At Oak Trees Multi Academy Trust, we aim to deliver for our schools in all areas. The Trust provides key services to all our schools which enables school leaders to concentrate on what they know best – the quality of education and serving their community. We pride ourselves in all that the Trust has to offer, and we feel that this represents excellent value for money for all schools.

Below we highlight how the Trust supports each school in a number of key areas:

School Improvement

At Oak Trees, we believe that schools must continually improve year on year no matter how successful they are. All schools MUST provide a good quality of education for all children no matter what their circumstances or need. This is the key reason why the Trust provides ongoing school improvement support to all our schools no matter what their circumstances, and is why the Trust chose to employ a School Improvement Lead (SIL) in 2019. The Trust provides for all its’ schools:

• Regular visits from our SIL to all schools.

• Coordination of an annual MAT training offer based on the needs and requirements of our schools.

• Development of a Lead Professional network of strong practitioners who work with the SIL, in their own and other MAT schools, to improve their own and others teaching and learning through professional development and coaching.

• Ongoing Quality Assurance work from the Trust including curriculum reviews, school reviews and other aspects of monitoring to support improvement.

• A range of network groups focused on developing high quality education for all in areas such as Early Years, Special Educational Needs and a range of curriculum subjects.

• Ongoing training and support for Headteachers and Deputy Headteachers through coordinated MAT training.

• Bespoke support for all schools and school leaders from Trust-wide specialists.

We are proud of our work in this key area, and feel strongly that the Trust must have the capacity and capability to deliver quality support in this area. We want all our schools to achieve well, and we do this in a collaborative, professional and supportive way in line with the Trust values.

Estates Management

At Oak Trees, management of our buildings and estates is an integral part of what we do – safe schools are successful schools. To do this we work with two key partners, our Facilities Management company and our Health and Safety company. These two high quality providers ensure that our estates are safe and compliant with all regulations as well as ensuring that we plan for the future and maintain and develop our estates for future years. This is done in a range of ways including:

• Centrally produced and managed health and safety policies and handbooks.

• Monthly health and safety visits.

• Annual health and safety audits for all schools.

• MAT coordinated training programme for all staff.

• 5-year estate planning for all our schools to enable future building development.

• Centrally managed and checked contractor lists to enable high quality and value for money works to be carried out.

• Support with CIF bidding and management of major projects – the Trust has managed to gain over £6 million of CIF funding in the first 5 years of existence.

• Compliance management through coordinating and monitoring ongoing health and safety checks for all schools.

We feel strongly that this high quality support and monitoring is key to maintaining our estates and ensuring that our schools are both fit for purpose and safe at all times. Our key external service providers ensure an objective approach to this, and through Trust coordination our buildings are all in excellent condition.

Finance Support

Excellent financial management is a non-negotiable for our Trust, and our highly skilled finance team ensure that all schools perform well, fulfil their statutory financial obligations and are compliant with the Academies Financial handbook at all times. Our ongoing internal and external audit outcomes evidence our excellent practice in this area. The Trust also provides:

• Banking support through the MAT finance team.

• Coordination of high quality finance software across the Trust.

• Trust management of budgets with school leaders and Governors to ensure that surplus budgets are operated each year.

• Payroll support and coordination.

• All financial aspects of CIF bidding and projects.

• Pension fund administration (teachers pensions and LGPS schemes).

• Banking and credit card provision.

• Day-to-day financial support from the Trust CFO for all schools.

• Annual internal compliance audit (DfE requirement).

• Annual external audit and production of annual accounts (DfE requirement).

Key Features of How Finance Is Managed at Oak Trees includes:

• Each school manages their own bank account and academy funding is ring-fenced for each individual school and not pooled centrally.

• Schools are supported to set surplus budgets each year, with deficit budgets requiring board approval in the rare occasion that they arise.

• The Trust has a reserves policy which requires the school to build a reserve fund of at least one month’s payroll costs as soon as it is practicably possible to do so.

• School funding is paid directly from the ESFA to each individual school.

Human Resources

All our schools have an external Service Level Agreement with the Trust HR provider. The Trust brings this support together through:

• Coordinating training for school leaders.

• Developing and embedding HR policies and procedures.

• Creating a recruitment package.

• Developing Performance Management frameworks.

• Monitoring HR policies and procedures in schools to ensure consistency and compliance.

The Trust CEO provides ongoing support and coordination on a daily basis so that there is always someone to call for advice.

GDPR

Our schools have an external Service Level Agreement with the Trust GDPR provider and Data Protection Officer. The Trust ensure that all our schools are GDPR compliant through:

• Coordinating training for all staff across the Trust.

• Developing Trust and school GDPR policies and procedures.

• Supporting schools with their websites to be GDPR compliant.

• Coordinating checks on GDPR compliance with MAT and school service providers.

