Academies Enterprise Trust Corporate Plan 2014-2017
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Contents INTRODUCTION
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OUR PURPOSE, VISION AND VALUES
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OUR CONTEXT AND CURRENT PERFORMANCE
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OUR KEY PRIORITIES FOR 2014-2017
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Provide strong governance, leadership and accountability
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Build the capacity of our academies to continually improve their performance
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Close the gap in educational outcomes by having high expectations of all children and young people 13 Improve our organisation capability by investing in our people
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Deliver high-quality, value-for-money support services
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METRICS
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Appendix
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Introduction Academies Enterprise Trust (“AET”) was set up in 2008 as an educational charity and company limited by guarantee. AET developed from Greensward College, which is based in Hockley, Essex. This connection continues and is reflected in the on-going involvement of the Greensward Charitable Trust, which remains as principal sponsor and guardian of the moral purpose that underpins AET. Since our establishment, we have grown organically as we have responded to requests for schools to become academies. As part of this growth, we have created a group structure comprising AET and two subsidiary companies: London Academies Enterprise Trust and Unity City Academy Trust. In our first six years we have developed rapidly from three secondary-age academies in Essex to 76 primary, secondary and special academies located across England. In 2012, our board of trustees agreed that there should be a period of consolidation once all of the ‘pipeline’ academies had transferred to the group in 2013 and there should be a pause on our considering any more academies. This corporate plan sets out a clear strategic direction for the next three years. It provides a number of key goals that apply across the group and corporate priorities that aim to support the achievement of these goals. The corporate plan is the foundation for a strong sense of organisational purpose -a ‘golden thread’- that is shared by all employees and developed through the alignment of academy and service development plans and individual performance management objectives. Importantly, the corporate plan builds on the key strength across the group– a strong moral purpose, vision and values, and a deep commitment to make a difference to the lives of children and young people.
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Our purpose, vision and values The Greensward Charitable Trust when deciding to set up AET articulated our moral purpose as: “…to provide outstanding education to all children and young people. We are fully inclusive in our provision in terms of social background, ability, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexuality. We strive to ensure access for all to educational excellence in preparing young people for their futures, seeking to continually improve levels of attainment and progress for all, and secure the highest levels of achievement appropriate to the individual learner. We believe that education should be a seamless experience from pre-school to adulthood, that is challenging and inspiring, and which makes a significant contribution to the social and economic well-being of the local community and the nation”. The Trust holds us all to account for the delivery of this moral purpose and receives regular updates from the board through general meetings of the members of AET. We have a clear and challenging vision: To deliver world-class learning outcomes; employ and develop world-class staff; and enable sustainable world-class communities”. Our vision is supported by three core values that are integral to our success. We aim to be: The education provider of choice for pupils and students Our ambition as the education provider of choice for children and young people is to do everything we can to ensure that our pupils and students achieve outstanding results at all stages and ages, appropriate to their ability. In order to do that, we need our pupils and students to attend school and enjoy learning. Part of that enjoyment is in co-curricular activities that give our pupils and students opportunities to engage in sport, performing arts and activities that develop teamwork and leadership. The investment of choice for parents Our aim is to make each of our academies the first choice for local families, not because there is no other school locally, or because it is too far to travel to the next town or beyond, but because it is a centre of excellence for education for the whole community. We want our parents to be assured that their child receives high quality tuition, provided by teachers who are all
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assessed as good or outstanding and who are skilled in the subject/phase they are teaching. The employer of choice for staff Our aim is to make our organisation and our academies the first choice for leaders, teachers and support staff. We want to recruit, develop and retain the best staff, provide them with good conditions of service and flexible benefits. We aim to reward success through effective appraisal and support our people by providing opportunities for on-going professional development. Implicit in these core values and underpinning the way that we work is our belief in:
Respect for individuals - we work together to create a culture based on trust, respect and dignity. Integrity - we are open, honest and direct in our dealings Collaboration – we know that there is strength in working together, communicating, sharing ideas and best practice and finding more efficient and effective ways to deliver our objectives Continual improvement – we are a learning organisation that strives always to ‘make our best better.’ Accountability – we hold ourselves accountable and take ownership of those things for which we are responsible.
