Executive headteacher Chris Willis with Mandy Lindley, director of relationships and funding, Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity
Community collaboration
Raising pupil aspirations is a challenge in areas of deprivation. The answer for one MAT is to build partnerships that support the whole community, reports Jane Hughes
‘F
or young people to achieve their full potential, they and those around them need to feel they have a
stake in society,’ says Chris Willis, executive headteacher at Gosport and Fareham Multi Academy Trust (GFM). Developing that mindset is something the Trust has been keen to address in the former naval town of Gosport, where a generation has been left disenfranchised by cutbacks to services and key industries. ‘Our vision is to create better
opportunities for our students by being innovative in our schools and supporting regeneration across our community,’ says Chris Willis. With two large secondary schools, two junior schools and one special school, GFM is one of the largest employers in Gosport – and therefore, he argues, a key player in developing a sustainable future for the town. ‘Around 26,000 cars commute away from Gosport every day and there is high unemployment
26 AUTUMN 2022 FundEd
locally. Our strategy is to equip our young people with the cultural capital to work and thrive here.’ To deliver on this, the Trust is establishing long-term collaborations and a pipeline of funding networks with community and business organisations.
Committed leadership It’s clear that creating partnerships at this level requires a leadership team deeply invested in the locality and dedicated to making things happen – and the fact that GFM was formed as a local MAT (in 2017) drives its work in the community. In terms of expertise, executive principal Kirstie Andrew-Power has led school improvement programmes for the DfE and co-authored a book on raising achievement through parental engagement. The Trust’s financial director has a background of working in the community sector, and the chief executive, Ian Potter, who was previously a headteacher at
one of the MAT founder schools, coordinates the International School Leadership Development Network. With the recruitment crisis in
teaching particularly acute in areas like Gosport, the leadership team has a vested interest in developing a skilled and knowledgeable workforce that might consider education as a career. More broadly, the team wants to equip disadvantaged young people with the confidence and awareness to aspire to a range of roles in the local economy. ‘Gosport is on a coastal peninsula and the marine and maritime sector is a huge employer, alongside many STEM- related industries,’ says Chris Willis. ‘Yet significant numbers of apprenticeships and jobs are not being filled because young people haven’t had exposure to the types of role on offer.’
An entrepreneurial outlook GFM’s solution is radical. ‘We’ve been moving away from traditional specialisms towards applied skills and subjects,’ says Chris Willis. ‘We’re developing a leading-edge STEM and Marine and Maritime curriculum, combined with a reworked careers provision of
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