Dear OWN Trust Colleagues...
Wow - what a busy first half-term it has been. I have really enjoyed working with and getting to know the central services team, understanding their roles and the impact this has on allowing our schools to focus on their key priority of education.
You shared with me on the INSET day that you wanted to see more of the central team in your schools. I hope you haven't regretted that as you have seen me walking around classrooms! Teaching is my passion and seeing children receive high quality teaching and learning creates such an energy for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed my opportunities to visit all the classrooms across each of our schools, looking at phonics, maths and our approach to reading beyond phonics. At the end of next half-term, I hope to be able to provide a response to some of the wider areas of feedback that you shared.
Some positive highlights for me have definitely been the infamous 'Wistow Sausage roll', which was as delicious as promised. I also visited some exceptional phonics lessons at Orton Wistow, which were as good (if not better as they actually had children in them!) as the recorded sessions on the Little Wandle website. This has resulted in me recommending to the school that they apply to become a Little Wandle Champion School. This is exactly what we want from our trust - exceptionality - and I look forward to working with the other two schools in finding and celebrating their exceptionality.
I have also seen some really strong examples of schools helping one another out. For example, office staff from the other schools supported Woodston with their census arrangements whilst they were managing staff absence in that area. There is a very strong culture across the trust of wanting to work together, and I am keen to build on that even further.
I am also excited that we have now installed our electronic sign in system for staff and visitors at both Orton Wistow and Nene Valley (Woodston to follow once front of house work is complete). This is a starting point to improving our safeguarding culture across the trust - again, to reach exceptionality and the highest possible standards. Please do use the system every day to sign in and out and please test out our school office staff on their new visitor welcome procedures!
Next half-term we look to implement SCR tracker across the trust, which means we will have a centralised single central record that contains all of our safeguarding information around the checks we complete on staff and visitors to ensure they are safe to be working with our pupils.
Lastly, we will be moving to an online recruitment system called My New Term, which will allow us to standardise our recruitment procedures and advertise any roles within our trust nationwide. We know that staff recruitment in schools is becoming a greater challenge with every single year, so we must ensure that our adverts reach the biggest audience and attract the strongest candidates for any positions across our school.
Next half-term, my focus will be on attendance. We know that there is a big pressure on schools to improve pupil attendance, and we must all recognise our responsibility to support this, including making sure that staff attendance is also as high as it can be.
I look forward to the next half-term. My school visits will be slightly fewer as I try and expand my knowledge of Peterborough and our surrounding schools. I am also excited to be training as a Lead Trust Reviewer for Challenge Partners as I think Trust OFSTED inspections aren't too far away in the future, so to have this insight will be hugely valuable.
We also begin our SRMA audit, which is an audit run by the DFE, looking at finance, leadership and governance of the trust. I always welcome these kinds of things as I am always keen to know what we are doing well, but what we could be doing even better.
I look forward to seeing you next half-term and seeing the Christmas build up. Primary Schools are the most magical place to be at this time of year.
Best wishes
Lorraine Greco
