Thank you for taking the time to find out more about our Trust family – we know that time is precious, especially when you work in education! What we hope this section of our website will do is give you the key facts about who we are and what we do but more importantly what it is that is special about being part of our family.

I should start with just that. Family. We see our multi-academy trust as a family of schools with a core team at its centre. We use the term family to express that we have a sense of belonging; are loyal to each other and work together to become stronger. This sense of family became even more important during the pandemic when we were tested by hurtling into an unknown world of lockdown, remote learning and safeguarding in a time of fear and isolation.

Many staff members have said to me that they don’t know what they would have done had their school not been part of our trust family. I know exactly what they mean! It is the best example of coming together, supporting each other and recognising the need for reflection I have ever known. That’s not to say it hasn’t been incredibly difficult – it has – but we have come through it together and even stronger. I have written an e-mail update to staff every week since lockdown to make sure they always know that we are all there to support each other and that we are able to collectively celebrate the amazing things that happen in our schools, week-in-week-out. There is always lots to share.

So, joining our trust would inevitably be joining a family. You will have the opportunity to work, share and learn from over three hundred other members - when we have our annual inset day or end of term celebration it is quite the family gathering!

What we are not here to do is apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach to our schools. That wouldn’t be in line with the reason we do this – our vision – “Every child should only be a short walk away from a world class school”. What this means is that we value the uniqueness of each community – we understand that schools should be at the heart of their local communities and at the same time they should provide the very best education. The sense of being local is vital. We have no aspiration to work outside of our locality – we always want to be a short journey away from each other to be able to support in person and with passion. Across the twelve miles our trust family currently spans we serve five very different communities and we understand their individual needs. We don’t want identikit schools: we want schools that reflect and serve our communities, like those already in our family.

That’s not to say that our schools don’t have things that they do in the same or similar ways – they do, but there is choice. We have a skilled and experienced core team there to remove some of the ‘extras’ that distract from teaching and learning. This includes Finance, Estates, HR, Governance and Marketing. We also have our senior leaders in the schools working closely with the core team on our teaching and learning improvement framework and CPD programmes – so much sharing of knowledge and resources is possible if you are all in the same family – there are no barriers. Just to reassure - there’s no enforced curriculum model, we trust the leaders of our schools to know their children and communities and make the right curriculum choices for them. What we always need to be assured of is that everything we are doing is for the benefit of our children – we need to support them to achieve their goals – they can be whoever and whatever they want to be.

Our governance model supports what our schools do and gives us a framework for that assurance. We have an amazing dedicated group of volunteers working at all four levels of governance. All with the interests of local children – our children – at their heart.

We are sponsored by Nelson and Colne College and benefit from their sharing of expertise, leadership, resources and information. They are a beacon of excellence and we are very proud to be sponsored by them. I feel absolutely privileged to lead Pendle Education Trust and to work with such a dedicated, determined and devoted team of staff -this is a phenomenal family to be part of. We work hard together and support each other – we make sure we celebrate our achievements and look after each other – health and wellbeing, reward and recognition and opportunities for development and flexibility are high on our agenda.

There’s so much more I could tell you but for now please read through the information and contact me if you would like to meet informally to learn more about our family and whether our vision and values align with yours. We will always answer any questions with honesty and are happy to provide the opportunity for you to talk directly with the staff in our schools who have been part of this fantastic journey we are on!

Anita Ghidotti

Pendle Education Trust was established in 2012 and we now have over 2,630 children in our schools, with over 350 staff dedicated to their education and wellbeing. Our schools are Castercliff Primary Academy, Casterton Primary Academy, Colne Primet Academy, Pendle Primary Academy and West Craven High School. We are committed to where we work and recognise the uniqueness of each of these five communities.

We do have ambition to increase the size of our family but this will not be growth for growth’s sake. We're dedicated to working in and around East Lancashire and to reaping the benefits of being geographically close. As you would expect, we will make sure we don't destabilise our family as we welcome new members. 

