academy trust | Schools Week

Plymouth academy trust outsources staff and services

A multi-academy trust is set to outsource most of its central staff and services, with experts saying the move suggests business skills gaps in education. Contract documents seen by Schools Week show that the Plymouth-based Transforming Futures Trust (TFT) signed a £1 million deal this week after putting its “central services and operational support” out […]

Academy loses fight with council on restricting pupil numbers

An academy that wanted to reduce its admissions to restrict the number of pupils it had to accept mid-year has lost its battle after the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) upheld a local authority’s objection. The Westleigh School in Wigan, which is part The Shaw Education Trust, was attempting to reduce its Published Admission […]

Multiple rule breaches found in Dunham Trust ESFA investigation

An academy trust that paid out tens of thousands of pounds to related parties, spent over £1,000 for staff to attend a summit in Jordan and paid an employee’s parking ticket broke academy funding rules, an investigation has found. The Education and Skills Funding Agency investigated the Dunham Trust last June after receiving “allegations around […]

MAT to lose its four schools after ‘breakdown of trust’ among local governors

An academy trust will lose its four schools following a “breakdown in trust” between its central operation and local governors. The Learning Link Multi-Academy Trust, which runs the Dudley Wood, Netherbrook, Kates Hill and Sledmere primary schools in Dudley, was warned in July that if it didn’t address serious concerns about the way it was […]

Leading AP academy trust to close

A leading academy trust for excluded and vulnerable learners is to close and give up its seven schools after its financial position became “unsustainable”. The TBAP trust has confirmed it will relinquish its alternative provision schools in London and Cambridgeshire, and that the move had been approved by the academies minister, Baroness Berridge. It follows […]

Closing trust gave CEO six -figure pay-off

An academy trust set to close over financial worries awarded its outgoing chief executive a £115,000 severance package – before handing its schools to another trust with a six-figure pension deficit. Floreat Education Academies Trust awarded chief executive Janet Hilary £115,062 in severance and redundancy pay last year, its final accounts have revealed. The trust, […]

Special school with ‘serious, widespread’ safeguarding failures to get a new sponsor

A residential special school in Worcestershire will be moved to a new academy trust after inspectors identified “serious, widespread” safeguarding failures. The boss of the academy trust in charge at Vale of Evesham School today admitted that mistakes at the school had led to “catastrophic results”, including the recruitment of a member of grounds staff […]

Exposed: The academy trust chief who boasted he ‘flicked away’ safeguarding concerns

An academy trust boss has boasted that he simply “flicked away” safeguarding complaints made by a whistleblower at a failing primary school. In a tirade to staff at Birchen Coppice Primary Academy in Kidderminster, Andrew Morrish, the chief executive of the Victoria Academies Trust (VAT), threatened to uncover and “deal with” the anonymous whistleblower who […]

Investigation: Meet the head paid £260k to run one school

A single-school academy trust has upped the pay of its top executive to £260,000, making him one of the best-paid academy bosses in the country. It means that the pay of Colin Hall, listed as “head” of Holland Park School, west London, has doubled in seven years, despite a letter from the government in 2017 […]