A message from the Chair & Trustees
Dear staff colleagues of the Trust
I am writing to let you know that the Trust Board has decided that Transforming Futures Trust should stay as an independent Trust for the period ahead. We were required to consider merging with another Trust by the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC) and the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) back in December 2020. The reason was that they had been very worried about the Trust’s governance in light of the difficult and turbulent period across 2019/20 when there were very many changes in both the Board and the senior executive structure of the Trust.
I am pleased to be able to tell you that they no longer have those concerns. They have been reassured by the new Board members appointed over the past year, and there has been an external and independent exercise to judge the quality of the Trust’s governance. That gave us a clear thumbs up, and the RSC and the ESFA are now happy about all that. However, and as you may be aware, the Secretary of State for Education is keen to see individual schools and small Trusts become part of bigger multi academy trusts. So they still wanted us to look at whether merger with either a mainstream or a ‘special school’ Trust would be in the best interests of our current and future students.
We went through a very thorough process, culminating in a detailed report to the Trust Board and lengthy deliberations, supported by a very experienced Adviser nominated by the RSC. At the conclusion of that, and with the full involvement of the Heads and the CEO and senior executives, we decided that the best interests of our current and future students lay in remaining independent and focussing on school improvement and adding further value to the student, staff and community experience of what the Trust does. We will look at the issue again in two years’ time, but until then, the issue is completely off the table, and we focus on adding educational value to the utmost of our ability and energies.
The Board will further strengthen education performance, governance, and finances, and will find ways to improve our buildings and estate. The Trust will also focus specifically on building relationships with key partners in education, health and social care where that will benefit our students, and with other Trusts serving the needs of SEN and EHCP pupils. Our Trust has a special set of skills that we know will improve outcomes for pupils, and we must share these as widely as possible.
Beyond that, the Board continues to be hugely appreciative to each one of you for the extraordinary efforts you’re made for the Trust’s students during the year. This has often required you to go the extra mile, and all the benefits accrue to pupils. Thank you.
It remains only to wish you all a very pleasant and relaxing summer break, and we look forward to welcoming you back in September.
Dr. Clive Grace O.B.E.
Chair of the Board of Trustees
Welcome
Headteacher's Blog
prouder of them for being able to celebrate their progress with a trip to Paignton Zoo. Pine class is a class full of extremely complex and vulnerable boys.
At the start of the year, G struggled to regulate himself emotionally and feel safe enough to access his timetable and learning. With 2:1 provision, alongside a new structure and the collective effort of the whole team, G has developed crucial self-regulating techniques and is now showing empathy towards his adults and peers. This has, in turn, impacted G’s ability to focus on, and enjoy his daily learning activities with the classroom team. G, alongside all of the children in Pine class, achieved something amazing by going on this school trip together and as a team, we could not be prouder of them all.
