Strategic Business Objectives

2020 – 2023

The Trust Executive Team and the Board of Directors will include business objectives in addition to our educational priorities which will help us to continue to develop the Trust into a market leader over the coming years.

NCLT Strategic Business Objectives 2020-2023 Evaluation

Strategic objectives and Intent: Why we propose to do this work?

Implementations: What and how we intend to do this

Consolidated and managed growth

• Grow organically to ensure the 6th form free schools operate at full capacity.

• Market both NCD and NCB accordingly to continue to increase student enrolment numbers.

• Continue to build positive relationships with schools in both areas to allow further access to Y10/Y11 students.

• All colleges are at full capacity by 2022.

Further increase in student enrolments September 2021

VM BCF SN

• The total number of students on roll from September 2021 were 2840 (NCP), 1372 (NCD), 1281 (NCB) and 950 (WFA), meaning the Trust now comprises of 6443 students, representing significant growth on last year’s figures.

• The total number of students on roll from September 2022 were 2785 (NCP), 1475 (NCD), 1425 (NCB) and 1004 (WFA) giving a total of 6689.

• These are figures at enrolment not census and will differ to funded numbers.

• The approximate increase in number for the colleges is around 4%.

• We anticipate some growth again in the Colleges in September as larger Year 12 groups progress through to Yr 13.

• Fully integrate Wingfield Academy and then start to develop the secondary arm of the Trust.

• Successful transfer of Wingfield Academy into the Trust 1 December 2020.

• Work with Trust leaders and Phil Davis to ensure Wingfield staff, students, advisors and parents recognise the positive transfer into NCLT.

• Wingfield Academy transferred into NCLT.

• NCLT support Wingfield Academy to achieve its DEP targets.

December 2020 RPF JV PD

• Transfer completed December 2021.

• Alignment of financial processes and procedures.

• HR, payroll, IT, Health and Safety, GDPR and safeguarding are now all fully functioning as Trust Support Services.

• WFA leaders attend TET, Safeguarding, Teaching for Learning ½ termly meetings.

• Cross College/Academy lesson observations have taken place to learn from each other.

• A successful 12-month review has been completed and presented to the Board of Directors.

• Work continues in order to align Wingfield Academy and the Colleges with regard to education systems and procedures, whilst at the same time, back office services.

• The Academy Data Manager is now based at NCP and has become part of the Central Trust Team in order to align how we present data.

• We are in the process of bringing the exams function at the Academy centrally under the guidance of the Trust Exams Manager.

• With regard to developing the secondary arm of the Trust:

• RF/PD have been in regular contact with the RSC office re our intensions to grow.

• Partnerships have been established with Selby High School and Hayfield High School.

• The latest partnership which is developing fairly quickly, is with Minsthorpe Academy.

• NCD have secured a strong working relationship with

• The Trust has entered an informal partnership with LEAP Trust and has been supporting Dinnington 1118 Academy, Rotherham with mainly behaviour, attitudes and attendance. Informally, we have been creating a secondary network between Wingfield Academy and the two 11-18 schools in LEAP Trust, Dinnington and Brinsworth. The informal partnership work is being undertaken to establish if both the school leaders and Trust leaders can work together, and are a good (fit). If so then the partnership has the potential to develop further.

• Consider further growth opportunities which either add capacity and skills to the Trust or provide support to schools in need.

• Work with the Regional Schools Commissioner to explore opportunities to further grow.

• Phil Davis (Headteacher Wingfield) will lead on establishing and liaising with potential schools to develop the secondary arm.

• Identification of potential schools to join NCLT.

• Exploratory meetings arranged with key leaders and governing bodies.

January –July 2021 September 20212023

• RPF/PD have met with the RSC for Midlands and the Humber to discuss future growth in the Secondary sector, South Yorkshire Regions.

• Exploratory meetings to develop Secondary arm of the Trust have taken place with Winterhill Academy and Selby High School.

• Huddersfield New College approached the CEO to discuss their future options, with one being joining an existing Trust. This is now in the hands of their

South Axholme Academy and are currently providing A-level lessons in a range of subjects for their outgoing Y13 students.

• The RSC and Headteacher Board granted permission (Sept 22) for Creative Children’s Academy Trust to join NCLT. This transfer will add another dimension to NCLT by adding a Primary phase to the Trust. Lots of work is now ongoing to ensure a smooth transition. Thorpe Hesley, Redscope and Anston Greenland should transfer by the end of 2022.

• Meetings with Bradford LA have continued, re. the potential application to open an additional 16-19 Free School in Keighley, North Bradford.

• CEO Richard Fletcher has tasked Brendon Fletcher (Principal NCD) with leading the application to open New College Keighley. Brendon has put together a project team and is in constant liaison with Bradford LA. Brendon is currently working on the application which has to be submitted by November.

