As my first term together at OWN Multi Academy Trust comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the Autumn term. It has been an inspiring and eventful term filled with collaboration, growth, and a collective commitment to excellence in education. It has also been a busy term, with a number of exciting opportunities to continue to develop our schools into the very best places to educate our pupils.

From the moment I stepped into this role as CEO, I was struck by the warmth and passion that radiates throughout our school communities. The dedication of our staff, the enthusiasm of our pupils, and the unwavering support from parents have been nothing short of extraordinary. There is a strong collaborative culture at OWN trust and a clear desire to drive improvement - a quote which sticks with me from the term - "You don't have to be sick to get better".

My term has been spent getting to know the staff and pupils at each of our trust schools. I have been impressed with different elements at each school and have shared these strengths with leaders. There has been a focus on developing our phonics provision and ensuring that all pupils are supported to develop their early reading skills as early as possible in their school journey. I was truly privileged to visit Orton Wistow School where I observed not only exceptional phonics teaching but inspirational leadership of the subject area.

 

We have also begun an exciting journey of making our Early Years classrooms the most inspirational settings for our youngest pupils. We have worked closely with Early Excellence who are a specialist Early Years company who have completed audits across each school. They spoke very positively about the setup of provision at Nene Valley and the potential outdoor environments we have at each school. We are also very excited to have submitted three bids to open a Nursery setting for two-year-olds and upwards at each school. We are very excited at the prospect of being able to offer a high-quality early-year curriculum to the youngest of pupils and ensure that pupils are well-prepared for the transition into full-time school. Thank you to our parents who took the time to respond to our consultation documents.

 

Finally, our head turns to outcomes for pupils, and we are aspirational in what we want all our pupils to achieve in each year group and by the time they leave our schools. It is essential that we prepare all of our pupils for their next stage in education, both academically and pastorally. I have been particularly impressed with the high expectations set at Woodston in Year 6 where the staff are already seeing significant progress with pupil outcomes from the start of the year.

We have also reviewed a number of our systems and structures across the trust to ensure the greatest efficiency with our school budgets and maximising output. Our operational support as a trust should be supporting our leaders in school to focus on the fundamental elements of teaching and learning. We aim to provide exceptional services in each of our schools and look forward to reviewing our services such as site, finance and IT next term. We continue to provide outreach support to schools outside of our trust such as IT and finance support at Old Fletton and site support at several local schools. As a result of our work, we have implemented a new visitor sign-in system, and we look forward to opening our new Reception area at Woodston after Christmas.

As we look ahead to the Springt term, our focus remains clear: to build on this momentum and continue fostering a nurturing, ambitious, and inclusive environment for every member of the OWN community. There is still much more to achieve, and I am excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.

In the Spring term we will be looking to launch our core principles of teaching in reading to ensure that our high-quality teaching of reading continues once children are confident with their phonics.  We will also be launching our new recruitment platform to ensure that we attract the highest calibre of applicants for any vacancies we may have.

We will also be launching our trust-wide stakeholder survey which will give you as parents/carers the opportunity to feedback your thoughts on your child's school and the trust as a whole. We always welcome feedback and most importantly the opportunity to respond to any concerns raised and continue to improve. We already know that we wish to standardise and where necessary improve our communications with you as parents/carers so that you are fully involved in our trust journey.

I want to make another plea to members of our school community. As we hopefully start to head into warmer weather in the spring term, we know there are a number of outside projects that need support - e.g. painting fences, and sheds, and cleaning outdoor areas. We are still desperately looking for a fence company that could support us by providing a fence at the lowest possible cost to keep our school area safe at Woodston Primary.  We also continue to look for any companies who would be willing to match funds or support us with any funding for our outdoor early years environment - we are probably looking at a cost of between £65 - 80k per setting. Whilst we have recently received a clean bill of health around our finances across the trust, we know that school budgets are continually stretched as we try and staff and resource our schools appropriately. Any help we can get from our local community will be hugely appreciated in these challenging times.

Finally, I want to personally thank every member of our school community for your warm welcome, support and shared commitment. Your input and feedback have been invaluable, and I encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts as we work together to create the best possible future for our pupils.

I look forward to an even more successful and inspiring term ahead.