We have the support of our sponsor, Nelson and Colne College to ensure that we are relentless in our focus on the teaching and learning experience of our children and the improved opportunities this will bring to their lives.

The College’s close relationship with our Trust brings an incredible amount of support from their senior leaders through to their school liaison team who work directly with our staff and students to provide a wide range of activities and events all year round.

We believe that every child should only ever be a short walk away from a world-class school. Our strategic aims are:

1. Our children experience education that is ambitious, relevant and delivers positive progress at every stage.
2. Our culture is collaborative and exceptionally led with local knowledge.
3. Our finance and operating model is successful.

We are always focused on our vision – every child should only be a short walk away from a world-class school.

We are especially proud of the impact we have made in all three of our primary schools – in Burnley, Brierfield and Nelson.

Impact can be measured in so many ways and we would encourage you to visit any or all of our schools to hear from the children and staff about what being in our family is about because sometimes you need to just feel how special a place is.

Each of our three primaries initially came to join us having been placed in special measures by Ofsted.

Our first primary, Pendle Primary joined in 2012 and is a two-form entry school at the heart of its community. By 2015 Ofsted had judged us to be ‘good’ and this has been rubber-stamped in subsequent inspections, most recently in 2022.

Ofsted 2022 - "Pupils enjoy coming to this welcoming school. Leaders have high expectations for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)."

Our second primary, Castercliff, joined in 2014 as a one and a half form entry school again at the very heart of its community. By 2018 Ofsted had judged us to be ‘good’ and we look forward to welcoming them again in the future. During its time with us, Castercliff has increased to a two-form entry school with capital investment in classrooms to ensure we are more able to serve the growing local community.

Ofsted 2018 - "Strong and determined leadership has been very successful in significantly raising standards and accelerating progress at Castercliff."

Our third primary, Casterton joined in 2018 as a 40-child entry school well established in its community. In October 2022 we welcomed Ofsted for the first time since conversion and were delighted that they agreed that Casterton is a ‘good’ school!

Ofsted 2022 - "Pupils arrive at school each morning happy looking forward to the day ahead. They said that everyone is welcome in their school family. Leaders have high expectations of pupils. To this end, leaders encourage children to shine."

We have a great team of staff across our primary schools that works together for the benefit of all 1,080 of our primary children.

Our Principals meet regularly and are supported by Julie Burnside a highly experienced Primary leader who has been with us since the start of our journey. Julie retired in December 2022 but remains as an external consultant as part of our quality team. 

We have a primary inclusion team headed up by the very experienced Clare Smalley which includes SENDCO support, speech and language therapists and specialist teachers. This team is vital to ensure we get the support to our children as they need it and without delay.

Our Safeguarding leads also meet frequently to share best practice and updates.

In fact, there are many formal and informal meets of our staff across schools – many of them have been promoted internally and understand our other schools well. We moderate and share development opportunities as standard and are always looking at what more we can do together.

In our time as a Trust, the number of primary children has grown from 420 to 1,080. We have three schools that make a difference to the lives of children just starting their education journey and we would love to add to our family.

Our Trust Board, Committees and Local Academy Councils are made up of experienced voluntary professionals who are passionate about education and the local area.

We have a governance structure that supports and challenges what we do and ensures accountability and focus through a strong scheme of delegation and terms of reference; this is co-ordinated by a full-time Clerk. Our Trust Board comprises a number of professional people who have volunteered to be involved because they are committed to raising children’s attainment and aspirations in East Lancashire. They have extensive experience in a wide range of industries including public sector, financial services, education and hospitality and leisure.

We are committed to having a Local Academy Council at each of our schools comprised of staff, parents, local business and community members or those with an interest in the success of a particular school.

Our Governance structure is:

To find out more about our Trust Board, please click here - https://pendleeducationtrust.co.uk/governance

We've had many successes over the years which we're proud of. Here are a few highlights.