• Richard Fletcher, Diane Heritage and Phil Davis

• The 3 primary schools within the Creative Children Academy Trust (CCAT) joined NCLT on 1st January 2023. Work is now underway to establish new systems, primary structures, primary alignment in order to take all 3 schools forward, in particular around school improvement.

• Since the last strategic plan update in September 2022, NCLT has successfully grown from 4 institutions to 7. The Trust now has XXX members of staff and 7648 students.

• Explore new post 16 development opportunities through the free schools programme in order to enhance educational improvements and social mobility in areas of disadvantage.

• Continue to liaise with Bradford LA regarding the possibility of a post 16 provider in North Bradford (New College Keighley).

• Meet with the Free School Network to establish when the next wave of free schools presented to Selby High School Governors on the advantages of joining a Trust (Summer 2022)

• Follow up on initial meeting with Bradford LA and local MPs resulting in full support and backing to pursue a 3rd Free School application.

Governing Body.

• Meetings have taken place with Trudi Toms (Thorpe Hesley Head Teacher and CEO of Creative Children Academy Trust), regarding providing some of the shared services via a service level agreement. Discussions are on-going.

January 2021 to 2023

RPF JV

• Several meetings have taken place with Bradford Local Authority regarding a potential post16 free school for North Bradford, which would be named New College Keighley.

• Bradford Local Authority have confirmed that

• The Free School wave has now reopened. As mentioned in point 4, Brendon Fletcher is leading our application for a new post 16 College in Keighley of around 1000 students.

• The full application will be submitted by November. A project team of BF, JV, RF, SN, and three members of NCB Staff –Jim Robinson (AP) Jon Zeb (AP) and Raza Siddique –Head of Sport has been set up.

• An application to the DFE to open a third 16-19 Free School has been submitted. We are waiting on the decision. This piece of work has been led by Brendon Fletcher (principal at NCD) in conjunction with Jo Vickers (COO) and David Brighton (Communications). Outcomes are expect ‘Spring’ 2023 will be announced.

• Take advantage of any capital growth funding to further develop the estates and increase the capacity to meet the rising population demographic.

• Continue to follow the SFCA updates regarding capital growth funding opportunities.

• Appointment of Bid Writer for the Trust to keep a breadth of new developments and opportunities.

• Capital funding made available by the DfE.

• Successful application submitted.

NCLT is their preferred partner for any future venture.

• Waiting on Government announcement on the next wave of free school applications, delayed due to COVID and Government finances.

• Appointed David Brighton as the internal Bid Writer for the Trust, who now supports all 4 institutions with and grants and funding opportunities that become available.

• David is currently working on a Literacy bid for WFA.

• An application has been made for post16 capital

• We are working with the Bradford LA on introductions to other local providers, local community etc.

• We were successful with the Shine project to support literacy across the feeder Primaries for WFA and students from Pontefract supporting reading skills at Wingfield and the Primaries (£70K)

• We were successful in obtaining £1.6 m in funding for the LAW extension and work was completed in time for our September 2022 start of year.

• We have submitted a significant change application for a temporary increase in WFA’s PAN. This was rejected by the local authority who advised they would accept the

• WE have been successful with a TCAF bid of £168,000 which recognises Trust Growth. The bid contained funds to support implementing a new Trust finance system, marketing of the new schools, primary CPD, IT updates.

• We have also submitted a bid for 2.6m to the Post 16 Capacity Fund for an extension to Doncaster to accommodate the rise in 16-19 population. Results are expected Spring 2023.

• We have submitted CIF bids for NCP and the Primaries for various projects to upgrade fire protection and alarm systems. We were

Establishing a first class shared services model

expansion fund for an extension of LAW at NCP. Awaiting results in Autumn term.

• WFA are currently in consultation to make an application to increase their Pupil Admissions Number (PAN).

• Depending on the success of the application, WFA intend to build new classrooms via CIF or other funding streams.

temporary increase but not a longer increase as it impacted on rolls of other providers. We successfully converted some rooms into additional classrooms space for September.

• We are currently investigating putting more permanent additional classrooms at Wingfield to accommodate the increase in numbers.

• We are also putting in a bid to the post-16 expansion fund now it has reopened to fund additional classrooms at Doncaster to account for future growth.

unsuccessful with a bid for the replacement of H Block at Pontefract through the rebuilding schools programme but have also bid under CIF for this work.

6

• Provide a highly effective and efficient shared services model to support the

• Review the current shared services functions.

