FOUR of Frome’s biggest schools are planning to set up a multi-academy trust to improve education and resources for pupils in and around the town.
Frome College, Oakfield Academy, Selwood Academy and Beckington First School are looking into setting up the formal relationship ahead of the 2017/18 school year, and hope other schools will get involved in the future.
Headteachers and governors at the schools have formed a steering group to oversee the process.
In a joint statement the group said, “The Frome Trust will share expertise among its schools and open up new opportunities.
“It will develop excellence in its teaching and learning that will enable the achievement of academic potential and the personal development of Frome’s younger generation.
“A sense of being ‘stronger together’ where the whole of the Trust will be ‘greater than the sum of its individual parts’ will form much of the new educational landscape for Frome.”
The trust has laid out a list of ten key principles in a letter sent home to parents. They include promoting diversity and mutual support, encouraging parents’ involvement, to speed up progress and improve grades, and to develop pupils’ life skills.
Headteachers will answer to a committee, board of directors and chief executive.
Schools will have their own governing bodies but the trust will set overarching policies, systems, priorities and budgets. Staff will be employed by the trust rather than individual schools and current employees will transfer in accordance with transfer of undertakings (TUPE) laws.