Capital Investment

• We have secured over £6.5 million in capital funding for our schools over the past eight years, including over £3 million in the past three years. 
• This has been spent on projects including building new classrooms, fire safety works and heating upgrades.
• Our Estates and Finance teams work in partnership with Lea Hough Chartered Surveyors to put together successful bids for funding each year.
• We are about to embark on a £10 million expansion project at Colne Primet Academy and £0.5 million has been secured to support expansion at Castercliff Primary Academy. 

National Recognition

We have supported our schools in securing extensive positive media coverage at a local, regional and national level. This included BBC Breakfast interviews, coverage on BBC, ITV and Sky News and in most daily national newspapers following the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Zoom call to our children and staff in 2020.

Award Winning

We help our schools to produce winning entries for local and national awards. We have helped our schools, staff and children win awards at events including:

We are really proud of the level of support we provide to all the schools in our family. It’s not always about the big strategic things like funding, finance and governance – they are a given – it’s also about the times that extra support is needed quickly. That’s what being part of a family is about – you can be assured that by making a quick phone-call or sending a short email you will have the back-up you need – in person.

So what can you expect as a leader of a school in our family?

Leadership can be a lonely place but the beauty of our family is that you are genuinely not alone. We bounce ideas and solutions off each other all the time and are there for each other at the best and worst of times.

Obviously, you can expect the core team’s professional support as detailed below but you can also expect the opportunity to meet, collaborate and share regularly with other leaders and for your voice to be heard and appreciated. We also encourage you to look for ideas and opportunities outside of our family for the benefit of our children and you can expect to attend networks on our behalf.

You can expect investment in your professional development, mentorship and coaching support. This includes regular one-to-one meetings with your line manager and support from the quality assurance team. You will have an appraisal meeting dedicated to you and your role that reflects on the last year and focuses on the year to come.

You can expect to be supported and challenged to make sure that what’s happening in your school day-in-day-out is the absolute best for our children. This support and challenge will be from peers, leaders and trustees. We say it how it is – with respect – to each other - and are constantly looking to improve.

Basically, you can expect to be supported by specialists to do what is an incredibly challenging but even more rewarding job to the best of all our abilities. 

You can find out more about the support we offer in the information below and get to know our core team by clicking here -https://pendleeducationtrust.co.uk/meet-our-team

support for your school....

Catering Services - Taylor Shaw is one of the UK's leading specialist caterers in the education sector. They operate throughout the UK, providing freshly prepared food that contributes to the wellbeing of young people in their learning environment. Their menus are modern and exciting and served by caring, skilful people. Every school is different and Taylor Shaw take great care to understand the ethos and pupil and student profile to tailor services to each school.Click here to find out more.

Continuing Professional Development - Investment in our staff is central to achieving our vision. We are committed to harnessing the strengths of all staff, supporting their career development and also ensuring that staff wellbeing is a priority. We provide appropriate, high-quality training and development opportunities alongside many opportunities to develop through collaborative working across the Trust. We are passionate about providing good professional development to help retain people and give them opportunities to grow and develop within our family with numerous examples of successful secondments and internal promotions.

We have strong links with; our sponsor, Nelson and Colne College, to develop skills and potential in all trust staff along with our local teaching school hub, Star Institute, to provide nationally accredited programmes such as NPQs and the ECT Induction. We are proud to be a member of The National College, which allows every member of staff to personalise and tailor their own professional development activities to their role, interests and areas of development.

We use the Apprenticeship Levy to employ apprentices and support staff to undertake professional qualifications. This proactive approach to apprenticeships and effective use of the levy represents a benefit to schools in terms of providing structured career pathways for staff in associate roles.

Estates - Our Estates and Cleaning teams ensure our school estates are maintained to a high standard and are attractive, purposeful learning environments. Our investment in conditions surveys, planned preventative maintenance and health and safety compliance informs our developing estates strategy and the scale of our Trust means we have capacity for investment in planned or urgent improvement work.

