Academy Councils are in place to ensure local governance and accountability, with the Trust Board retaining accountability and control of its academies in line with Department for Education and Education Funding Agency expectations. If a school is in special measures the Trust Board is legally required to directly intervene to ensure that the school improves.
Learn more about our governance structure and Board of Trustees HERE
Where a headteacher is doing a good job, we would of course hope they will continue to lead the school following conversion.
No, all staff will be TUPE’d over to the new ‘academy’ on the same terms and conditions.
The support of families is vital to any school’s success and we would not want those relationships to be undermined in any way through joining our Trust. In fact, we would hope they could be strengthened further. Our system of Academy Councils ensures that parents and carers are represented at each of our academies. A nominated representative from the Chairs of the Academy Councils will sit on our Trust Board. Click here to learn more about parental representation within our governance structure.
No, we trust our Academy leaders and Academy Councils to know what is right for their students and community. The Chief Executive, her team and the Trust Board will rigorously monitor and hold the leadership of the Academy to account. We work on a model of intervention in inverse proportion to success – in other words earned autonomy. In practical terms, we would not seek to impose any curriculum or pedagogy on our academies, but work with each Academy leader to ensure that their curriculum is fit for purpose.
We will work with you to help strengthen those links and networks. We believe that learning from the experience of colleagues in other settings is vital to our own journey, both as individuals and as an organisation.
This would be a decision for the Academy leaders and Academy Council.
Shaw Education Trust is experienced in successfully converting schools through our central team using our legal, HR, financial and management expertise. We also employ the country’s leading legal and education conversion company to take away as much of the work as possible so that you can focus on your students. Learn more about how we support schools through the conversion process here.
Any decisions over uniform and name would be matters for the Academy leaders and the Academy Council.
Any decision about changes to the school day or the pattern of the school year would be a matter for the Academy leaders and the Academy Council, not the Trust.
Once a school’s conversion has been approved, we will cover the costs of the transition. The Trust will continue to provide school improvement and some central services, which will be recharged via the top slice at cost.
School improvement costs, support and programmes will be provided by the central team and via commission. The Trust is run as cost effectively as possible, making no profit and investing resource to accelerate improvement from starting point.