Buttsbury Junior School
Background
Buttsbury Junior School is a Foundation school catering for 485
boys and girls from age 7-11, with the majority coming from the
local Buttsbury Infants School. Billericay is considered a good
place to send a child to school and the school is part of the
Billericay Educational Community of 15 schools in the area. Ten of
these schools, including Buttsbury Junior School, are early adopter
Trust schools planning to form a single shared Trust.
There has been a history of schools in the Billericay area
working together since 1991, largely to avoid the more detrimental
effects of local schools competing with one another. The agreement
to work together has been an informal one and whilst there has been
no additional funding available to the partnership, the schools
have been able to make savings by dealing with suppliers
collectively.
From 2002 to 2005 the schools in the partnership became a
network learning community and were able to secure modest funding
from the National College of School Leadership to support their
work. However, once this arrangement ended, the schools agreed to
continue to support their collaborative working from their own
resources.
Vision
‘Trust status is seen as a way of enhancing commitment between
schools in the partnership and playing down the negative aspects of
any competition between them’. Vaughan Collier, Headteacher,
Buttsbury Junior School
The schools are looking to build on the existing good relations
between headteachers and legally sustain the collaboration by
establishing a Trust and thereby improve and enhance lifelong
learning and cohesion within their community.
External partners
At this stage, the schools have not identified any external
partners that would immediately and naturally complement the
proposed Trust. However, the schools are committed to the principle
of working with external partners and are currently looking at
those who will potentially contribute to the partnership,
particularly in the areas of governance or education. Letters have
been sent by the headteachers to local organisations including the
PCT, banks, cultural groups, the football club, the town council
and employers like Ford UK, informing them of the proposed
developments with the Trust and asking them if they would be
interested in finding out more. The response to date has been
positive and opens the door for more formal approaches later in
2008.
The benefits of Trust status
The move to Trust status is already bringing benefits in terms
of increased openness, trust and honesty. The SATs outcomes at key
stages 2, 3 and 4 are shared with all the schools in the Trust, so
that there is a better understanding of the strengths and
weaknesses across the 10 schools. Over the past three years there
has been evidence of ongoing improvement of pupils through
collaboration and it is strongly believed that Trust status will
support this further with formal structures in place. For example,
teachers and teaching assistants from the different schools come
together in working parties and cluster groups, attending termly
working half days, sharing best practice and providing evidence of
where there is room for improvement. Being part of a Trust will
make this a more rigorous process and ensure that targets and
methods for monitoring progress can be agreed and set across all 10
schools.
On a more practical level, the combined purchasing power of 10
schools means the Trust is able to get much better value from their
suppliers.
Challenges
- All the schools in the Trust have good or outstanding Ofsted
reports, so selling the need for improvement to staff and parents
is not easy and it has taken five steering group meetings to-date
to formulate the proposal to become a Trust School. This has been
drawn up in collaboration with the other nine schools in the
partnership and several members of the steering group worked on the
proposal together. Buttsbury Junior School has not yet taken this
proposal formally to parents and staff, although they have been
informed that the proposal is being developed. Gaining full
agreement for the proposal across 10 schools is taking more time
than originally anticipated, and determining the detail is a
complex process
- One of the main challenges facing the partnership and Buttsbury
Junior School in particular, is the fact that the schools are
already successful. One obvious response to the proposed move to
Trust status from some members of the steering group is ‘if it
isn’t broken, why fix it?’. This caution is quite natural, however,
‘The headteachers are convinced about the great value of added
sustainability for our school network of becoming a Trust’ Vaughan
Collier, Headteacher, Buttsbury Junior School
Top tips
- In order to articulate the reasons for moving to Trust status
to the governors, a headteacher from another Essex school going
down that route was initially invited to talk to the governors of
all the schools in the partnership. Draft proposals were then put
to each governing body and they all chose to support the process.
It is important to make sure that governors are fully aware of the
implications of Trust status and what the benefits are
- For Buttsbury Junior School, openness has included liaising
with the local press over proposals, the headteacher writing about
them in the school newsletter and informing the town council and
Essex County Council, all of which has led to positive early
feedback and prepares the ground for more formal consultation
‘You need to be open as possible with all stakeholders and to be
prepared to listen to what opportunities others feel Trust status
offers’ Vaughan Collier, Headteacher, Buttsbury Junior School