General Questions

What is a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) and how does this benefit schools?

Connect Academy Trust is a group of schools which work closely together to provide a high-quality education for children, develop staff and leaders and provide financial efficiency to put resources back into the classroom. MATs are independent from the local authority, but usually work alongside them and receive their funding directly from the government. Connect benefits children, staff and parents by sharing expertise from school to school, providing high quality training and giving children enriching experiences they would not get in a standalone school.

How do I send my child to one of your schools?

We'd love to hear from you about sending your child to one of our schools. For more information about our admissions process check here.

How can I find out more about your schools?

You can find out more information about our schools here. You can also contact us to book a tour here.

How will you meet my child’s needs?

We ensure that each school is ambitious for every child in our care, and we have the highest expectations of our children and our staff. Leaders monitor what is happening in every class, they meet with teachers to discuss each child’s learning. They work closely with staff and parents to ensure your child’s needs are being met. Each school has a Special Needs Coordinator (SENDCo) who focuses on the provision for any child who has barriers to their learning, The SENDCo liaises with parents, staff, agencies outside of school as well as the child themselves to ensure the best possible package of support around each child. Teaching is personalised and built on what your child already knows, can do and can understand and resources are tailored to support their learning. Teachers and support staff regularly check to see that children are being able to know more, remember more and do more in all areas of the curriculum.

What are the visions and values of the trust?

The children in our schools are the future. Every child has the right to an appropriate and engaging curriculum, delivered by motivated and skilled professionals.

We make a difference because it matters and we care.

We make decisions based on a detailed knowledge of what is happening for our children, in our classrooms, in our communities.

We carry out school improvement work driven by enquiry, research and innovation
We are outward looking and invite external moderation for our judgements
We share our expertise to develop a creative and engaging curriculum
We develop high quality learning environments within each unique school

We are honest with each other.

We treat each other with respect and take responsibility for our actions
We are open to both giving and receiving constructive challenge
We trust that difficult conversations are for the good of the children
We prioritise resources according to where need is greatest to benefit all children

We are absolutely focused on learning for all.

We hold a shared understanding of high quality learning and behaviours for learning
We are committed to growing, developing and building upon talent from within
We invest in our staff as we believe that children will thrive if our staff grow and develop
We value high quality collaborative continuing professional development to build on expertise from within and beyond
We reflect on what we have learnt and how this can make a difference

We are relentless in our drive to be the best that we can be.

School Questions

How do I express an interest in collaborating with your Trust?

Contact us via Join Our Trust or via admin@connectacademytrust.co.uk. We always welcome visitors to our and are happy to operate a ‘try before you buy’ system, so leaders and schools can get to know us and what we offer first. We call these ‘associate’ schools who are a part of the Trust family before making a formal decision to join. We look forward to hearing from you.

What do schools get if they join Connect? How much is your central charge/top slice?

Our Trust contribution is 6% of GAG

All schools get a range of services, including:

School Improvement, led by a qualified Ofsted Inspector
Support/training for local governing bodies
Centralised finance service
HR advisory service
Payroll service
Centralised Premises service
Centralised IT
Trust licenses where possible to save costs and ensure consistency

Any costs that are added to the 6% in the future will be savings from Schools budgets.

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What is your School Improvement Offer?

School Improvement Strategy.

We believe that every school, regardless of their situation, has practice to share. All schools within the Trust can be ‘Capacity Givers’; and ‘Capacity Takers’ over a period of time. There is a commitment and willingness from all schools to both offer and receive support. We believe that secure, sustainable improvement takes time and change needs to be prioritised by both school and Trust leaders.

Effective school improvement involves building an ambitious culture, capacity and high-quality leadership across the school. There is a range of School Improvement monitoring and evaluation tasks that take place in all schools, which provide up to date information. School Improvement processes are planned on an annual basis depending on the phase within which each school is working.

The phases are defined as the Sustain, Develop, Repair or the Stabilise phase, with a ‘best fit’ profile. These are based on the nationally recognised model from Sir David Carter describing School Improvement Trajectories. The Trust is committed to School Improvement by ensuring a fulltime School Improvement Lead is employed to focus solely on school improvement and leadership development, providing a core offer for all Trust schools and providing additional personalised support appropriate to individual school and staff as required.

