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Platanos Trust

Life at Platanos Trust Life at Platanos Trust Life at Platanos Trust Life at Platanos Trust Life at Platanos Trust

WELCOME

"Pupils are at the centre of our efforts and school improvement strategies focus on the continuous needs of pupils as active learners."

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Our Blueprint

The Platanos Trust is a family of schools with common goals. Our intention is to raise standards and to prepare pupils for the particular challenges of the 21st Century. Society is changing rapidly and it is essential that our educational institutions are able not only to keep apace but are in a position to lead.

We stand for high standards of behaviour and achievement, academic rigour, personal responsibility and leadership, self-discipline and mutual respect. The Trust has created opportunities for thousands of children to experience excellent teaching, to achieve high standards beyond all expectations within a stimulating curriculum that stretches them academically, and develops their skills and intellectual curiosity for life.

Rooted at the heart of the community, the Platanos Trust is transforming the aspirations and lives of families through the education of their children regardless of background. We have an unshakeable belief in our pupils. We know that this work is vital, not only to the individuals and families involved, but also to enabling the UK to remain an economic force in a rapidly changing and increasingly global marketplace.

The Trust provides a strong partnership based on shared values, expertise and resources, excellent communications and bespoke services and support.

The Platanos Trust’s successes have been brought about, and are characterised, by planned strategic management, a strong and flexible curriculum based on knowledge and skills, rigorous self-evaluation and monitoring, high-quality staff training, management development, staff empowerment through coaching and professional improvement, together with the active assumption of a leadership role by pupils.

Transformation has been achieved without altering or replacing the socio-economic profile of the families who make up the school communities.

One of our Trust’s aims is to expand our current small model of a multi-academy community that facilitates collaboration hubs. We also plan to continue the development of our very strong provision for SEND and Inclusion, both within our mainstream and beyond. At present, our chain caters for learners from the ages of 2 to 19. Our expertise therefore encompasses Early Years up to Key Stage 5 (A-levels), as well as SEND specialist resourced provisions within our academies.

 

Non-negotiable corporate themes

In the Trust we will work together with others to ensure that outstanding education remains at the core of everything we do. We stand for traditional values, top quality teaching, high standards of pupil behaviour, and state-of-the-art learning environments.

Underpinning the Trust’s expansion plans are the principles of raising standards, and achieving high quality pupil outcomes within a framework which will achieve rapid improvement. All staff are held accountable for the implementation of these principles.

Key Objectives

  • To continue to build institutional strength, capacity and sustainability.
  • The Trust aims to extend the number of pupils who are able to benefit from and flourish within the Platanos community of schools with its particular ethos and expertise by expanding the chain to include six more schools in the next three years.

Performance Objectives

  • To ensure an organisational culture with shared values of consistent service delivery of high standards and accountability.
  • To concentrate workforce development planning within a culture of training, professional development, networking and school-to-school support.
  • High standards of quality assurance, putting teaching, learning and pupil outcomes at the top of the agenda.
  • High quality resources to support best practice in teaching and learning, with a particular focus on promoting excellence in literacy, numeracy and IT.
 

School-to-school support and strategic partnerships

We have built the capacity to train head teachers and managers through the programmes of support in which our executive head teacher and senior leaders have participated over a number of years. We aim to develop a Teaching School model of school-to-school support in the clusters of schools in our community.

Our school improvement model aims to provide rapid turnaround and is continuously focused on outcomes. We know that we are good at raising attainment, maximising pupils’ potential and providing for the needs of pupils.

We have considerable expertise in teaching and learning for English as an Additional Language and disadvantaged pupils and we aim to be the best at modelling success in these fields for the country as a whole. Our model includes rigorous regular assessment and target-setting for the progress of each pupil, high quality literacy and numeracy provision, best practice in working together and high levels of professional communication.

Outstanding teachers, pastoral staff and managers are deployed across the partner schools in the Trust to share exemplary practice, deliver training and close monitoring of standards of teaching and learning. Assessment of pupils’ progress is accurate, reliable and coherent, data analysis and use will be of a high order by all staff and achievement will be celebrated.

We look at the strengths and challenges of each academy in the Trust, sharing good practice within and beyond each partner school. Finance, payroll, human resources and other services are centrally provided to ensure efficiency, consistency, best practice and value for money.

 

All Platanos Trust schools have been graded at least 'Good' in their last graded Ofsted inspection.