Our People

We understand that people are our most important asset, so we put people at the centre of what we do.

Our People Strategy supports delivery of the Trust’s business objectives of individual and collective growth. By sharing best practice across schools and leveraging the benefits of the scale of the Trust (for example, cross-school development opportunities) we operate as greater than the sum of our parts to deliver a compelling, inclusive and sustainable people strategy.

The key objective of our People Strategy is getting the right people, in the right place, to deliver provide Every Child, Every Chance. Our strategy aims to deliver:

Attract

Increase the number of applicants and acceptance rates of preferred candidates. We believe in recruiting talented people and developing them to fulfill their career ambitions. We want entrants into the Trust to become our future great leaders, to continue to shape the future of all our children and young people. We do this by providing:

Looking after the wellbeing of our staff
A highly competitive salary
An excellent pension scheme
Excellent Sickness and Occupational Maternity schemes
Union recognition
Salary sacrifice schemes
High performing school settings with excellent leadership
Access to high quality and bespoke CPD
A high quality and supportive induction programme
The opportunity to develop careers within and across the Trust Schools

Perform

Create an attractive offer. We ask staff to feedback on what support and progression they want, through open professional dialogue at twice yearly appraisal reviews and through staff voice questionnaires. This helps us shape the development offer to ensure it appeals to staff and school needs. We support a flexible and diverse approach, based on career stage and individual priorities, to ensure aspects of the CPD offer are bespoke to the individual and provide choice.

We identify ‘over the line’ people, and those with potential given the right nurture, support and opportunities. We match talented staff to areas of strategic need across the Trust. This broadens horizons, develops skills and allows individuals to grow within a well-supported environment.

Retain

Reduction in staff and governor turnover and associated reduction in recruitment costs. We support upward progression by offering promotion opportunities to staff from across the Trust as they are ready to progress. We build career ladders that help to “grow our own” and support with succession planning. We actively identify staff, in all areas, with potential and ambition to take their next career step. Together we map progression and provide development opportunities to fulfil these, for example by offering secondments or placements to more senior roles, or opportunities to work across schools. We provide internal vacancies, to give staff clear opportunities for promotion, whilst maintaining continuous service.

We broaden staff experience and develop specialist knowledge by:

1. Moving staff to a role at the same level in another school
2. Providing targeted CPD
3. Establishing cross-Trust working groups
4. Offering cross-school responsibilities to staff with expertise in specific areas

We formally recognise this by accreditation, including SLE status. Support staff may be offered the opportunity to develop a specialism which reaches across schools, or to be deployed in more than one school.

Thrive

We prioritise our working culture by proactively taking steps to reduce workload, allowing pupil-facing staff to focus on their core role of teaching and learning, and for support staff to work efficiently to execute their responsibilities. We take intentional steps to establish an effective and positive working culture which promotes staff wellbeing, including financially viable ways of rewarding staff, and flexible approaches to working. We ensure that staff are consulted and that their voice is heard and valued. As a result of listening to our staff’s views, we are working hard to:

Upgrade IT
Support technology for effective homeworking
Run evening meetings and training virtually
Improve outdoor spaces
Improve the appearance of the indoor environment
Offer staff a variety of work spaces, individual work spaces and collaborative areas, including homeworking where practical

Inclusivity and diversity are key ingredients in building a diverse, competent workforce, providing excellent education and promoting the general wellbeing of our community. We are an inclusive employer and actively seek to recruit for diversity amongst our employees and governors, by tackling unconscious bias. We recognise the value of a workforce in which people from all backgrounds are encouraged to introduce fresh ideas and contribute to delivering excellence, where staff work in a supportive and safe environment, recognising their responsibility to value and respect each other’s contributions.

We are committed to valuing all and treating everybody with respect. Standards of conduct are expected to be of the highest level to ensure that no-one is harassed, bullied or victimised.