NEWS
Tom Rees appointed Chief Executive Officer of Ormiston Academies Trust
Ormiston Academies Trust has announced that Tom Rees will be its new Chief Executive Officer after a national recruitment process. Tom will succeed Nick Hudson, who is retiring at the end of this academic year. Tom has 25 years’ experience in education, working across a range of roles including 10 years as a headteacher and seven years in executive roles. He is currently the Executive Director of Programmes at the national education charity, Ambition Institute. Here he has led professional development programmes for more than 54,000 teachers and school leaders, through national delivery of the Early Career Framework and National Professional Qualifications, as well as Ambition’s own specialist programmes. He
has also been a leading light in the national reform agenda around teacher professional development, contributing through several official policy forums.
Before Ambition, Tom was the Education Director of Northampton Primary Academy Trust (NPAT). He joined NPAT as a headteacher and later, as Education Director, held responsibility for educational strategy and school improvement across primary schools and special unit settings,
supporting the trust’s growth from six to 14 schools and developing a successful educational model with a strong track record of improvement.
Tom has also served as a member of a regional Headteacher Board, was a member of the Department for Education’s
Headteacher Standards Review Group, has been a commissioner on the NAHT’s School Improvement Commission, and was recently appointed to the panel of CST’s inquiry into trust improvement.
In the new role, Tom will be working with senior leaders and colleagues across the Trust to build on the outstanding leadership and positive outcomes delivered by Nick Hudson over the seven years he has been with OAT, helping to maintain the Trust’s deeply held purpose of providing excellent learning opportunities to its 33,000 students both inside and outside the classroom.
https://www.ormistonacademiestrust.co.uk/
LEAF Education names Brockhill Park Performing Arts College its first ever Gold Demonstration School
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Edinburgh as LEAF Honorary President recognised Brockhill Park Performing Arts College as Beacon of Excellence for food production, farming and environmental education on Wednesday 26th April. Leading agri-education charity, LEAF Education launched Brockhill Park Performing Arts College as its
first ever Gold Demonstration School. Brockhill is a beacon of excellence for all educators wanting to inspire their students, teaching them the value of food production, farming, and the natural environment. The Kent-based secondary school received LEAF’s highest accolade - the Gold Demonstration School award – for its commitment to using food production, farming, and the environment as part of its broad and balanced curriculum. With the success of their GO (Great Outdoors) curriculum for students in KS3, leaders at Brockhill have extended its provision to local primary schools and special schools developing a ‘Farming School’ on site.
This unique offering extends the experiential learning opportunities provided on the school farm for pupils in the wider community, inspiring them to learn more about the food and farming industry. As well as giving students first- hand experience of the farm-to-fork journey, they have empowered their student council to work with LEAF Education and their independent catering team on an ambitious project to raise awareness of sustainably sourced produce, highlighting local produce to encourage the school community to make informed nutritional choices.
Charles Joseph, Principal at Brockhill Park Performing Arts College said: “We are delighted to have been recognised by LEAF Education for our work in connecting children to the story of their food. In today’s society, it is vital that children learn about sustainability and food security. They will then be able to make informed choices that will impact upon food, farming, and the environment. Becoming a Gold Demonstration School inspires us to keep extending our provision and sharing our school farm and gardens with not only our students and community but beyond to a national and even international scale.”
https://leaf.eco/education/for-teachers/leaf-education-demonstration- schools
New sector-led guidance on how school trusts can keep getting better
The national sector body for school trusts has published new guidance on how trusts can best support and improve education.
The Building strong trusts guidance sets out the Confederation of School Trust’s position on seven areas, or domains, on which trusts should focus to provide maximum benefit for pupils, staff, and wider society. The work is based on discussion and feedback from across the academy sector, and develops a CST discussion paper published in February 2022. It suggests that trusts should develop a strong organisational culture across seven areas: • Strategic governance: The trust anchors its strategy in the needs of its schools, the communities they serve and the wider educational system in line with its charitable objects. • Expert, ethical leadership: The accounting officer and executive team create a culture of expert, ethical leadership based on the Seven Principles of Public Life. They create a culture of one organisation, built around the trust’s purpose and values. • High quality, inclusive education: The trust creates a culture that is motivating and ambitious for all, especially disadvantaged children, and
10
www.education-today.co.uk
children with SEND, so that all pupils can achieve their potential. • School improvement at scale: A strong conception of quality and culture of continuous improvement is pervasive across all the schools in the group. • Workforce resilience and wellbeing: The trust creates a positive working culture for all staff that promotes collaboration, aspiration, and support. • Finance and operations: Everyone in the organisation recognises the importance of effective and efficient use of resources for the wider benefit of all pupils. • Public benefit and civic duty: Part of the culture of the trust is to work beyond its own organisation with other trust leaders and civic actors the wider common good.
The guidance is designed to provide a counterpoint to the Department for Education’s draft trust quality descriptions, which were published in April.
https://cstuk.org.uk/knowledge/ guidance-and-policy/building-strong-trusts/
May 2023
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
