The Latest News
Growth and change
4th November 2024
Over the past year, we have been delighted to welcome three new schools
to the trust (Burpham, Tillingbourne and Glebelands) and to open a fourth
new school (Surrey Maths School). We are currently working with two
further schools (Southborough High School and Pond Meadow School)
with a view to them joining the trust next calendar year. It is exciting to be
able to collaborate with these new schools, all of which represent different
communities, cover different educational phases, and bring staff to the
trust with different perspectives and experiences.
As our trust continues to grow, we are working hard to ensure that our
team is fully equipped to support all our schools - both the new schools
joining, and those that have been part of the trust for many years. This
involves some changes to increase the size and skillset of the central
team, and also some changes to how services are delivered within
schools, with staff in schools starting to work together as a combined team
to provide services to a small group of schools.
For example, we have established two 'finance groups' whereby the
finance teams in three schools work as a single team, each led by a
qualified accountant, rather than working just for their own school. This
provides schools with increased levels of professional expertise, allows
better management of staff workload, and provides improved career
progression and development opportunities for our finance staff. The
finance teams at George Abbot, Sandfield and Shalford (led by Kirsty
Morris) have been working together since April 2024, and more recently
the teams at Guildford County, Loseley Fields and Surrey Maths School
(led by Mary-Jane Crump) have started to work as a single team.
These initial trials are going well, and we hope to identify a third group of
three schools to start working together in Spring 2025 - a process that will
be led by Helana Muller, whose role will now focus on these developments
to how finance is managed within schools. We are also starting to explore
how this model could apply to other school support services such as HR,
premises etc, with a view to groups of schools working together more
widely to support each other.
There have also been some changes to the staffing on our central team,
as we continue to grow our capacity and develop the professional
expertise available to our schools:
- Lisa Wilde has joined us as Head of Finance, having previously led the
process of setting up the finance group at George Abbot, Shalford and
Sandfield
- Dominique Morris has been appointed as our Trust Governance Lead,
with Fiona Lalley taking over the role of Clerk to Trustees
- Jodie Farrell-Gray is moving to our HR team to take on the role of HR
Coordinator
- Nathan Hurn is joining our IT Network Support team
As ever, our focus is to find ways to work with schools to deliver efficient
and high-quality support services which facilitate and prioritise the work of
our classroom-based staff - how we will achieve this will inevitably change
and adapt as the trust grows, but the objective will always remain the
same. To lead schools where children thrive.
Over the past year, we have been delighted to welcome three new schools
to the trust (Burpham, Tillingbourne and Glebelands) and to open a fourth
new school (Surrey Maths School). We are currently working with two
further schools (Southborough High School and Pond Meadow School)
with a view to them joining the trust next calendar year. It is exciting to be
able to collaborate with these new schools, all of which represent different
communities, cover different educational phases, and bring staff to the
trust with different perspectives and experiences.
As our trust continues to grow, we are working hard to ensure that our
team is fully equipped to support all our schools - both the new schools
joining, and those that have been part of the trust for many years. This
involves some changes to increase the size and skillset of the central
team, and also some changes to how services are delivered within
schools, with staff in schools starting to work together as a combined team
to provide services to a small group of schools.
For example, we have established two 'finance groups' whereby the
finance teams in three schools work as a single team, each led by a
qualified accountant, rather than working just for their own school. This
provides schools with increased levels of professional expertise, allows
better management of staff workload, and provides improved career
progression and development opportunities for our finance staff. The
finance teams at George Abbot, Sandfield and Shalford (led by Kirsty
Morris) have been working together since April 2024, and more recently
the teams at Guildford County, Loseley Fields and Surrey Maths School
(led by Mary-Jane Crump) have started to work as a single team.
These initial trials are going well, and we hope to identify a third group of
three schools to start working together in Spring 2025 - a process that will
be led by Helana Muller, whose role will now focus on these developments
to how finance is managed within schools. We are also starting to explore
how this model could apply to other school support services such as HR,
premises etc, with a view to groups of schools working together more
widely to support each other.
There have also been some changes to the staffing on our central team,
as we continue to grow our capacity and develop the professional
expertise available to our schools:
- Lisa Wilde has joined us as Head of Finance, having previously led the
process of setting up the finance group at George Abbot, Shalford and
Sandfield - Dominique Morris has been appointed as our Trust Governance Lead,
with Fiona Lalley taking over the role of Clerk to Trustees - Jodie Farrell-Gray is moving to our HR team to take on the role of HR
Coordinator - Nathan Hurn is joining our IT Network Support team
As ever, our focus is to find ways to work with schools to deliver efficient
and high-quality support services which facilitate and prioritise the work of
our classroom-based staff - how we will achieve this will inevitably change
and adapt as the trust grows, but the objective will always remain the
same. To lead schools where children thrive.
