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Becoming stronger
29th September 2023
As many of you will know, we are excited to be in the process of welcoming new schools into Learning Partners Academy Trust.
Last Spring, four schools – Burpham Primary School, Tillingbourne Junior School, Glebelands School and Moss Lane Infant School – applied to convert to academy status and to join Learning Partners. Since then, we have been working closely with the four schools to:
- Conduct a shared process of due-diligence, to make sure that we are all confident that the schools will thrive within Learning Partners, and that the addition of the new schools will help us to become a better, stronger trust
- Complete the necessary legal processes, which include negotiating the terms of the transfers with the DfE and Surrey County Council, dealing with land ownership issues, TUPE transfers etc
- Prepare the new schools to switch over to Learning Partners systems and processes.
This process is technical and time-consuming – my thanks go to the staff of the new schools (especially the SBMs!) and the members of the central team that have worked so hard over the summer to enable the new schools to join.
Inevitably, a process like this identifies a small number of issues that can take time to overcome. We were delighted to welcome Burpham into the trust in September and are expecting Tillingbourne to join in October. We are still working through some technicalities at Glebelands and Moss Lane, and hope that they will be able to join the trust soon afterwards.
Our focus now starts to move towards ensuring that the new schools are fully supported once they are in our trust – this involves setting up new systems, moving to new policies, and ensuring that the schools are able to benefit from all the services and support that Learning Partners have to offer. This will be a gradual process running throughout this academic year, but most of the changes will be in the background and not obvious to the majority of staff or to children and families.
Above all, our aim is to enable the new schools to thrive within our trust, and to contribute to making the whole Learning Partners community even stronger.
As many of you will know, we are excited to be in the process of welcoming new schools into Learning Partners Academy Trust.
Last Spring, four schools – Burpham Primary School, Tillingbourne Junior School, Glebelands School and Moss Lane Infant School – applied to convert to academy status and to join Learning Partners. Since then, we have been working closely with the four schools to:
- Conduct a shared process of due-diligence, to make sure that we are all confident that the schools will thrive within Learning Partners, and that the addition of the new schools will help us to become a better, stronger trust
- Complete the necessary legal processes, which include negotiating the terms of the transfers with the DfE and Surrey County Council, dealing with land ownership issues, TUPE transfers etc
- Prepare the new schools to switch over to Learning Partners systems and processes.
This process is technical and time-consuming – my thanks go to the staff of the new schools (especially the SBMs!) and the members of the central team that have worked so hard over the summer to enable the new schools to join.
Inevitably, a process like this identifies a small number of issues that can take time to overcome. We were delighted to welcome Burpham into the trust in September and are expecting Tillingbourne to join in October. We are still working through some technicalities at Glebelands and Moss Lane, and hope that they will be able to join the trust soon afterwards.
Our focus now starts to move towards ensuring that the new schools are fully supported once they are in our trust – this involves setting up new systems, moving to new policies, and ensuring that the schools are able to benefit from all the services and support that Learning Partners have to offer. This will be a gradual process running throughout this academic year, but most of the changes will be in the background and not obvious to the majority of staff or to children and families.
Above all, our aim is to enable the new schools to thrive within our trust, and to contribute to making the whole Learning Partners community even stronger.
