Some of the responses are so detailed I feel that I know the ECT as well. It has made assessing the reviews a pleasure rather than a chore.”
We congratulate all those ECTs who are receiving glowing Year 1 reports in their recent assessments, we look forward to working with you in Year 2!
National Professional Qualifications
Over 600 colleagues are progressing well with their NPQ qualifications, and the autumn term will see us move toward assessment for those on specialist programmes. Recent QA visits have evidenced the tremendous work of our team of facilitators and the cultures of collaborative learning which are built across the region.
We are also delighted to have registered large numbers already for our next round of programmes, and are delighted that the NPQ in Leading Literacy and the NPQ in Early Years Leadership are being added to the suite. For further information on any of these programmes, please visit our website www.ThamesGatewayTSH.org.uk.
Wider continuing professional development
Our relationships with the wider curriculum hubs has grown significantly this year and led to our first Leadership Breakfast meeting. This invited into one forum, the majority of DfE funded opportunities for CPD across Kent and Medway. These meetings are due to be repeated regularly throughout 22/23. We have also been delighted to work closely with the Education Endowment Foundation and particularly Greenshaw Research School. Colleagues across LAT are just completing their ‘Effective PD’ course which has been highly informative, and which will prove crucial in the implementation of evidence-informed, impactful CPD programmes in the coming months and years. We are also looking forward to delivering EEF led projects on supporting students facing disadvantage and in supporting SEND students in mainstream settings.
Much of this work was celebrated at our recent ‘Leading Adult Learning’ conference. This included an input from the Greenshaw Research school as well as a number of strategies to benefit colleagues across our schools.
We are excited to embed our plans over the coming year. As the proverb states, I am sure that ‘the best is yet to come!’
As the Maths Hubs programme nears the end of its 8th year, we in the Kent and Medway Maths Hub have continued to embed our vision to ‘seek to harness all the maths leadership and expertise within Kent and Medway, to develop and spread excellent practice for the benefit of all teachers and students.’
Our delivery of well over 60 workgroups, all fully funded by NCETM, has enabled 353 schools to be involved in KMMH work this year. This is only made possible by the 41 schools who are involved in our wider leadership roles.
Recent collation of our work group reports has begun to evidence the breadth and depth of the impact of this work over the past 12 months. This impact is starting to show whole-school influence, with Ofsted including the evidence in a number of reports across the county. One school in our Teaching for Mastery Sustaining Programme received the feedback that:
“The mathematics curriculum is skilfully taught, and pupils achieve well. The use of correct mathematical language starts in Reception. Children are encouraged to answer questions and explain their reasoning. Pupils build on this as they move through the classes and into key Stage 2. Teachers use questioning well to make pupils think before they give answers. Teachers remind pupils of their previous learning and encourage pupils to remember and build on what they already know. Older pupils said that they love mathematics because ‘it’s fun, and okay to get it wrong’.”
These skills were embedded particularly through their journey into Teaching for Mastery.
These opportunities have been so popular that our Teaching for Mastery programme is almost full for next academic year. If you would like to discuss this further with us, please do visit our website www.kandmmathshub.org. Another reason for the ongoing success has been the significant number of engagement and collaborative sessions we have run this year. We were so excited to invite Dr Debie Morgan, NCETM Primary Director, to the University of Kent to launch next year’s Primary Programme.
As we look forward to the coming year, we are delighted to share our new programme, with further opportunities to upskill TAs, Early Career Teachers, and colleagues across all stages and phases of our schools. Full details are available via our website, we look forward to continuing to work with you.
LAT Recruitment Team
This summer marks the end of the busiest year the LAT Recruitment Team has ever experienced!
Covid and Brexit have resulted in the biggest shift in the UK candidate market in decades, with many candidates who were once open to work, now taking early retirement, deciding to take up study or become self-employed, amongst many other options.
