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Ashington Central First School

Background

Ashington is in a former coal mining area of Northumberland. Ashington Central First School has places for 376 children up to year four, plus 52 (full-time equivalent) nursery places. In September 2006 the school established the pathfinder Ashington Learning Partnership Trust with four other local schools. There had been collaboration between the schools in the past, but no formal arrangements in place. The impetus to set up a Trust came from a common desire to take an innovative and creative approach in an area where an estimated 30% of pupils didn’t engage with the school curriculum. The Trust opened in September 2007.

Vision

The vision of the Trust is to ensure that, by moving the curriculum from knowledge-based learning to skills-based learning, the schools in the partnership will be able to provide a better learning environment for pupils aged 3-16. With schools autonomy and support from all partners the aim is to get children not only to attend school, but to engage once they are there by establishing an innovative all through curriculum.

External partners

In addition to the five schools in the Trust, a number of external partners have joined the Trust all signing up to the theme of lifelong learning. These include the Children’s Centre, Wansbeck Business Enterprise, Northumberland College and Northumbria University. Although some of the detail of setting up the Trust has been challenging to resolve at times, all external partners were keen to be involved to support the Trust vision and together improve the life chances of young people in Ashington. Indeed, identifying partners was fairly straightforward.

‘The theme of “lifelong learning” made it obvious who the partners should be and it pretty much fell into place after that’ Mick Spencer, Headteacher, Ashington Central First School.

The benefits of Trust status

Whilst becoming a Trust School has slightly increased the workload of the headteacher, who has to devote time to regular meetings with school partners in particular, it has also brought significant benefits. Trust status has enabled the schools in the partnership to work closely together on important national agendas such as Every Child Matters, extended services and personalised learning, instead of each school being individually responsible, together they are more effective in delivering these key national policies across the whole community.

Trust and Foundation status was seen as the ideal way of legally formalising and sustaining the existing collaboration and partnership between local schools. The Trust has given the schools more control over their ethos, curriculum and their future. At this early stage, the schools are already sharing staff and expertise across the Trust, with staff being released from one school to another. This sharing of best practice and resources would not have happened without the setting up of the Trust, to the extent that the schools in the partnership have now successfully applied for £250,000 to set up a shared enterprise centre.

Challenges

• When five schools that all work in their own way decide to work more closely, the task of bringing them together into a formal partnership should not be underestimated. Schools have to trust each other, share information and weaknesses
• The Ashington Learning Partnership Trust had no examples or models on whose experience they could draw and so initial progress was slow. Nevertheless time was well spent in consultation with key stakeholders particularly school governing bodies to ensure consistency of information and plenty of opportunities to address questions.
• Headteachers worked with openness and honesty and weren’t afraid to meet and address the challenges and consequently the Trust has gone from strength to strength. An example being that headteachers wanted to involve staff from the outset. Teachers from each school and different key stages were invited onto the working group that is putting the all through curriculum together and the real potential of the Trust is starting to be realised.

‘The vision was relatively easy to establish, the nuts and bolts are much more difficult to sort out’ Mick Spencer, Headteacher, Ashington Central First School.

Top tips

• From the experience of Ashington Central First School, time needs to be spent on winning over the various stakeholders to the concept of becoming a Trust school. Headteachers need to be prepared to invest time at this stage
• Governors need to see the potential benefits for the school and pupils in order to let go of the reins. Members of the Trust need to spend time developing their business plan once the vision is agreed in order to have something tangible with which to answer the questions of staff, parents and other stakeholders with an interest in the school
• As a small school, the appointment of a strategic team was seen as the most effective way of allowing senior managers the time and space to move the Trust forward. Whilst this has cost implications, it was seen as a priority for ensuring the Trust delivers full benefits to all stakeholders