1(a) Why have the governors submitted an application for TRS to join the Cranmer Education Trust?
This is a decision that the governors have been weighing up for nearly two years. We want the best for our young people. With so many pressures on schools and communities, it makes sense to work together. We want to be a partner in a family that invests in its people and in its schools and shares the knowledge and experience; so that our students get the best a family of schools can offer.
We spent a lot of time researching the possibilities and spoke to a number of great school trusts. We are grateful for the time they gave us. In the end we have decided Cranmer Education Trust was the right one for TRS because:
- Cranmer is really invested in the quality of education. We spoke to their Headteachers, senior leaders and staff. We completely share their values of Ambition, Excellence and Community
- Cranmer is well-established. They are a medium-sized trust with a lot of experience of managing growth and developing strong schools. The central team is lean and focuses on growing school leadership and quality. Financially they are sound. What came over strongly was that they know what they are doing – and they respect our strengths and experience.
- Cranmer is locally based with schools in Oldham (The Blue Coat, Brian Clarke, Mayfield Primary, St George’s Primary East Crompton and the recently confirmed St Matthew’s), and Middleton (St Anne’s along with imminent arrivals St John’s Thornham and Little Heaton CE). The trustees are local people who are committed to the future of our young people. That is important for us.
- The Cranmer culture is collaborative; the central trust works with the schools at every level, and the schools work together for the students. There is a very strong sense and culture of mutual help and support
- We know that all schools are equal partners. Each one has strengths and areas for improvement, TRS will add to those strengths, and that provides further development for our staff
- Cranmer has strong networks beyond the trust family in initial teacher training and staff development through the East Manchester Teaching School Hub and the curriculum networks. We are already part of these, and we know that the trust has more expertise through these networks that we can tap into.
- The proof is there. We know that their approach has led to continuing improvement and success in their schools, both secondary and primary, and from very different bases and in very different circumstances. .
- Our students often choose to go the Sixth Form at Blue Coat, which is part of the CET, where they do really well. Our students will always be able to choose where they go for A levels, but as part of the trust they will be able to benefit from additional specialist support that Cranmer is developing through Blue Coat.
- As a partner in Cranmer we will be a strong, independent, local voice that advocates for education. Our teachers, business staff and governors will add to the quality.
1(b) Does joining a trust mean that the school is no longer part of the Local Authority?
TRS will remain a member of the network of secondaries in Oldham. The CET as a trust works in civic partnership with Local Authorities.
1(c) Is the school being instructed by the Department for Education to academize?
No, this is entirely the governors’ decision, because the governors are the responsible body for a Foundation school, and we have resolved to do this for the benefit of TRS, pupils and staff and all our parents, carers and stakeholders. We have told the LA that we were thinking of academization and joining a trust. They support the direction of travel we are taking. Our foundation is in the principles of the cooperative movement. We believe in working together.
2. What will it mean for the pupils/students of TRS? Will we be able to keep our identity?
From the start governors were clear that TRS has a long and proud history of serving young people and our community, and we have a clear and distinctive identity. We did not want to join an organization that is very “corporate”. The CET is very clear (and you can see this in their school members) that all the schools are unique and distinctive. They have shared values, principles, policies, and a family identity, but within that the schools are different, and they look different and recognizably themselves:
- They have their own uniform.
- They decide their own environment/colours.
- They set their own term and holiday dates (within the LA pattern – nothing causes more problems for parents than having to work around different school holidays)
- All policy is based on shared principles, applied to the context of the school.
How pupils will benefit – will be that their school is part of a bigger family which gives it security, the benefit of shared resource and the support for staff including a range of expertise to call down and therefore, high-quality in everything we do.
3. How will staff be affected? Will staff have to move between schools?
Currently, the employer is the Governing Body. All permanent staff will be transferred to the CET on their existing terms and conditions of employment. They are protected,. The unions will all be involved. CET has a Joint Consultation and Negotiation Committee, with all unions representing education sector employees to consult on policy across the trust.
Once in CET, staff remain working in their school. The CET does offer secondments across schools (which have been successful) for professional development. As part of the School Improvement Strategy, staff across the trust work and plan together on priorities. Experienced staff in one school can support new staff in another. Resources are shared, including lesson planning and online learning, and people coach one another.
Networks between support staff are particularly useful as these posts can be quite isolated in a single school.
4(a) TRS is a community school. Will this character be preserved?
The CET is a “mixed” trust – it can provide a home for faith schools and community schools. The Articles of Association (the rules that govern the trust) state that the character of each school must be upheld.
Cranmer is firmly committed to upholding and maintaining the character of TRS as a community school. There is already one community school in the trust and others are likely to follow
Our assemblies and provision for RE will not be affected in any way. RE is part of the National Curriculum, and it is important that students understand and respect the importance of faith for many people: that is part of growing up in a diverse, pluralistic society.
Religious Studies is a GCSE option at TRS, and it could be helpful for our RS staff to work with teachers in schools where the departments are bigger, such as The Blue Coat School.
5(a) Will the Admissions Policy change? Who decides?
No. In law, any change to admissions policies can only be made after consultation and all policies must comply with the Admissions Code (Sept 2021). If the code changes then schools have to adjust policy in line with this. It is the responsibility of the Trust Board to ensure that school policies comply with statutory requirements.
5(b) How will parents and other members of the community be consulted?
We want everyone connected with TRS to be able to have their say, and plan to do this in 2 stages. This is the start of the first, informal stage. We are informing all parents and other interested parties, so people know the intended direction of travel.. We have started this list of FAQs which we hope will answer a lot of the initial questions. We will add to the list as we go along.