The knock-on effect for employers up and down the country has resulted in fewer applicants per job. To make the situation even more challenging, employers who held fire on recruiting during Covid due to uncertainty, all then recruited at the same time earlier this year seeing a surge of vacancies being advertised at one time - there are over 1.3 million vacancies in the UK at present!
Not only has the LAT Recruitment Team had these challenges to overcome, but it coincided with LAT continuing to grow its workforce. Although this year has been tough, hiring managers across the organisation have worked tirelessly with the Recruitment Team to find great candidates for our roles, and we’re incredibly confident in the people who have joined and continue to join the LAT family in the future.
Over 23% of all LAT vacancies continue to be filled by internal staff; a combination of either conscious decisions for staff to move to an alternative academy or more commonly, due to promotion. This represents the fantastic opportunities available to employees to develop in their career or change jobs that may suit their needs at any given time, all whilst staying with the same employer.
The LAT Recruitment Team went to the big city!
In June 2022, the team were shortlisted by The FIRM (The Forum for In-house Recruiters) out of hundreds of organisations across the UK for a recruitment-specific award - ‘Small Recruitment Team of the Year’ (for teams of 5 members and under). We went up against big companies like AllSaints Retail Ltd, Healthcare Partners and others. Whilst we may not have won, it was hugely rewarding for us and it gives credit to what we achieve when compared with national and international companies with very big budgets. To be shortlisted was an achievement in its own right, and we had a wonderful evening celebrating. The deserved winners were Samaritans who recruit for the entire charity with only 2 members in the recruitment team!
LAT employee referral scheme
LAT has run a referral scheme for teaching roles for years now which is very successful, and we’re delighted to share with you that the scheme is now being rebranded to the LAT Employee Referral Scheme and includes more positions!
Teachers - £300
Premises Maintenance Operatives - £100
Teaching Assistants - £100
Early Years Assistants - £100
Please note: the reward amounts are linked to the proportionate average cost per hire for each role respectively
Click here to make a referral for any of the positions mentioned above. If you make a referral and are eligible for the reward, you can choose how you’d like to receive the award:
Bluewater vouchers (NEW OPTION!)
Amazon vouchers
Donation to a charity of your choice
Money invested back into your team or department
We would also like to remind you where you can find out more about internal vacancies: click here. This will take you straight to the relevant area on LATOne where we post all internal opportunities; you can filter the type of jobs so that they are specific to the type of role you are looking for, and receive email alerts when something arises. With 31 academies at present, there are ample opportunities across LAT that will allow you to progress in your career.
Sharing is Caring!
We’re still actively pushing our social media channels to attract potential candidates, so please ‘like’, share and follow us on the following platforms:
LAT Apprenticeships have had a busy year that has included both success and growth.
Over this year we have seen the amount of apprentices we are working with triple in size, with retention rates sitting significantly above the national average.
The team have been busy attending events, careers fairs and business networking to spread the word of apprenticeships and develop future partnerships, which is something we love to do as we are all so passionate about this sector.
This term we have welcomed Beverley Neve (beverley.neave@latapprenticeships.org.uk) as our new Teaching assistant assessor/coach. Bev brings along a wealth of knowledge across teaching, assessment and quality assurance. Bev has a passion for theories of teaching and management.
We also welcomed our learner recruitment coordinator, Kayleigh Forster (kayleigh.forster@latapprenticeships.org.uk) who is building a strong talent pool of candidates to fill our apprenticeships vacancies. Kayleigh has also been working with applicants on their CVs, application and interview skills.
We have been celebrating the success of our first cohort of Business Admin learners who have achieved their full apprenticeship standard, with some gaining a distinction. Our first cohort of Teaching Assistants have been busy planning to sit their end point assessment with entirely positive outcomes predicted.
LAT Apprenticeships are currently offering training the following standards: Business Admin, Teaching Assistant, IT, Property Maintenance Operative, and Engineering, with the plans of launching 3 new apprenticeship standards in September: Carpentry, Roofing and Team Leading meaning that the provision is growing from 5 programmes of study to 8. The intention of this is to ensure that we are widening the potential offer to LAT pupils.
