“Strength through partnership” 

Attenborough Learning Trust is committed to the principles of collaboration and school-to-school support. Our trust is an open and honest partnership where challenge is welcomed by all.   We strive to make sure that through the sharing of expertise and resources we promote our ethos and culture of supportive challenge and school improvement.  Leaders will be open about the strengths and areas for development for their school.  We assume that the best people to address any issue in the school will be the headteacher with their leadership team and local governing body.   

The trust will recognise, and where possible, pre-empt issue of performance (educational, financial, compliance etc).  The trustees and operational leaders of the Trust will take appropriate actions to tackle and resolve issues for the benefit of the children within the Trust.  Areas of need and identifiable challenges are likely to come from the following: 

• External inspections or verification visits such as Ofsted, HMI, Annual Performance Dialogue. 
• An unexplained drop in pupil data or pupils not on track with targets 
• High levels of teaching and learning and assessment requiring improvement 
• Significant issues relating to the behavior of children 
• Falling roles, beyond the local trend 
• The school being at risk of facing significant financial difficulty 
• Staffing issues, including recruitment, retention and absence 

An Annual Performance Dialogue and Risk Assessment is carried out with all schools and monitored at least termly.  This informs the level of support required by the school.  In the spirit of our leadership culture, the willingness of the school to engage with school improvement activity and the leadership capacity necessary to drive these improvements in the school is evaluated as part of the risk assessment process.