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Our context and current performance AET is the largest multi-academy trust and our growth has been faster than most. The profile of the academies that are part of our group presents a range of challenges. With growth came geographical spread away from the initial secondary academies and the AET head office, in Essex. The growth has been organic, with academies joining the group from all parts of England. There has not been a focus on restricting academies to distinct areas and, as a result, there is a wide dispersal. The development of geographical clusters with mixed phases has been essential to managing this growth, driving local service offerings and ‘school to school support’; although some clusters are less well formed than others.
A number of schools joining the group as academies have a history of underperformance with outcomes below national average. Over a third of our academies are located in the top 20% most deprived areas in England for child poverty, with high levels of children and young people in receipt of free school meals, high levels of mobility and low attainment on entry. In some of our mainstream academies, significant numbers of children and young people have special educational needs and disabilities, in many cases significantly higher than the national average. We currently have seven special academies and twenty-two specialist provisions attached to our mainstream academies. There is also a significant proportion of pupils in our primary academies whose first language is not English.
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We have risen to these challenges and strived to improve our academies and their outcomes for children and young people. Our GCSE results have improved year on year up to 2013. In 2013, we saw an increase of 4 percentage points in the measure of 5 GCSEs at grade C or above, including English and mathematics (“5ACEM”) compared to a decrease nationally of 7
0.8 percentage points. However in 2014, major changes were made to Key Stage 4 performance measures, which has resulted in a drop in our overall performance.
Our primary academies are key to ensuring that children are ready and equipped for secondary education. The outcomes at Key Stage 2 (KS2) are a good indicator of how successful children will be later in their school life. Raising standards in all attainment and progress measures remains a focus for improvement across all our academies. Our Key Stage 2 results have increased steadily over the last 4 years and are moving closer to the national results.
Our financial sustainability and ensuring ‘value for money’ in the delivery of quality teaching and learning is crucial. The last six years’ financial performance can be shown in a summary of the group financial statements below. 8
AET Financial Statement £’m (Year end 31 August actual)
2008-09
2009-10
2010-11
2011-12
2012-13
£24.7
£37.9
£62.1
£149.0
£280.9
£(23.3)
£(36.1)
£(62.2)
£(140.0)
£(259.8)
Net Income/(Outgoings)
£1.4
£1.8
£(0.1)
£9.0
£21.1
General Funds
£1.0
£0.4
£2.0
£10.6
£31.5
% Income (Educational)
4.1%
1.1%
3.2%
7.1%
11.2%
Funds c/fwd (incl FA fund & pension) = Net Assets
£(2.3)
£40.2
£98.1
£225.9
£453.9
Funding Educational Operations Expenditure Educational Operations
We aim to ‘grow our own’ teachers through the creation of an Initial Teacher Training Programme that will provide the quantity and quality of teachers required by our academies to improve. We are already on track with a set of partnerships that has provided us with the experience required to take ownership of our own programme, providing a stream of high quality teachers in the subject and phase areas we need. This programme will allow local variations in numbers, subject and phase and provide us with a platform to continue our improvement by having an improving teacher workforce year on year. We will increase the number of our academies involved in the School Direct Programme, with training at the heart of each academy ensuring all our teachers keep up-to-date with the latest technology, subject knowledge and pedagogical research, as well as undertaking the role of a professional exemplar of best practice to those in initial training.
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Our cluster groups are ideal for promoting ‘school to school support’. Each cluster is developing its own teams of Specialist Leaders of Education (“SLEs”) accredited to deliver training in local schools in key areas of need. These teams are supported as they form and grow in size and confidence. We already have over 100 SLEs and we aim to continue this growth.
We recognise that we have a long way to go before we can achieve our vision. With only 43% of our academies judged good or better as at September 2014, we need to have a clear focus on school improvement and ensure that we use our resources wisely to improve the outcomes for all of the children and young people in our academies. The ISOS review conducted in 2013 allowed us to take stock of where we were. It concluded that although there were some important strengths that lie behind our success to date, we had not adjusted well enough to the increase in our size, diversity or the degree of challenge that many of our academies face. The ISOS review set out three clear goals that form the focus of planning throughout our organisation. 1. Sustainable improvement in attainment and progress outcomes overall for pupils in our academies; 2. Academies in a category making speedier progress, getting out of a category quickly and not slipping back in; and 3. The Ofsted profile for AET academies shifting in two years towards at least two-thirds good or outstanding.