With the introduction of the government's Skills Act, LAT Apprenticeships is heading towards significant future growth with a focus of delivering quality Apprenticeships that help bridge the current skills gaps.
For any apprenticeship enquiries please contact laura.stratton@latapprenticeships.org.uk
Please follow us across our social media, Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin.
Laura Stratton, Head of LAT Apprenticeships with Ione Bennet following completion of her Business Administration Apprenticeship.
Digital Learning
This module we sent out our Digital Levels Survey. It was great to see continued growth across the Trust as we continue to develop on our digital journey together, supporting teaching and learning through the use of technology. It is great to see devices being used more in our classrooms and our goal in the coming year is to ensure this use is effective and creates new opportunities for our students.
In the past few months we have also supported our Early Years students with more iPads and uploaded a range of apps to support them.
In July we completed the purchase of Read&Write for the whole Trust for 2022/23. This will be a great tool to support our SEND students, but also it will help support literacy and foreign languages. Watch out for plenty of training opportunities in the coming months.
Many of our academies also signed up for Book Creator for next year. This will be a great tool to help develop creativity, and we look forward to working alongside the Book Creator team in the coming year.
In 2021/22, we have developed a partnership with Adobe and in June all our primary academies participated in the Sky Edit challenge, creating videos about climate change. We look forward to visits to the Sky studios for the winners.
Modern Foreign Languages
MFL in our Primary Academies
Over the past eighteen months we have been working very hard to develop the MFL curriculum in our primary academies. At the recent network meeting for KS2 coordinators held at Bearsted Primary Academy, Alex Ait-Mansour from Paddock Wood Primary Academy, where French is taught, gave a fascinating presentation about how she plans a unit of work to fit a PYP unit of inquiry.
Having a story or non-fiction text is a great starting point. It makes the learning relevant for the children and puts the language they are learning in context. If there is not a suitable book a song can be used. Using the children’s book Cache-cache avec Petit-Noun as an example, Alex demonstrated how she identifies a focus on phonics, grammar and vocabulary, which she uses to create a presentation. Using illustrations from
the book helps set the scene and trying to introduce each new word or phrase with an action supports the learning. As well as learning new language there are many curriculum links to be made. In the case of Cache-cache avec Petit-Noun some map work was done about Egypt for geography.
For PE and intercultural understanding, the title 'Cache-Cache' (literally ‘Hide Hide’) is the French version of Hide and Seek. It’s played slightly differently, with a race to the ‘base’ once you have been spotted. The children play this at playtime too.
For art, children follow simple instructions in French to make wax relief hippos in the style of Petit Noun, paper flowers, frogs and folded butterflies. These then form the base of an interactive display using the prepositions they have learnt. Other links were also made to DT and music.
For art, children follow simple instructions in French to make wax relief hippos in the style of Petit Noun, paper flowers, frogs and folded butterflies. These then form the base of an interactive display using the prepositions they have learnt. Other links were also made to DT and music.
Alex has a wealth of other examples she has created over the years and, as one of our LAT Research and Development Champions, is keen to share this with other primary colleagues.
LAT Sports Days
The LAT Sports Day 2022
For the first time this year the LAT Sports Day took place across 2 days due to the increased number of secondary academies, which is now at 17 in total. The Year 7 and 8 competition took place on Monday 11th July and the Year 9 and 10 event took place on Thursday 14th July. Both events were equally challenging with temperatures of over 30 degrees on both days. Despite this the level of competition was higher than ever with some impressive performances across all events.
During the 2 days of competition the leader board was regularly changing, due to the exceptional performances that were being produced from a wide range of schools. After the Year 7 and 8 competition on day 1, the girls results were very close with The Leigh Academy leading the way on 272 points. The Hundred of Hoo Academy girls team were not far behind in second place on 263 points. In the boys competition Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School were surging ahead on 327 points with The Leigh UTC in second place with 244 points.
