OUR OFFER

Communitas Education Trust will work with your school in partnership, allowing resources to be freed up to make your money go further, reducing administrative burdens, investing in ongoing professional development at all levels, connecting the whole of the learning community together, building system capacity, respecting individuality.

Communitas trust offers:

• School Improvement expertise
• The capacity to support continued improvement
• Professional support and challenge, built on strong relationships and mutual respect
• An Annual School Review
• Leadership Peer Review
• Access to accredited SLEs
• Performance tracking and benchmarking
• SEN, Pastoral and Behaviour Management expertise
• Data sharing
• Support for Governor development
• Ongoing collaboration for improvement
• A rich continuous professional development offer
• Transparency, honesty, respect and integrity
• Robust Trust-level Governance
• Financial assurance
• OFSTED-trained staff
• Leadership support network
• Governor support network
• An annual cycle of monitoring, evaluation and review
• A culture of innovating and of finding creative solutions to the challenges we all face
• Access to international learning opportunities
• IT guidance, advice, support and planning

2. What autonomy will we have?

Communitas Education Trust offers collaboration, not prescription. We offer choice, not decisions made for you. Communitas was founded on the principle of autonomy and collaboration.

We want all of our schools to feel the benefits of autonomy. Crucially, an autonomous school is a school that takes responsibility for itself. Taking responsibility and accepting accountability are key components of success in schools. We will work as a true partner to ensure the ongoing success of our schools.

We have two Schemes of Delegation for Academy Governing Bodies.

Scheme 1 puts the same delegated powers in the hands of Governing Bodies that they experienced under the Local Authority. Schools rated Good and Outstanding will have Scheme 1 delegation.

Schools rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate need more support to help them become Good and better. Scheme of Delegation 2 gives more authority to the CEO and Board to help the Headteacher and Academy Governing Body to achieve rapid improvement. Of course, we aim to ensure that all our Academies operate under Scheme of Delegation 1.

• Academies have the autonomy to set their own curriculum.
• Academies have the autonomy to make their own decisions on the services they want to buy.
• Academies have the autonomy to appoint their own staff.
• Academies have the autonomy to work with partners of their choice.

The ability to maintain a high level of autonomy is a key reason to consider joining Communitas. Our aim is to support and challenge you to become even better. We recognise the importance of ownership in inspiring institutions to achieve beyond their previous best.

We will provide a network of schools and professionals.

We will provide inspiring examples of what’s possible.

We will provide supporting toolkits for all levels at your school – support for Governance, support for Headteachers, support for Business Managers, support for Middle Leaders, support for newly appointed employees, and more.

3. How will Communitas Education Trust support and challenge us?

Support

• Our team consists of experts whose sole aim is to support our schools to become even better
• We will support effective Governance through offering Governance toolkits, Induction Packs for new Governors, training, coaching for new Chairs and other resources
• We will support leaders by sharing what works in other settings – sharing data dashboards, standards tracking and reporting formats – tools to make the job easier and more efficient
• We can offer support for staff professional development at all levels
• We can support recruitment, retention, and succession planning through our School Direct Initial Teacher Training Programme
• The quality of our Inclusive practice is widely acknowledged and is available for you to tap into
• We can provide hands on, practical support on all aspects of life in schools… crucially, provided by people who are in there, doing it every day themselves
• We have great practice going on in our schools that you can access
• We have innovative curriculum design and development to share
• We have the intellectual curiosity to explore emerging practice and apply ‘what works’
• We can support you to enhance your offer through collaboration, e.g. purchasing a full time psychologist, sharing expert staff
• We can offer a comprehensive suite of Trust-level and school-level policies
• We can support your IT, finance governance, catering and business management functions
• We can support by easing the administrative burden on school leaders, by taking care of things like business continuity planning, risk management, long-term premises management and planning

Challenge

• Our team includes experienced OFSTED inspectors, LA officers and Headteachers
• Our Board includes successful business people, an accountant, project manager and people experienced in corporate governance and public service
• We have a professional clerk, a CEO and phase leaders who are focused on the success of our schools
• Our professional networks and partners include Goldsmiths University, London South Bank University, Southwark Teaching School Alliance, Education Development Trust, British Council, University of Thessaloniki, University of Las Palmas, Judicium, FAME (accountancy services), LAMDA, Royal Academy of Music, Topmarks sports coaching and development and Bacons College sports outreach programme.

We can challenge where we need to. Crucially, with that challenge we will provide an infrastructure to support and develop each school within the Communitas Education Trust.