See our full document for more details.

What is an associate member of the Trust?

See ‘How do I express an interest in joining your Trust?’ above

What other services do you offer?

Our Shared Services team is happy to offer advice and support (such as Finance, Estates and HR) to other schools and Trusts and share expertise.

Do you plan to grow further?

Our vision for Connect is to be a Trust of 12-15 schools by 2030. We want to make a difference to even more children, parents, staff and leaders, yet remain at a size where we know each other well, effective relationships exist between all of schools and children’s outcomes continue to improve.

Career Questions

How do I find out more about Connect as an employer?

Find out more information on our Vacancies page. Or by emailing interest directly to admin@connectacademytrust.co.uk.

How do I apply for a job?

Take a look at our Vacancies page on our website. Currently gives more info on the vacancy and instructions to download our application form to be emailed to the relevant school Admin/Ops Lead. In the near future the recruitment process will change to be an on-line application via our payroll providers within their system iTrent.

How do you support Early Career Teachers (ECTs)?

We have many ECTs across the Trust, and many have gone on to further their careers with us, including moving to senior leadership positions. A number of senior staff have mentoring experience and use this to provide personalised support for the ECTs. We support through the use of national programmes, but supplement this with our own in school and cross-Trust activities. These could include looking at something significant like the ocean curriculum, or pedagogy, but also sharing the day-to-day wisdom around writing IEPs, parents' evenings, marking and feedback, and working with families.

How do you support Professional Development?

We have a belief that we are a Professional Learning Community – creating a culture whereby we are all learners, where we contribute to the Trust and ultimately our children's futures by being active participants and drivers of our CPD.

We have a range of CPD opportunities, informally to formally, for all roles, and encourage staff to reflect on their skills and role, as well as Trust and school priorities. By working together, we can then determine what opportunities might enhance our professional learning. You might find senior leaders undertaking qualifications such as NPQSL or NPQH, or the use of national speakers for leadership training, to smaller scale day to day mentoring and opportunities to look at practice and work alongside peers. We have a highly innovative approach to appraisal, founded in professional dialogue, where staff are encouraged to undertake small scale research projects in areas relevant to their role. This then can be shared and adds to our learning as schools and as a Trust.

Curriculum Questions

What is the Ocean Conservation Curriculum?

We believe all children have the right to learn about the importance of the ocean, and to develop a sense of responsibility towards its conservation. The Ocean Conservation Curriculum is an exciting innovation, whereby the Trust has worked with its partners to create a scheme of work to study comprehensive and progressive objectives related to the seven global Ocean Literacy Principles. Children enjoy exciting and informative activities, both in school and beyond, which greatly enhance their overall curriculum.

Three main considerations are the conservation of the Ocean, the scientific knowledge of the ocean, and how the ocean has contributed to history and inspired us. We have close links with many of the leading experts in this field, including the National Marine Aquarium (OCT), Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association. Our vision is to share this work both in Plymouth and beyond. We are also in the process of being accredited as European Blue Schools – the first in the UK!

How is your Curriculum organised across the Trust?

Each school has autonomy to develop their own Curriculum which meets the needs of the children and their families in their school community. Subject leaders work together across the Trust to ensure that each subject has a strong progressive curriculum which matches the National Curriculum, whilst being enhanced by the Ocean Conservation Curriculum. Schools have autonomy over how they plan learning opportunities to deliver this planned, progressive Curriculum.

How do you know your curriculum model works?

The effectiveness of the Curriculum is monitored in school by the headteacher and their leadership team. They monitor the planning of the Curriculum closely, talk to subject leaders, visit lessons, look through books and talk to children about their learning. This process is supported by the Trust School Improvement Lead who quality assures the curriculum and carries out similar monitoring activities to assess the impact of the Curriculum in each subject area.

If there's anything else you'd like to know about Connect, we'd love to hear from you.

Get in touch

Frequently asked questions

General Questions

School Questions

Career Questions

Curriculum Questions

If there's anything else you'd like to know about Connect, we'd love to hear from you.