With the increasing number of responsibilities and expectations placed upon schools, some of which would be better addressed by other agencies, it is a danger that our core purpose is marginalised. Our core purpose is to educate young people and that is why it has to be Aim 1. 1.1 Improve the quality of teaching and, thereby, pupils’ outcomes Despite the significant challenges faced last year, a considerable amount of work was undertaken towards achieving this objective. Sadly, developmental work with Ambition Institute and their ‘Transforming Teaching’ programme was unavoidably derailed in 2019-20 but staff still built on the principles of this to develop their practice. We also saw an increasing number of staff undertaking formal professional development qualifications so that they were personally in a position to better contribute towards meeting this objective.
1.4 Establish collaborative, cross-school planning, schemes of work, assessment and moderation in order to raise standards Our Trust Leader for Curriculum (11-19) in 2020-21, Steve Hall of Pingle Academy, led on a significant amount of organisational work to ensure that progress was made towards meeting this objective. Our Trust Subject Leaders worked industriously with their colleagues across our secondary schools to share best practice and build on our journey towards excellence and consistency. Our Director of Primary Education, Nicki Bell, worked with the Principals and staff of our primary schools to work towards developing our curricula and increasing consistency and alignment.
1.7 Use evidence and technology to inform practice The Trust made a large investment in ensuring that our teachers were in the best position they could be to teach their pupils remotely. Teachers showed their resilience and ability to adapt by quickly coming to terms with teaching by Zoom. Pupils played their own part in this with expectations of their organisational and independent study skills rising considerably. Non-teaching staff also had to adapt to a new world of remote meetings and embracing the use of technologies that had previously been unknown to them. Our Trust Leader for Digital Strategy, Greg Hughes of The de Ferrers Academy, used his extensive expertise and experience to support and guide colleagues, ensuring that good progress was made towards this objective.
Key foci within this Aim for 2021-22 1.1 Improve the quality of teaching and, thereby, pupils’ outcomes 1.2 Ensure that pupils have access to appropriate curricular and extracurricular provision 1.3 Implement fair and robust standardised systems of progress tracking and quality assurance of staff and students 1.4 Establish collaborative, cross-school planning, schemes of work, assessment and moderation in order to raise standards 1.5 Create informative and illustrative crosstrust management information
While there is still a considerable amount of work to be done to fulfil this objective, significant steps have been made.
Annual Review 2021
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