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Our key priorities for 2014-2017 We have agreed five key priorities for the next three years: 1. Provide strong governance, leadership and accountability; 2. Build the capacity of our academies to continually improve their performance 3. Close the gap in educational outcomes by having high expectations of all children and young people; 4. Improve our organisation capability by investing in our people; 5. Deliver high-quality, value-for-money support services. By focussing on these priorities we aim to achieve the three goals agreed following the ISOS review.
Key Priority 1 Provide strong governance, leadership and accountability Strong governance and leadership is key to the success of any organisation. As a multi-academy trust responsible for a large number of academies, it is essential that we have absolute clarity about accountability at all levels. This presents a number of challenges. The fact that we are one company, one employer of staff and one admissions authority creates both opportunities and pressures. Schools that become academies in a multi- academy trust give up some of their sovereignty in return for the support provided by being part of a family of schools. The balance between local and central decisionmaking has to be carefully managed to ensure that principals, headteachers and local governors are empowered to drive up performance and ensure that every child is given the best education possible. Our Board of Trustees is accountable for the governance of all our academies. It distributes that accountability through its committees and its executive. At academy level, the Board has put in place a local governing body or management board, which holds the principal or head teacher to account for the educational performance of the academy and its pupils or students and oversees the financial performance of the academy, making sure its money is well spent. In order to achieve this priority we will:
Provide strong strategic leadership from our Board and executive; 11
Keep our governance structures under review ensuring that there are clear and robust systems of accountability;
Ensure that every academy has a dynamic local governing body or management board that understands its responsibilities and is focussed tightly on its core strategic functions;
Ensure that our Trustees and local governors have the necessary skills and experience to be effective in their roles;
Provide up to date, transparent data on our performance and the performance of our academies;
Embed performance management throughout the organisation;
Embed risk management as an overarching philosophy and culture in the organisation;
Ensure the effective deployment of resources across the organisation
Ensure the on-going financial strength & capacity of the organisation, in order to maximise the resources, which can be dedicated to supporting our prime focus upon school improvement and teaching and learning
Key Priority 2 Build the capacity of our academies to continually improve their performance Over half of our academies are judged as requiring improvement or inadequate. Many of these academies are located in areas of disadvantage and have struggled for many years. The task of change may seem overwhelming and additional support is required to boost capacity to overcome the hurdles that are hindering school improvement. This does not mean that we ignore our good and outstanding schools. They too need to improve their performance continually and receive support and challenge. In order to achieve this priority we will:
Build leadership, trust, ownership and a shared vision of change amongst staff; Mobilise resources to support change; Use data to drive reform in assessing performance and setting high goals; Promote parental involvement and community support by developing strong partnerships; 12
Develop strong clusters of academies that work collaboratively to improve performance; Develop a cadre of Specialist Leaders of Education, Local Leaders of Education and National Leaders of Governance.
Key Priority 3 Close the gap in educational outcomes by having high expectations of all children and young people It is unacceptable that in our country there is such an enormous gap between the life chances of children from disadvantaged backgrounds, those with special educational needs and other children. The UK has one of the widest achievement gaps in the world and it has remained stubbornly so for a number of years. It is important that our academies focus not only on overall attainment, but on closing any attainment gaps. By closing these gaps we will not only improve the outcomes for disadvantaged children, but also improve our academies overall. In order to achieve this priority we will:
Target funding from the Pupil Premium directly on closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged children; Use data to identify gaps in attainment and develop responses; Provide additional targeted support for children with special needs and disabilities. Implement strategies to reduce the percentage of young people leaving our academies without a sustainable route into education employment or training. Equip our teachers to provide more good lessons irrespective of the socio-economic circumstance of the academy and student.