• Coordinating Data Impact Assessments for all schools.

• Supporting schools when a potential data breach has arisen.

The Trust CEO and Compliance Manager provide ongoing support and coordination on a daily basis so that there is always someone to call for advice and to enable all schools to be GDPR compliant at all times.

Governance

High quality and effective governance is a key focus of our Trust work. We enable this to happen through a variety of channels, including:

• Regular forums for Chairs of Governors, Safeguarding Governors and Parent Governors to enable coordination and communication from and to the Trust.

• Access to all Governors to the National College training suite.

• Regular presence from Trust leaders at Governors meetings to support communication.

• Clerking service coordinated by the Trust which provides high quality clerking and ensures that all statutory obligations are met by all Governing Bodies.

• High quality documentation, including an annual Governance Plan, to enable all Governors to have a clear understanding of how governance works across the Trust.

• At least termly face-to-face training for Governing Bodies on a range of areas, including data analysis, safeguarding and holding school leaders to account.

• Support with succession planning.

At Oak Trees, we provide ourselves on our positive relationships with our Governing Bodies and the strong communication channels we have developed to ensure that Governance runs smoothly and effectively.

Accountability Framework

As a Trust, we have an obligation to our families to ensure all schools are performing well and delivering a good quality of education. To do that, the Trust delivers an annual Quality Assurance Framework which ensures that schools are compliant in all areas as well as performing well educationally. This includes:

• Annual school teaching and learning review led by the School Improvement Lead.

• Ongoing support and challenge meetings with our School Improvement Lead and CEO.

• Ongoing collaborative monitoring activities with the School Improvement Lead.

• Regular compliance visits focusing on Health and Safety, GDPR and HR by the CEO.

• External audits from service level providers for GDPR, Health and Safety, Finance and HR.

We feel strongly that the Trust has a key role of ensuring that all schools perform well in all areas so that our families get the best out of school, and through our ongoing and extensive accountability framework we ensure that this is the case: our schools are excellent!

Training and Support

We feel strongly that schools improve through training and support, and our comprehensive training programme enables this to happen. Our comprehensive annual training package includes:

• Annual access for all staff and Governors to the National College online training suite.

• Annual MAT INSET days for all teachers and Teaching Assistants with renowned trainers.

• Bespoke training for school leaders in areas such as data analysis and diversity and equality.

• Access for all staff to online and face to face health and safety training.

• Access for all staff and Governors to online GDPR training.

• Annual CPD bespoke programme of training focused on teaching and learning and curriculum.

• Termly teaching and learning staff meetings led by our team of Lead Professionals.

• Early Career Teacher training programme facilitated and led by the Trust.

• Access for aspiring leaders to national programmes such as NPQH and NPQSL.

• Termly Governor and Trustee training sessions led by Trust leaders.

• High quality training for Early Years teachers through external providers.

• Excellent training for Special Needs through the ADHD Foundation.

The range of quality training accessed by the Trust has been integral in our development in the past 5 years, and we will continue to do this moving forward to enable staff and Governors to be the best they can be!

Trust Networks

Collaboration is at the heart of our Trust, and for this to happen Oak Trees has created a range of network groups who work together to improve coordination, consistency and practice. Our range of networks include:

• Subject leaders from various subjects including maths and English.

• Headteacher/Deputy Headteacher network groups who meet regularly operationally and strategically.

• Lead Professionals, leading teachers from each school who meet with the School Improvement Lead to focus on teaching and learning.

• Our EYFS leads who meet regularly with external trainers and a MAT Headteacher to share and develop good practice.

• Our Special Educational Needs Coordinators meet regularly to improve provision and are excellently led by our Trust SEND lead.

• Our Early Career Teachers (ECTs) meet regularly and have extensive training from the MAT ECT Programme Leads to enable them to become excellent teachers as quickly as possible.

• Our Governors meet regularly through training and through networks for Chairs, safeguarding and parent Governors. All Governors and Trustees use Governor Hub to coordinate their work and to enable sharing of resources, documents and training.

• Our office staff meet regularly online and face to face to share good practice, support each other and enable the Trust to coordinate their work.

• All our schools use Google Drive and Google Hangout to share their resources and to communicate online, and we feel strongly that the use of online meetings greatly enhances the work we do and the opportunities to collaborate and communicate.

Bespoke Support – Whatever Schools Want We Can Deliver!

Our Trust is based on the key vision of ‘Achieving Excellence Together’. Our MAT team, which encompasses everyone who works for Oak Trees, work together to make things better for our children. This can only be delivered through collaboration and support, and this is key to the Trust: there is always someone within the Trust who can help, and if we need external support and advice then we deliver. This team approach is key every day at Oak Trees, and there is always someone from the Trust who can help, no matter what the issue. This is why Oak Trees is such a successful MAT. We are a team!