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Welcome from our Chair of the Board of Directors
Chair of the
Board of Directors
It is a great privilege to introduce the de Ferrers Trust Annual Review. This review will give you the opportunity to learn about how the Trust works towards its key strategic priorities and lives out the Trust’s vision and values.
The last academic year has been the most challenging in education history. However, the Trust, its school leaders and all our staff have risen to this unprecedented challenge. They have ensured that the education for our young people, their wellbeing and safety has been at the forefront of each day, regardless of whether school buildings were open or closed. And, for clarity, they were certainly open more often than they were closed. Our core business of teaching and learning continued in the most imaginative and creative ways. It is thanks to the dedication of everyone in the Trust that our students continued to thrive, and our vision was lived out in all our seven schools. You will read in the review about the people and roles which drive our vision and values and make progress toward our strategic aims, including People and Finance. You will read about how the Trust is governed and how this has developed in our seven local governing bodies. Most importantly, you will also learn about how we safeguard our students, and how we have navigated through the changing landscape of the pandemic.
I would like to thank our Chief Executive, Ian, the Trust Central Team, the Board of Directors and our wonderful school leaders who have continued to support and drive our vision to ensure that our young people truly flourish.
I look forward to our new academic year. A year when The de Ferrers Trust will ensure that all our children and young people in our care have the opportunity to fulfil their potential through achieving highly regardless of their ability or background.
Claire Shaw Chair of the Board of Directors
Our Vision and Values
Our Vision
There are several keywords in our vision. One is ‘opportunity’. Lots of Trusts make some very outlandish statements, peppered with vocabulary that stretches credibility. Ours is highly aspirational but also rooted in reality. It reflects that our young people have a responsibility in achieving this vision, too. We cannot ensure that everyone fulfils their potential because we cannot undertake the necessary work for them. Hence our first value (see opposite). Members of staff work hard and our young people need to do the same. What we can ensure is that we provide them with the opportunity of doing so through giving them an excellent education. Our young people can become anything they want to be and we must help them see that and act on it.
Education should provide everyone with opportunities. What can ensure that all pupils, ‘regardless of their ability or background’, are provided with the opportunities, care and encouragement to achieve what they want to in life. This is vital to the success of our Trust.
Our Values
Work hard, be kind, choose wisely.
We have very simple values and we expect all of our staff and students to try their very best to live by these. We appreciate that it is not always easy to do so at school, at work or in life in general. But they must be more than words on a page.
We are unapologetic about promoting a strong work ethic. It is very rare to meet anyone who fulfils their potential or achieves their goals without working hard and we should not pretend otherwise. Our teaching staff are role models in this. They worked hard to qualify and be part of their noble profession; nobody gave them their qualifications or careers and we should not be afraid to convey this to our pupils. In fact, we should celebrate this.
There is not enough kindness in this world and even a quick glimpse at the social media that some people are fixated on, including many of our pupils, confirms this. It is our duty to both expect and promote kindness as a way of life.
Our third value might very well be the most difficult but also the most important. Everyone makes mistakes. We all need to try and learn from them and avoid repeating them. The thread of realism applies here, too. Adults can counsel and advise using their knowledge and experience but our young people will, on an increasing number of occasions as they grow up, be responsible for making their own choices. These values are present and alive in all of our schools.