There will be a formal consultation lasting 6 weeks when the process is more advanced. The journey to joining the CET could take 18 months because our PFI status (see 8(b) below) adds a degree of complexity. We plan to launch our formal consultation in the early summer of 2024, by which stage we will have a lot more detail (and experience). The staff consultation for TUPE would come after that, leading up to our joining the CET probably in the Autumn of 2024/Spring 2025.
6. Who will own the school – the land and buildings?
We are a brand new PFI school, in a contract with Kier which will continue until 2033, Kier will continue to provide our facilities services. Cranmer knows that our staff are experts in running the contract on the ground and that we have very good relationships with Kier. They are clear that they want our staff to continue to do this. We will work together with the CET officers to keep them fully informed. At the end of the PFI, we will together make the decisions about how the services are contracted for the future to ensure the best value for money.
Land – the land has always belonged to the Local Authority and will continue to do so, but it will be leased to the CET for 125 years, as is the case with e.g The Brian Clarke Academy.
7. Does the academization process cost the school money?
We will receive a grant of £25k from the Department for Education to pay the legal expenses.
We will also receive the Department for Education support in managing the PFI aspects.
The process will take time, which has a cost, but we will be working with the CET to manage it. It will take us to a position where the governors unanimously agree that the school will be even stronger.
8(b) How long does the process take?
Probably 18 months. It is important that all details are thoroughly investigated and there are no surprises. Over that period we will be working with Cranmer to build the partnership and relationships. Our PFI contract involves third parties,, which is why the process takes longer. It isn’t a problem or obstacle – academization of PFI schools is now well established and the DfE have a process and suite of documents to work through.
We are applying for approval from the DfE through the Regional Director. The aim is to get this onto the Advisory Board agenda in June. Once that is agreed, we will receive an Academy Order and a grant to cover the legal costs.
9. Who will run the school on a day-to-day basis?
The same people who run it now – the Headteacher and school leadership, working within the wider trust frameworks.
10(a) What happens to the current governors?
A school trust is set up legally as a company and has to file its accounts at Companies House, so it is very transparent. It is also an exempt charity (i.e. a charity that is not required to register with the Charity Commission). Its top level of governance is the Board of Trustees who are responsible to the Secretary of State for education for:
- The quality of education in all of their schools
- The use of public money, propriety, regularity and value for money.
- The staff. The trustees are the single employer of all staff in the trust.
The trust board of the CET delegates extensively to committees, and the current governing body will become a committee of the trust board with the delegated responsibility for the quality of education and the statutory committees and responsibilities for Special Needs , Safeguarding, Pupil Premium, Looked After Children, Careers and independent advice and guidance at the school level.. Elected parents and staff are represented on the local committee. The trust will ask our governors to stay as the local governing committee for the school. The difference will be that they are accountable to the trust board and will work within the policies and systems set by the trust board. In many respects this makes governance more manageable for local governors because the financial, personnel, IT/cyber-risk, GDPR, top level Health and Safety etc responsibilities are dealt with by the officers of the trust, working with our professional, experienced and expert staff, and governors can concentrate on the school and the children.
10(b) If local governance does most of what it does now, what does the Trust Board do?
Academies are probably the most regulated bodies in the public sector, which means that there are additional duties and requirements which don’t apply for maintained schools where everything goes through the Local Authority. The Trust Board takes on all the additional requirements, and has responsibility for all the schools, and is accountable to the Secretary of State for the quality of education across the schools, for the efficient and effective disbursement of a great deal of public money and publicly and transparently accounting for that under both Company Law and Charities SORP, and as the employer of all the staff. Its approach is strategic: its commitment is to the young people and their future, and the quality of our communities across NE Manchester.
11. Who decides uniform, terms, dates and holidays?
The Headteacher and local governance.
12. Who appoints the staff?
As now, the Headteacher is responsible for the appointment and management of staff.
The CET, as the overall employer, is represented on the panels for the appointment of a Headteacher along with local governance and with the Headteacher in the appointment of deputies.
13. Currently the headteacher is accountable to governors. Does this change?
In a trust the Headteacher’s line manager is the CEO. The relationship is much closer than it is with e.g the Director of Education in a LA. The trust delegates the responsibility for the quality of education to the local governing body, so the Headteacher is accountable to his/her governors through their regular governance meetings.
14. How much autonomy will our school have in CET?
Schools are very accountable and highly regulated bodies, and academies even more so. As national policy changes, schools must change with it. There isn’t much space for autonomy. Some trusts reduce what there is further, usually for good reasons, and have the same curriculum, identical policies for behaviour, assessment, etc in their schools.
One of the reasons we went for Cranmer was because they don’t centralise on the detail, but work on common principles and learning which is based in research and evidence. How that is implemented in different schools depends on context. Cranmer is committed to schools, and, crucially, staff having agency. That is fundamental to their People Strategy, where professionals are supported to develop and innovate, and be creative – all within shared principles,- so we are all growing and learning. There are no ceilings for pupils, and there aren’t any for staff either.
15. Has the school taken this decision due to its current overall Ofsted rating?
No. Since October 2021 the school has independently made huge strides in addressing the areas for development listed in the most recent Ofsted report. This progress has been verified by external consultants and the ‘School Improvement Partnership Board’ established by the local authority following the school’s inspection.
We remain very confident that our current trajectory would result in an improved outcome for the school if we were to be inspected in the next 18 months and we still intend to request an early inspection once the full cycle of current improvement strategies have been completed and validated by the SIP Board and other expert consultants.
In addition, it is clear that the proposed partnership with the Cranmer Trust would support our vision to embed further, sustained improvements in the long term and to be a beacon of excellence in all elements of secondary education.