• Provide a benchmarking exercise to the BOD each year

• A fully functioning shared services model providing effective services for Wingfield

November 2020-July 2021

RPF JV

January 2021

• Benchmarking exercises took place October 2020 to establish staff views in the current shared services. To be repeated

• We carried out a review of all the support services and they produced QUIPs for each area identifying the main areas of work this year and their priorities. These reviews were shared with Trust

• Trust shared services staff have now moved into the new Trust offices based at Normanton, so all shared service teams are located on one site, freeing up space at NCP. This has improved smooth running and manageme nt of Trust services, regularly benchmark ed. annually to establish progress/view s. leaders. This process will be repeated annually. collaborative working across the teams and improved productivity.

–benchmarking the individual colleges against each other on key performance indicators.

Academy, including Finance, HR, Health & Safety, Estates, GDPR and IT.

• Ensure each of the Colleges is providing value for money and best practice.

• COO benchmarked the College against key performance indictors to ensure value for money (currently not available nationally).

• We are looking at other ways in which this process can be completed and hoping that the SFC are going to provide some national benchmarking that we can use. This does not seem to have been forthcoming so we are working internally to produce some benchmarking.

• Continue to invest in new technology to support the developme nt of Trust shared services.

• Ensure that the Trust is investing in new technology to support the development of the shared services looking at for example parent pay options, Work experience software, risk assessment software, IT/Site logging systems.

• Trust develops an implementatio

• The experience for the end users –students, parents, staff is enhanced and the services provided are improved and monitored

Ongoing during academic year 202021

JV

• Invested in financial project planning software to assist financial planning and monitoring.

• New development s are introduced in a timely way to avoid disruption to services

• Research and development of the Power BI tool to provide live dashboard of data. Some of this work is now complete and some is on-going.

• Invested in Evolve software to assist Trips

• We have purchased a package called IMP which is currently in the development stage and we hope to have this available for this year’s forecasting. Still ongoing. We are also considering a new overall finance system to replace Dream - as our current system is not supported longer term.

• Power Bi has been developed extensively across all the colleges and WFA and is being used effectively by a range of managers/leaders.

• Power BI will replace all Data Dashboards for Academic Year 2022/23 and will be used by

• New finance system has been purchased called SAGE and will be fully used by all 7 Trust institutions. Training for all of the finance team is currently underway.

• PowerBI has also been successfully implemented across the 3 colleges and Wingfield and will be shortly rolled out in the primaries as we continue to align data and assessment systems.

• Continue to ensure that we are an employer of choice, to support talent manageme nt, with clear n plan for new developments and Visits process across the Trust. leaders and Directors/Advisors to monitor performance.

• Introduction of new job ticketing system for Estates and IT.

• Planned recruitment of a cyber security post for the Trust.

• A training session for the use of Power BI will be scheduled for this term.

• Evolve has also been rolled out to all institutions for all trips and visits.

• Job ticketing system is now in full operation for both Estates and IT

• We have recruited to the cyber security post and he is conducting regular audits of the systems and vulnerabilities to the IT Manager. This is working well. For various reasons this did not progress well and the member of staff left. We are now exploring alternative ways of providing this additional security thorough a contracted provider.

• Continue implementing the ‘Employer of Choice’ action plan. HR will lead on, working closely with the CEO, COO, Marketing

• Staff retention rates and staff turnover remain inline with previous years, continuing to be

September 2021 RPF LW

• Staff retention and turnover remained very strong this past 12 months and well-above sector averages.

• Staff retention remains very strong compared to national averages, as evidenced in the HR report presented to the BoD.

• The review of all support staff pay grades have continued to take place throughout this academic

• The Wellbeing Charter survey has just been completed by Trust staff and ……… succession plans which are sustainable resulting in strong staff recruitment and retention. manager and college Principals. significantly stronger than national averages.

• Staff surveys continue to be very positive and in line with previous years.

• A systematic review of staffing levels and pay grades has taken place for all the support functions in the Trust. This has resulted in increased staff levels in IT, HR, MIS, Students Services, Health and Safety, Estates, Study Support and Progress Tutors.

• The review has also resulted in the rebanding of most support services.

• Well-being policy has been revamped to enhanced the provision of well-being activities at each College (including the re-distribution of the rewards year, with the vast majority of roles being increased /regraded and moved up the support staff pay scale.

• The Trust’s plans to become an employer of choice have continued. However, we have withdrawn the budget allocated to staff wellbeing and have adopted a different approach.

• In Academic Year 2021/22 the Trust produced a Wellbeing Charter in order to prioritise the health and wellbeing of its staff. We are currently working on the best way to regularly impact assess against the identified 8 priorities.

• In September 2022, the Trust launched its very own People’s Strategy. The Strategy ensures Trust staff remain at the centre of everything we do, adopting a “staff first” culture.

• Both initiatives are intended to cement the Trust as the Employer of Choice.

• Ensure the Trust shared services functions are suitably staffed to provide outstanding support for 11-16 schools.

• COO and HR Director to lead developments on ensuring the current services fit the needs of an 11-16 school.