Finance - Our Finance team help to generate revenue reserves which we invest back into meeting the needs of our children. Our team provides expert advice on funding, budget management and financial modelling for new proposals. Financial success is not just about numbers on the balance sheet, but also in the difference we make to the lives of children and young people. Our Finance team has secured million-pound investments in our schools’ infrastructure, facilities, playgrounds, technology and teaching materials.

Governance and Compliance - Our governance team supports at all levels of governance to ensure compliance, consistency and above all professionalism. Significant time has been invested in a strategic review of governance to ensure a fit-for-purpose and clear scheme of delegation; a detailed and appropriate workplan and timetable of meetings. A comprehensive governor training programme is in place including live virtual sessions professionally delivered through One Education and online training modules through the National Governance Association. Professional governance support and advice is provided to all our schools which includes a full clerking service for all governance meetings and panels.  Our governance professional also leads on GDPR and Freedom of Information requests. Through this team we ensure that all schools have access to Governor Hub and The Key.

Human Resources - Our HR team supports you in effectively managing your staff by providing advice and guidance on a range of HR processes and issues, including recruitment, employee relations, absence management and policies. We can offer quick access to occupational health advice, confidential counselling/CBT referrals to support staff as well as a range of Trust wide health and wellbeing initiatives.

IT and Digital - Our IT team offers a wide support network across our schools. The team’s key focus is improving the teaching and learning experience allowing staff to have a high confidence in ICT to allow them to create opportunities and inspiration for our children. The ICT team also works with external support partners to ensure the security and constant monitoring of our networks and systems, providing reassurance and reliability for our schools.

Marketing and Communications - Our dedicated, professional marketing team are responsible for all marketing and communications services for the Trust, including school branding, photography, videography, design and editing services, news coverage, website content and development, social media marketing, event planning and management and strategic support. We also offer out of hours support for crisis communications. We also produce a termly newsletter for external stakeholders. Click here to read our latest issue.

Quality Assurance & Improvement - Whilst each of our schools share similarities in profile, our model is designed to be flexible in order to support each unique context and to have the capacity and adaptability, to develop and grow as schools and national educational agendas change and evolve.

We have a well-defined quality cycle that includes cross-phase support and focuses on a culture of continuous improvement. We focus on identifying opportunities and risks and providing the appropriate solutions to help our schools thrive – quite rightly, we rely on our school leaders, who know our schools best, to provide an accurate assessment of their schools.

We have developed a suite of reports using standard templates across all our schools to enable rapid identification of strengths and areas for development and ensure we monitor the right thing. This alongside our individual improvement plans allows us to tailor support and share best practice. We are certainly not about producing 100-page reports – wherever possible we look to be concise and reduce the workload of our teachers, support staff and leaders.

Schools are about much more than Ofsted inspection outcomes but we do acknowledge that this is important to all schools. You can rest assured that in addition to ongoing support and monitoring when ‘the call’ arrives you will have a blanket of support from your colleagues in the leadership team.

Wellbeing - As a Trust we want to ensure all our staff are supported and feel valued. We have developed new Health and Wellbeing and Recognition policies to formally outline the Trust’s commitment to staff health and wellbeing. We hold a summer social event for staff and Shine Awards are presented throughout the academic year. We have a fantastic group of health and wellbeing champions who’s aim is to improve staff wellbeing at work and home. Many of these recently completed a Level 2 Mental Health in the Workplace qualification to support their colleagues. All of our staff can access a 24/7 Mindful Employer helpline if they need to speak to someone about their mental health and wellbeing and all staff have access to the Vivup online platform which offers a range of employee benefits. All Pendle Education Trust schools have signed up to the Governments Education staff wellbeing charter.This charter has given the Champions a format to follow to ensure the priorities are discussed and new initiatives are put in place to support all staff within the Pendle Education Trust family.