On day 2 the lead changed several times throughout the course of the day and was extremely close as we entered the last event, the 4 x 100m relay. In the end The Leigh Academy Blackheath came from third place to eventually become the new girls athletics champions and in the boys competition The Leigh Academy narrowly won over The Leigh UTC to finish in first place overall.
Please see below the overall team results:
Girls Competition:
1st - Leigh Academy Blackheath - 529
2nd - The Leigh Academy - 516
3rd - Hundred of Hoo Academy - 514
4th - Stationers’ Crown Woods Academy - 507
5th - Halley Academy - 438
6th - Longfield Academy - 430
7th - Ebbsfleet Academy - 429
8th - Mascalls Academy - 419
9th - Wilmington Academy - 409
10th - Leigh UTC - 379
11th - Strood Academy - 348
12th - Leigh Academy Rainham - 135
13th - Snowfields Academy - 35
14th - Milestone Academy - 32
15th - High Weald Academy - 25
Boys Competition:
1st - The Leigh Academy - 498
2nd - The Leigh UTC - 486
3rd - Hundred of Hoo Academy - 483
4th - Mascalls Academy - 459
5th - Halley Academy - 426
6th - Leigh Academy Blackheath - 422
7th - Hayesbrook Academy - 420
8th - Stationers’ Crown Woods - 416
9th - Ebbsfleet Academy - 368
10th - Longfield Academy - 357
11th - Wilmington Academy - 340
12th - Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School - 327
13th - Strood Academy - 272
14th - Leigh Academy Rainham - 131
15th - Snowfields Academy - 123
16th - High Weald Academy - 69
17th - Milestone Academy - 33
PCA Event
On Friday 1st July Leigh Academies Trust welcomed the PCA England Legends for the annual charity cricket match at Bexley Cricket Club. This was the first fixture since 2019 due to Covid restrictions and it turned out to be a day to remember for the LAT XI as they claimed a fantastic 5-wicket victory with just 5 balls to spare. This was a first victory for the LAT XI against the PCA legends who included England greats such as Jonathan Trott, Monty Panesar, Owais Shah and Alex Tudor in their line-up.
Prior to the main match, Leigh Academies Trust hosted a primary school kwik cricket tournament on the outfield with 15 schools and 150 pupils taking part. Year 10 students from The Leigh Academy supported the event as umpires and scorers and thanks to the wonderful planning of the event from Julie Palmer of Oaks Academy and Ben Crouch from The Leigh Academy, a brilliant tournament was eventually won by a superb team from Marden Primary Academy. Throughout the morning, the PCA players circulated the games and got involved with some coaching as well as signing autographs. To top it all off, former England captain and special guest for the day, Graham Gooch OBE was on hand to present the trophy to Marden Primary Academy.
A few of their star players are sure to be seen lining up for the LAT XI in a few years time taking on the pros!
A key component of the day is a fundraising lunch which takes place in a marquee on the outfield of Bexley CC and catered for by Impact Food Group. This year was an early sell-out, with all 40 tables sold by February and a 400 strong audience in attendance for an entertaining few hours hosted by former England cricketer Ed Giddins. Once again, this part of the day was supported by 40 Year 10 students from The Leigh Academy who were wonderful ambassadors in their role as lunchtime servers.
A bonus for the students was the generous tipping taking place from some of the tables! The lunchtime entertainment included a Q&A with Graham Gooch who shared some hilarious stories from his international playing days, as well as a silent and live auction raising funds for students across Leigh Academies Trust. The auctions contained some incredible items such as a 5* break in Puerto Banus, a trip to the Monaco Grand Prix, full hospitality tickets to a Manchester United game and signed memorabilia from the likes of Pele and Muhammed Ali.
