Dear Parents and Carers,
I am writing with some important and exciting news about the future of The Radclyffe School.
Currently The Radclyffe School is part of a ‘Co-operative Learning Trust’, a partnership network that was set up over a decade ago which includes ten of our nearby primary schools and other local organisations. There have been many changes since then affecting education and schools, and, as we all know, things have got tougher for children and families. Over the last year, a working party of the Governing Board, including myself, has been investigating potential future pathways for the school hich will benefit our pupils and staff, strengthen what we can offer, and continue and deepen our commitment to partnership.
Our working party has met with representatives from a number of local academies and multi-academy trusts to learn more about their ethos, vision and values and to determine whether it would be beneficial for our school, our young people and our staff to join one of them on a formal basis. The working party has regularly fed back its findings to the full Governing Board and has sought and received approval for all of the steps it has taken in the last twelve months. This has been a very thorough, detailed and fair process which has undergone due scrutiny at every stage.
At this month’s Full Governing Board meeting on 7th March, the working party made a recommendation regarding the school’s future which was unanimously approved by all members. I am writing to you today to share this with you.
The Radclyffe School governors have decided to begin the process of applying for academy status and join The Cranmer Education Trust (CET). The CET is an extremely well-respected local multi-academy trust which includes The Blue Coat School and The Brian Clarke Academy. We already work closely with The Cranmer Education Trust on teacher training and development. We believe firmly that this partnership will be to the benefit of our pupils and our staff, and to the future of our school. It will not affect our relationship with primaries. Our staff will be protected and will keep their terms and conditions of employment. The process takes some time, and there will be a full consultation involving all our community.
The governors appreciate that you may have immediate questions about how this might affect your children. To start with, we have created a ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ document which provides much more detail on
- why we have come to this decision,
- what this would mean in practice for our school and community,
- the likely timescales.
This is the first step in sharing the information with you. Please read the FAQs and if there are any other questions you would like to ask, please do contact me via the [email protected] email address.
Please be assured that the Governing Board and I are fully committed to doing the very best for our school, our students and our community. We firmly believe that this provides the best opportunity for our young people, and our staff who serve them, to progress, flourish and thrive, and for our school to secure sustained stability and development in the future.
Yours faithfully,
Mr J Cregg
Headteacher
Mrs S Webb
Chair of the Governing Board