First and foremost our schools are schools.... but we go above and beyond the classroom and curriculum with a range of extra initiatives and opportunities for the whole community. These include:

The Pendle Education Trust Pledge - We want all our children to have new experiences during their time with us to create long-lasting memories. We have pledged that all of our primary aged children will experience 10 opportunities before moving to secondary school and our secondary aged children will experience 5 opportunities before moving to college or employment. Opportunities cover cultural appreciation, careers, fundraising, eco-awareness and more. Our children are rewarded with badges and certificates for each achievement from the pledge.

 

We Are A Reading Academy (WARRA) - Reading is central to the development of our children. We want all our children to be confident and fluent readers, understanding the diversity of our world and appreciating the richness of language, knowledge and human experiences through what we read. Our WARRA committee works across all of the Trust schools to support the reading curriculum and organise cross-Trust reading events including World Book Day and International Literacy Day.

Parental engagement - We are currently supporting our schools through the ‘Leading Parent Partnership Award’ to ensure parent participation in school life has a positive impact on the children’s learning. Colne Primet Academy was successful in being re-accredited with the award in 2022 and our other schools are well on the way in their journey to achieve the award.

As part of our work on this Award, we are in the process of establishing Parent, Teacher and Friends' Associations at each of our schools. School staff are being supported by the core team and Parent Kind with this.

Family Learning - We work in partnership with Lancashire Adult learning and Nelson and Colne College to provide Trust wide family learning programmes for parents and children in all of our schools that are fun and interactive. These programmes cover a wide range of topics including reading, phonics and maths so that your parents feel empowered to support their children with their learning at home. Click here to see an example of our family learning offer for primary schools.

Careers, Enterprise and Alumni - We recognise the importance of high-quality careers education and guidance in motivating and inspiring young people and helping them to make informed choices about their future pathways and careers. We understand that careers education and guidance is an integral strand of a young person’s education and is crucial in raising aspirations, and helping students emerge from school more fully rounded and ready for the world of work.

Young people want and need to be well-informed when making subject and career decisions. Careers education and guidance is the responsibility of all stakeholders and should involve all staff, students, parents/carers and employers. We hold an annual Careers and Enterprise Day which is attended by one year group from each of our schools, giving them access to a wide range of local and national employers, universities and curriculum staff from Nelson and Colne College.

Our Careers and Enterprise Forum is made up of careers leads from each of our schools along with our Careers Link Board member, Nelson and Colne College and local employers. The group shares best practice and helps to raise the ambitions of our children. We also support our schools with:

• Employer engagement for work placements and industry speakers
• Meeting the Gatsby benchmarks
• Organising events for National Careers Week
• Engaging with alumni to motivate and inspire our children
• Taking part in initiatives such as Young Enterprise

You can see some of the organisations we work in partnership with here -https://pendleeducationtrust.co.uk/our-partners/

Sustainability - Sustainability is high on our agenda. We are working hard as a Trust to ensure we are reducing our carbon footprint across all our sites. We want to transform our schools to safeguard the planet for future generations to come. Our Sustainability Forum includes representatives from each school and our core team, including Estates and IT. They discuss best practice and share ideas for their in-school green teams. Our Condition Improvement Funding applications focus on initiatives which can help to reduce the carbon footprint of our schools including new LED lighting and solar panel installation.

Burnley FC in the Community – We work closely with the education team at Burnley FC in the Community in all of our schools. They offer educational and personal development programmes to our children including Premier League Inspires and Premier League Primary Stars. Both of our secondary schools employ Burnley FC in the Community Wellbeing Practitioners and our children benefit from the full range of facilities on offer, including visits to Whitehough Outdoor Centre, Leisure Box and Turf Moor. We’ve also enjoyed a number of player visits and taken part in high profile events including filming at Whitehough for Match of the Day and meeting the former Prime Minister, Theresa May at Leisure Box.

A multi-academy trust is a group of schools working in deep and purposeful collaboration as one entity to improve and maintain high educational standards across the trust. A multi-academy trust has a single legal and moral purpose at the heart of the Articles of Association: to advance education for public benefit.