Key Priority 4 Improve our organisation capability by investing in our people “The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and principals, since student learning is ultimately the product of what goes on in classrooms.” PISA 2009: What makes a school successful? Teaching quality is widely recognised as the most essential in-school factor affecting learning. Improving teacher quality begins by attracting the best to the profession. However, this does not only apply to teachers. We also need to attract the best leaders and best support staff, both in our academies and in our central services teams. Having attracted the best staff we need to
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retain them and develop them in their career. By investing in our people we build a sustainable future. In order to achieve this priority we will:
Keep our terms and conditions of service under review to ensure that they attract and retain the best staff; Reward performance; Provide high quality professional development opportunities; Build capacity and capability at cluster level by ‘growing our own’ supply of high quality teachers through School Direct, engaging all academies in the training of teachers Provide an Initial Teacher Training Programme, accredited by a leading provider, that meets the needs of our academies at subject, phase and cluster level Utilise specialist leaders of education and develop highly skilled initial teacher training delivery teams at cluster level Ensure leadership pathways are strong and provide clear routes to progression Harvest talent within the organisation
Key Priority 5 Deliver high-quality, value-for-money support services As a multi academy trust we provide a range of services to our academies. It is important these services are of a high quality and represent value for money. Our academies also provide or secure a range of support services locally. These too need to be of a high quality and represent value for money. As we have grown we have inherited a number of services that are contracted from external providers. As these contracts come to an end it is essential that we use the scale of our organisation as a lever to drive down costs, without compromising quality, in order to secure greater investment in teaching and learning. In order to achieve this priority we will:
Keep our services under continuous review and wherever possible test the market to ensure that we are securing best value; Develop shared services and economic partnerships wherever appropriate; Challenge support services supply chain costs; Localise our support services at a cluster level; Develop clear group procurement initiatives that deliver better value purchasing across the academy estate; 14
Drive out cost and process inefficiencies and waste; Monitor ‘revenue and costs’ against key industry and company benchmarks; Focus resource where there is the greatest ‘value add’; Maximise the use of ICT to reduce service costs Provide high quality administrative support to underpin the effective delivery of services.
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Metrics 2012-13
2013-14
2014-15
% first choice applications (Reception and year 7)
-
-
46%
% academies full or oversubscribed (Reception and year 7)
-
-
70%
Annual parental survey
-
-
-
Value statement
Indicators
Investment of choice for parents
Employer of choice for staff
Education provider of choice for children/young people
% turnover of staff
Not available
% sickness absence
Not available
Average number of applications for vacant posts
Not available
Number of NQTs each year
Not available
Annual staff survey
Not available
% unauthorised absence
2.3%
% of pupils that are persistent absentees
7.7%
Average number of fixed term exclusions per pupil
Not available
Number of permanent exclusions
Not available
% academies with pupil/student voice
Not available
% academies with co-curricular programme
Not available
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2012-13
2013-14
34%
49%
0
0
8
7 (Est)
7 (Est)
63%
75% (Est)
85% (Est)
11.2
8.2% (Est)
6.6% (Est)
31%
43%
48
113
64%
70%
82%
87%
93%
92%
85%
88%
51%
46%
% pupils making at least three levels progress in English between Key Stage 2 and 4
67%
71%
% pupils making at least three levels progress in mathematics between Key Stage 2 and 4
63%
59%
Key priority
Indicators
Provide strong governance, leadership and accountability
% of Ofsted reports where leadership and management is judged good or better Number of National Leaders of Governance Number of internal audit findings % of academies with ‘established’ rating (and above) for audit % cash and reserves
Build the capacity of our academies to continually improve their performance
% Ofsted reports where academy is judged good or better
Close the gap in educational outcomes by having high expectations of all children and young people
% pupils achieving a level 4 or above in reading, writing and mathematics at Key Stage 2 % pupils making at least two levels progress in reading between Key Stage 1 and 2 % pupils making at least two levels progress in writing between Key Stage 1 and 2 % pupils making at least two levels progress in mathematics between Key Stage 1 and 2 % pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grades at GCSE including English and mathematics
Number of Specialist Leaders of Education
2014-15
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Improve our organisation capability by investing in our people Deliver high-quality, value-for-money support services
% spend on 'staff development & recruitment
1.7%
% teachers judged good or better
Not available
% academies and offices with Investor in People
Not available
% spend on core support services % key category spend and annual trends versus funding Annual satisfaction survey
25.1%
24.9% (Est)
24.7% (Est)
20.1%
20.0% (Est)
19.9% (Est)
Not available
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Appendix: The location of our academies
Key: Primary Academy (36) Secondary Academy (33) Special Academy (7)
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