With the kwik cricket and lunch complete, it was time for the main event - a 25 overs a side game between the PCA legends and a LAT XI. The PCA won the toss and skipper Alex Tudor elected to bat first. LAT skipper Barney, a Year 11 student at The Leigh Academy, opened the bowling with fellow Leigh Academy student Harry in front of a crowd nearing 1000 people. Harry soon removed Owais Shah for just 4 runs and this was followed up by an excellent spell of bowling from Brin of Longfield Academy who claimed another 2 wickets as the PCA posted 196-5 in their 25 overs.
The LAT XI started their run chase with the PCA borrowing Bailey from Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School as their wicket keeper following a shoulder injury to former England player and Ashes winner, Phil DeFreitas. The run chase was on from the first ball of the LAT innings and a stunning knock of 81 from Jack set us up for a grandstand finish. Even a wily spell of 2-25 from Monty Panesar couldn’t stop the LAT XI reaching a marvellous victory from 24.1 overs, much to the delight of the highly partisan home crowd!
Sparx Maths Awards
Students in Years 7-11 across Leigh Academies Trust have been working very hard on their Sparx maths homework this academic year!
Sparx Maths creates an hour's worth of perfectly tailored practice homework for each student each week. The practice is both challenging (to ensure students need to think) and, crucially, achievable (so that students can be successful). Also, the practice uses spaced repetition and interleaving to support a change in students’ long term memories.
The top 10 Sparx achievers across the Trust have earned a prestigious Sparx Award; these students are from Wilmington Academy, the Leigh UTC, Ebbsfleet Academy, Strood Academy and Hayesbrook Academy. Congratulations!
LAT Awards
On Thursday 14th July 2022, Leigh Academies Trust held its fourth annual staff awards evening at Strood Academy. The event, generously sponsored by Impact Food Group, was attended by the Trust’s executive team, academy principals and award nominees.
The opening address was given by Theresa Davies, Vice Chair of Leigh Academies Trust and the evening was expertly compèred by Claire Shaw-Kew from Mascalls Academy. Impact Food Group were ably supported in serving the evening’s three course meal by students from Strood Academy.
There were a number of outstanding performances given by students throughout the evening:
Piano/Vocals: Grace Edwards from Snowfields Academy
Vocals: Tilly Coates from Strood Academy
Band: Hugo Gomez-Granja, Leo Horton and Edward Boyle from Mascalls Academy
Guitar/Vocals: Alfie Clarke from Wilmington Academy
Piano: Adam Jackson from Mascalls Academy
Dance: Kitty Stafford, Darcey Thompsett, Megan Vale, Abby Groves, Oli Baker-Bishop, Kane Lucas, Woodie Butterfield and Jake Page from Mascalls Academy
The award winners were:
Primary Teacher Award
Rachael Norris, Dartford Primary Academy
Rebecca Wilson, High Halstow Primary Academy
Secondary Teacher Award
Matthew Hellyer, Wilmington Academy
Keri Musson, The Hundred of Hoo Academy
Support Staff (Operations) Award
Lauren Crawley, Leigh Academy Rainham
Central Services Award
Molly Allen, Leigh Academies Trust
Early Career Teacher (Primary) Award
Rhianna Brandon, Oaks Primary Academy
Early Career Teacher (Secondary) Award
Clare Higgins - Sir Joseph Williamson’s Mathematical School
Support Staff (Teaching) Award
Angela Herlihy, Tree Tops Primary Academy
Trainee Teacher Award
Sophie Grave, The Hundred of Hoo Academy
Digital Innovation Award
Zaeem Basit, The Leigh UTC
Laura King, Molehill Primary Academy
Team Award
Curriculum Advisors, Leigh Academies Trust
Leadership Award for Support Services
Simon Woodridge, Leigh Academies Trust
Leadership Award for Quality of Education
Jane Tipple, Bearsted Primary Academy
Janet Tidmas, Milestone Academy
Special Recognition Award
Nigel Jones, High Weald Academy
Congratulations to all of this year’s winners.