Trustee​/Director

South Pennine Academies is a community of educational professionals who work together to provide support to drive educational improvement in schools. The trust empowers schools to deliver higher-quality education, foster innovation and achieve better outcomes for students. The trust has a reputation of turning struggling schools around.
It is committed to developing partnerships with its academies, the communities they serve and external organisations. Their academies are an integral part of their communities, and they value the diversity and opportunities this brings. Strong collaboration brings drive, expertise and capacity to the Trust and this allows their academies to flourish. By working collaboratively, they ensure that they provide the very best educational experience for students and give all the best possible chance to succeed.
The trust office is situated in Elland. Its academies are in Oldham, Halifax, Huddersfield, and Dewsbury. Many of the trust’s academies are in deprived areas.
The trust has 11 schools (3 secondary and 8 primary). They grew from the outstanding Moor End High School in Huddersfield which had its outstanding judgement reaffirmed at an inspection last summer. The trust’s 8 primaries are all (Ofsted) ‘good’ but they also took two secondaries which are particularly challenging. Waterhead Academy in Oldham has had a very difficult past and was made from the merger of two failing schools several years ago.

The original trust struggled to support the school, and it was rebrokered to SPA in 2016. After a period showing some improvement, the school was moved back into special measures and the trust is now looking at the potential to move this school to another trust. In addition, the trust took on Park Lane High School in Halifax which had been in special measures for a while.

Unlike Waterhead (which is a large, 1150 pupil school), Park Lane is a very small (430 pupil) school and has not been a local school of choice. The team have improved Park Lane and it achieved an RI judgement in autumn 2022 and is due for reinspection imminently. The work continues to secure the school to be at least good when it is next inspected.

Both schools serve disadvantaged communities with Waterhead being very multicultural; both schools also had larger than normal proportions of children with special educational needs. The trust has around 850 staff across three local authority areas (Kirklees, Calderdale and Oldham). The staff serve over 5000 pupils aged 3-16.
The trust is in early discussion with other primaries about joining and whilst these conversations are in the early stages, they hope to add some schools to the trust within the next year. The trust has a strong track record in improving primary schools.
The trust also has two special units which support children with particular learning difficulties. Moor End Academy hosts a unit for Visually Impaired Pupils and Beaumont Primary Academy hosts a unit for children with social emotional and mental health challenges. These units allow children with particular special needs to have specialist support but spend the bulk of their time in mainstream classrooms.

Inclusion is important for the Trust. For SEND students, there is a bespoke learning journey tailored to our students with additional needs and/or disabilities. The adaptive approach used in our academies ensures that all students, regardless of need or ability, are able to access a full and comprehensive curriculum.
There is a strong culture of safeguarding across the Trust. Compliancy and consistency across the Trust is ensured so that our most vulnerable students are receiving the best provision and support possible.

School improvement is seen as a collective responsibility and strong systems and structures support all their academies. The Trust’s approach to school improvement is based upon a shared vision and values centred around provision of an exceptional education for all their students. The trust works with academies at the different stages of their journey of continual self-improvement.
There is a strong culture of CPD and coaching for staff, with professional learning…