• Appoint a customer services/relati ons manager to be the first point of contact for Wingfield staff if they have concerns about the quality of the shared services provided.

• Wingfield staff are fully ofay with how the shared services work.

November 2020 to July 2021 budget into supporting more wellbeing activities for wider staff).

JV • Appointment of Finance Director, Dave Hunt to work closely with WFA and ensure that all finance systems are aligned. This has proven to be an effective appointment.

• Numerous training events have taken place to upskill WFA support staff in HR and finance.

• Relations Manager appointed for the Trust.

• The Finance Director, Finance Manager and School Business Manager meet regularly each week. Training has taken place with finance staff at WFA to ensure they are fully supported with Trust systems.

• We have reviewed the role of Relations Manager and decided this person should now support on all Trust events.

• Having purchased a building in a neutral location (not on any college/academy site), we are moving all the Trust shared staff, currently based at NCP, to new premises. We hope this will improve the culture and efficiency and will further support the Colleges and Schools within the Trust. This move should take place by November 2022.

Nothing to update except the services are at full capacity now. Any future growth of the Trust may require a re-think.

Strong sustained financial health

Set challenging financial targets for each Trust school/colle ge to reflect their individual context ensuring they achieve a positive cash surplus.

• The trust will set a positive surplus target for the school/College s of around 3% – if this cannot be achieved then there must be a three-year plan which returns the academy back to positive surplus and in line with the targets set for the other schools/colleg es

• Those schools/colleg es running deficit budgets must have sufficient reserves to meet any deficit.

• All the schools/colle ges should have regard to ensuring that their budgets balance and that expenditure is closely monitored to avoid deficits.

• The curriculum offer should be regularly tested and costed to ensure it is fit for purpose.

Budget setting each year in June/July

JV

• All the colleges have met or exceeded their targets.

• Strong student recruitment has resulted in additional inyear funds being available at NCB and NCP.

• All budgets are closely monitored and we fully expect each institution to meet or exceed their budgeted surpluses.

• Additional funding was received by Bradford and Pontefract for in-year growth.

• We are in the process of finalising this years’ accounts but are confident the target surpluses have been met.

Budget work has now started on 2023/4 budgets incorporating the Primaries. This will be presented to the Audit and BOD in June/July

Additional in year funding was received again for Bradford. Pay awards are all settled and paid now with the proviso that if a new National Settlement is made we will have to revisit.

• Ensure we achieve value for money in all our purchasing

• By having centralised purchasing for the trust, we can take advantage of

• This will achieve value for money and help to keep

Ongoing during the year 202021

JV

• Strong adherence to financial procedures ensures best value for

• Internal audit gave Strong for this area.

• Savings have been made on a variety of contracts due to our buying power, energy, cleaning

Ongoing on any new tenders. Recently retendered External Audit and Cloud migration. Building tenders for operations, to utilise our collective purchasing power. economies of scale/trust purchasing power. overhead costs down. money on all purchases. materials, IT equipment, various maintenance contracts etc. various works are also in progress.

• Tenders where possible will be at trust level to ensure best value.

• Increased buying power has allowed the Trust to negotiate discounts on numerous building and estate contracts.

• Tenders have been renegotiated for NCD buses, website redesign and prospectus, LAW extension (NCP) and LAC shop (NCP).

• Current tenders in negotiation: Photocopying and Auditing services. Completed tender for Doncaster Buses.

• Continue to build up Trust reserves which allow for future investment in each Academies estate to provide first class facilities to support outstanding teaching

• Each college/school s to build up reserves to reinvest in large building projects where appropriate.

• The estates strategic plan will set out the longer-term development needs of each school/college.

• By having a long-term estates development plan for each school/colleg e this will help to ensure that we can meet future needs of students and staff considering demographic trends.

Ongoing during year 202024

JV

• Each college has built up a strong level of reserves which will enable them to continue to invest in firstclass facilities.

• Substantial investment in IT to support home learning during the pandemic (particularly for and learning. disadvantaged students).

• The Trust has capital building plans for the reinvestment of reserves in Pontefract, Bradford and Doncaster. Please see Estates Strategy.

• Both Doncaster and WFA were anticipating losses which we are hoping to keep to a minimum or turn into surpluses this year (we fully expect both these institutions have managed to return small surpluses this year).

Trust has used its reserves for various building projects at Pontefract and the refurbishment of Normanton as Trust HQ. Further projects have been planned.

• The trust will continue to work with other consultants/ar chitects/projec t managers to bid for any future capital funds.

• To take advantage of any capital funds which might become available in the future to support the development of first-class facilities.

• Due to a down-turn in student recruitment at NCD last academic year, this will result in a deficit budget for 2021/22. This will be met from NCD’s reserves.

• WFA are working hard to reduce the deficit with plans to run surplus budget by 2022/23.