Acorn's Approach to School Improvement
am Around the School
School improvement is the key to school effectiveness and is at the heart of the process of raising standards. It allows us to deliver an education for all children/students that is of the highest quality. The Acorn Education Trust is driven by its core purpose of improving outcomes and life chances for students and believes that an effective School Improvement Strategy is the key to unlocking the potential in its leaders, staff and children/students. An effective Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) uses the School Improvement Strategy to help ensure accountability, drive strategic thinking and deploy resources in order to improve outcomes for its children/students. Our leadership and management of each school is based on three principles:
- Every school is an improving school
- Leadership at every level is critical
- The unique identity of each school must be preserved.
Therefore, School Improvement is tailored to meet the needs of each school and we have a team of central staff in the Senior Executive Team and the School Improvement Team who, along with excellent practitioners in our schools, work with each school.
An Executive Headteacher visits each school weekly or fortnightly to provide support and challenge on the school’s key priorities for improvement. Depending on the school’s priorities, other members of the Trust Senior Executive or School Improvement team may be working with the Headteacher or Senior Leadership Team. There is a team around every school depending on need:
- Low Support – fortnightly meeting with Executive Head, QA visit once a year.
- Medium Support – weekly meeting with Executive Head, weekly/fortnightly support and time with Head of Curriculum or another member of the School Improvement Team depending on need; QA visit once a year. Areas monitored at CEO/Executive Head meeting.
- High Support– weekly meeting with Executive Head, weekly/fortnightly support and time from Head of Curriculum and relevant members of the School Improvement Team. Areas monitored at fortnightly School Improvement meeting.
The School Improvement Team consists of:
- Sarah Ashton – Head of English
- Max Burr – Head of External Affairs
- Sue Fulbrook – Head of SEND
- Sam Heard – Headteacher
- Lindsey Hermon – Headteacher
- Dave Locke – Head of Data and Science
- Rob Price - Director of Education (Secondary)
- Charlotte Robinson – Director of Education (Primary)
- Jo Ronxin – Head of Safeguarding, Communication and School Support