The 2020 Schools White Paper set out a series of new measures including that by 2030 all children will benefit from being taught in a school in, or in the process of joining, a strong multi-academy trust, which will help transform underperforming schools and deliver the best possible outcomes for children.

The White Paper says:

• All schools will provide a high quality and inclusive education within the resilient structure of a strong trust, sharing expertise, resources and support to help teachers and leaders deliver better outcomes for children.
• The best trusts in the system will work where they are needed most, levelling up standards, and transforming previously underperforming schools.
• Every part of the system, from strong trusts to local authorities, will be held accountable to a set of clear roles and responsibilities, so that no child falls through the cracks.

The government will deliver:

• A fully trust led system with a single regulatory approach, which will drive up standards, through the growth of strong trusts and the establishment of new ones, including trusts established by local authorities.
• A clear role for every part of the school system, with local authorities empowered to champion the interests of children and a new collaborative standard requiring trusts to work constructively with all other partners.
•  Education Investment Areas to increase funding and support to areas in most need, plus extra funding in priority areas facing the most entrenched challenges.

What this means for families:

• Stronger local schools right across England: schools will retain their ethos, whilst benefitting from the expertise and support of their family of schools in a strong trust, especially in areas of disadvantage. 
• Clear accountability for outcomes for every child: public services will deliver for children and their parents.
• Better support for children and families: it will be clear what the different roles and responsibilities of schools, trusts, local authorities and others are.

This means that if your school isn’t already part of a multi-academy trust, now is the perfect time for you to start looking at your options rather than waiting until the last minute and the decision being forced on you.

You can download the full White Paper here -https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/opportunity-for-all-strong-schools-with-great-teachers-for-your-child

Pendle Education Trust is a proud member of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST): the national organisation and sector body for School Trusts in England advocating for, connecting and supporting executive and governance leaders. CST is shaping the education policy agenda for school trusts by bringing together trusts in England from every region and of every size. It has a strong, strategic presence with access to government and policy makers to drive real change for education on the big issues that matter the most.

The CST’s document on what is a school trust and why they are successful offers a brief overview of the multi-academy trust model. You can download it here.

A multi-academy trust is a group of schools working in deep and purposeful collaboration as one entity to improve and maintain high educational standards across the trust. A multi-academy trust has a single legal and moral purpose at the heart of the Articles of Association: to advance education for public benefit.

Some of the many benefits of becoming part of a multi-academy trust include:

• Being able to collaborate with schools that share your ethos and values
• Being able to retain your school identity
• Increased collaboration and opportunities for professional development
• Reduced burden through shared responsibilities
• Increased financial security

Read more about the benefits of collaboration in the CST's Case for Collaboration document

Many people who think of multi-academy trusts wrongly assume they are profit making companies run by individuals who are not accountable to the Department for Education, Education and Skills Funding Agency or Ofsted.

Trusts must adhere to the same laws as maintained schools and are just as accountable to the Department for Education, Education and Skills Funding Agency, Ofsted and Regional Schools Commissioners.

As education charities, trusts are not allowed to make profits or distribute profits to trustees or members. All surpluses are invested into the front-line to improve the quality of education.

Read more about some common myths about multi-academy trusts in this CST document

As you’ll already have read, we are not here to apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the schools joining our family. It’s important that everyone feels it is mutually beneficial for your school to join us, and that’s where the due diligence process comes in to play.

After we’ve had some initial meetings with you, we would need to discuss our proposals with our Regional Director to ensure it meets the eligibility criteria. We could then begin the application and due diligence and legal process before signing the funding government.

The documents on this link will give you more details about the process and we’ve been through it before so will be right alongside you to support and advise throughout, as well as helping you with communicating the changes to your staff and families.

We hope all of the information above has given you a flavour of our Trust and its people. If you’d like to meet some of our team and find out more about us, please email joinus@pendleeducationtrust.co.uk and we’ll arrange a time to come and meet you over a brew – we’ll bring the biscuits!