Newsletters

A personal message from the Chair & Trustees

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to express the appreciation and admiration from the Trust Board for what you achieved over the past year and more, in the face of huge challenges and adversity.  We know that many of you have gone well beyond what could reasonably have been asked in order to keep students safe, and to maintain their education.  That focus is at the heart of what the Trust stands for, and which you deliver.  We thank you most sincerely.

We recognise that the Trust Board may feel quite distant from the day-to-day work and challenge.  The pandemic has in some ways increased that distance, because we have been unable to visit as we wanted, very badly, to do.  Many of the Trustees (there are nine) have been appointed during the pandemic, including myself as Chair.  We have engaged very fully with the Heads, and ensured that their views and their sense of what is important to you and to students is uppermost in our deliberations and decisions. But that is not the same as being able to visit regularly and to get to know the schools, the staff, and the students. With the changes recently announced by the Government we intend to make up that ground at the earliest opportunity in the new school year.

The new Trustees have themselves worked hard.  Their main task has been to re-build the governance of the Trust in the widest sense, and to understand as much as they can about the range and complexity of student and community needs that we aim to satisfy, and to re-build also the confidence of key stakeholders.  There is good evidence that we are making progress with that, and I would be very happy to share that with you, or discuss it, if any member of staff would like to do so.   

As you may know, we have decided to change the governance at school level and create a Support and Challenge Group for each Academy (more info in the recruitment article below).  We have also designated at least one Trustee per school to create a direct channel between the schools and the Trust Board, and to strengthen the Board’s direct understanding of the school experience.

We have also asked three of the Trustees to take on the role of link Safeguarding Trustee to each of the Academies, Geraldine Herage – ACE Tiverton, Karen Deeny – ACE Plymouth and Carole Burgoyne – Courtlands. They have had the opportunity to undertake visits to the academies and have been impressed by the commitment of staff to ensure that our children and young people are safe. They have seen and heard examples of work and training that you have undertaken which has ensured that the children and young people’s needs are considered in everything you do. They asked me to thank you for the high quality work you are doing in this important area.

One important shift in the approach of the new Board has been to focus more on wellbeing, very much with the wellbeing of staff in mind. The first Wellbeing Network meeting has taken place and was attended by representatives for each of the Academies and Karen Deeny and Carole Burgoyne attended as Trustee champions for wellbeing.  They were impressed by the amount of work that is already underway around the wellbeing agenda and look forward to seeing and hearing more about this over the next year and seeing this develop further through the sharing of ideas and best practice across the Trust.

Finally, none of us underestimates the ongoing challenges of the post-Covid world, even if we achieve that condition soon.  Our students all require special attention and support in one way or another, and their relative vulnerability will no doubt deepen the need for that support after as well as during the pandemic.  The Board is conscious of this, and keen to do anything within its powers and resources to make that task easier for you as staff, and with the best possible outcomes for the students.

If you would like to respond in any way to this message, or to have an exchange on any aspect of the Board’s role and work, please feel free to get in touch.

Finally, good wishes for the summer break and we look forward to meeting many more staff and students in person in the near future.

Best regards on behalf of the Board of Trustees.

Dr. Clive Grace O.B.E.

Chair of the Board of Trustees

ACE Tiverton’s Headteacher Hannah features in new Podcast

Our Headteacher at ACE Tiverton, Hannah Smart has been interviewed on the popular Teaching Schools South West podcast.

Hannah was asked onto the podcast to talk about how to teach relationship, sex and health education in a school catering for young people with a diagnosis of autism or a social, emotional or mental health need.  

So what did Hannah say about RSHE in Tiverton?

“We always start with the young people; where they have come from, what background they have experienced, what their life in mainstream education was like.  And then we draw out themes that can be discussed on the RSHE curriculum, but always based around them. So some of our young people with autism are happy to talk about, for example, personal hygiene and showering – it is just a process of them gathering information.  But for others with social or emotional challenges, the very fact of having such a conversation can be very difficult.  We have to be flexible.”

Hannah was interviewed by Lisa Whitworth, Project Director at South West Institute for Teaching.  She said “It was great to have Hannah on the pod.  Her unique experience and expertise - and the examples she gave about teaching RHSE in a special school – were both interesting and very useful to our listeners.”

To view the full press release click here