Our Offer

We want you to feel the difference from the moment you join our Trust. 

Where advice and guidance may be needed, our approachable and proactive team can centrally identify Trust wide training needs and respond appropriately, for example, with the arrangement of quality CPD or the creation, and research of systems to support our school colleagues.

All schools within the Trust have access to the professional experitse and development opportunities offered by our flourishing central team.

Our Trust partners have access to bespoke leadership and professional development opportunities.

Finance and Business Managers will receive support from the Director of Business and Finance, and work together as a group to develop and share practice.

It is expected that all schools in the Trust will use a common financial management system.

Functions within the central team remain strategic and supportive, for example, the Trust facilitates a review of services to ensure these remain fit for purpose, deliver at the quality we expect whilst increasing the level of value all schools receive from the Trust.

The consistent application of quality processes ensures both efficacy and excellence across the schools within the Trust.

These processes refer to the operational running of the school (budgeting, financial management, estate management, safeguarding, HR processes, absence reporting).

Having consistent processes makes possible Trust wide support during staff absence, along with the creation of a peer network of support and training whilst enabling school focus to remain on Teaching and Learning.

Some examples of what you can expect from the central team include:

• HR, Recruitment, Payroll and Pensions
• Access to Quality Advising Teachers
• Access to Buildings Advice (including support with CIF Bids)
• Legal Advice
• Data Protection Helpline
• Branding resources (including logos, website, and associated templates to promote quality marketing)
• Review of SLAs, ensuring quality, consistency, use and value for money, aligning where required to promote cost savings and consistency.
• National College CPD and provision of advised CPD per staff group ensuring consistency across staff groups.
• Education Support Services
• 3 x Roundtable meetings per year (led by the Trust leader or Deputy CEO)
• Network meetings across various strands (including SEND, ECT, English, Maths, Science Leaders, Senior Administrators)

Through the further growth of the central team, and the service we offer, we expect schools to experience further cost savings. For example, outsourced SLAs which may not be operating effectively or at the standard we expect may become centralised enabling quality outcomes to be delivered consistently across our Trust. 

The proposed growth of the central team will be delivered in phases, as we grow, to ensure we remain sustainable whilst ensuring schools feel a benefit from the day they join our Trust. As part of our Growth Strategy we will plan for dedicated roles within the central team and a clear strategy for the following:

• Risk Management
• Finance
• Governance
• Estate Strategy
• HR Strategy
• Community Strategy
• Digital Strategy
• Marketing Strategy

It is also anticipated, as part of our Growth Strategy, that schools will be able to access the following services through the Trust:

• Educational Psychologist
• Pastoral/Social Support
• Attendance Officer

Through the Strategic Heads Group and regular liaison with local academy committees, schools within the trust have the opportunity to shape and grow the trust vision.

Our vision for our trust school improvement is clear: Enabling our leaders to take the improvement of our schools into their own hands. Our academies are part of a self-improving partnership of schools. The wider trust will do all it can to ensure that we are enabling and investing in rapid, effective and sustainable school improvement in all our schools. Our school improvement strategy is at the heart of all aspects of our trust’s work; it defines who we are as a trust and its impact measures our effectiveness.

Schools in the trust will access the following support for school improvement:

• Self-evaluation health check including: analysis and evaluation of whole-school approaches to self-evaluation; support for action planning; and identification of impact measures
• Termly data and progress review supported by the Trust Leader and Quality Assurance from an external provider (SEP)
• Impact Team development – leaders and aspirant leaders working across the trust to analyse and identify priorities for school improvement
• Support and training for governors and trustees
• Headteacher Performance Management including review and setting of targets, and monitoring achievement
• Leadership development for staff through the Trust and the Bury Schools Alliance
• Professional development opportunities for all staff through Christ Church CofE Multi-Academy Trust and the Bury Schools Alliance

• We believe that the Trust’s role is to create the climate for possibility, investing in a broad and balanced curriculum and assessment framework and associated professional development that will bring about the best teaching and facilitate the greatest learning.
• The key to learning is an exciting, broad and relevant curriculum that acknowledges that all children are different and need access to a range of experiences; where skilled teaching is about provoking curiosity, engaging interest, encouraging creativity and stimulating learning not just delivery of content. The responsibility for getting this important job done will be devolved to individual academies.

What matters most in teaching, learning and leading:

A precondition for improving our schools is the existence of a culture focused on learning in which all professionals

• Talk about practice
• Share their ‘craft knowledge’ as co-learners and as knowledgeable others
• Conduct learning walks and talk in classrooms on a daily basis
• Support and celebrate each others success unconditionally

Without purposeful culture, no meaningful improvement – no professional learning, no curriculum development, no teacher leadership, no pupil self-assessment, no co-teaching, no parental involvement and no sustainable change is possible.