Our journey began back in 2016 when Tyntesfield governing body began to consider academisation and explore the possibility of becoming an academy. In early 2017, after several months of discussion and research, our governors voted to go to consultation with the school community on converting to be an academy and establish a new multi-academy trust (MAT). Feedback from the school community was extremely positive and supportive and, following a period of consultation, governors voted to apply to establish a new MAT.  

In December 2017, Inspiring Learners Multi Academy Trust was formed and on 1^stFebruary 2018, Tyntesfield converted to be an academy.

We were delighted to welcome Bollin Primary School into our Trust on 1^st June 2018.

Inspiring Learners was born out of a passion to foster and grow a true learning community; a community where a culture of learning pervades all classroom, staffrooms and leadership offices; a community where all members of staff see themselves as learners and leaders; a community where genuine collaboration is embedded throughout the culture of our Trust. Collaboration is highly valued and deeply rooted.

It is our vision for Inspiring Learners to be a learning organisation where all staff are inspired and empowered to read, research and reflect upon their own practice and learn from the practice within their own school, the practice within our family of schools and the practice beyond our Trust.

Our Educational Excellence Model seeks to further develop the highly effective practice within our schools and across our Trust by fostering and growing a dynamic learning community that continually evolves, develops and improves.

We are committed to …

Investing time, finances and staffing structures to enable staff to actively engage in professional learning to positively impact on their practice

This includes:

• actively reading and engaging with current educational thinking and research
• leading our own research projects
• developing a coaching culture throughout the Trust
• developing a Personal Professional Learning Programme (PPLP) that enables our staff to grow as learners
• empowering staff to take ownership of their own professional learning
• valuing the power of ‘professional dialogue’ and ‘reflective practice’ through regular collaborative opportunities
• reviewing school staffing and leadership structures to ensure these enable and harness professional learning opportunity
• creating cross-Trust roles to harness cross-Trust research, collaboration and learning

Actively seeking and engaging with external professionals to challenge and develop our thinking:

We recognise the importance of not only being open and responsive to different thoughts and ideas from beyond our Trust but to actively seek these too. By seeking challenge, we are encouraged us to question the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of what we do.  

We recognise the power of diversity, the power of bringing people together who think differently and can offer new insights and solutions; by looking at a situation through a different lens we jog new insights and new solutions.

As a Trust we encourage diversity of thought from beyond as well as both within our organisation as we recognise collective intelligence emerges not just from the knowledge of professionals but also from the differences between them.  

We LOVE reading! Reading is the highest priority in our schools. Reading is number one.

We are passionate about fostering a culture of reading across our Trust, enabling every child to leave Year 6 as a skilled, motivated reader and seeing themselves as a reader and who have discovered the joy of being ‘lost in a book’.

We recognise that reading is the master skill of school and are absolutely committed to achieving our vision. Our Cross-Trust Reading Team foster collaboration, drive development, encourage thinking, promote staff as readers and ensure reading remains front and centre in our schools!

the

to unlocking

the curriculum

It is our vision that every child leaves Year 6 …..

• as a reader, seeing themselves as a reader and reading with fluency and comprehension, carefully and deliberately seeking out understanding.
• fully prepared for secondary education with the skill and confidence to access the academic curriculum on offer, enabling them to achieve at GCSE and beyond.
• recognising the value and purpose of reading, not only for academic study, but having discovered the pleasure of being ‘lost in a book’.

It is our vision that across our Trust …..

• reading is recognised as the master skill of school, it is the key to unlocking the curriculum.
• leaders, teachers and teaching assistants all recognise the importance of reading and everyone is actively committed to enabling EVERY child to become a successful reader.
• reading is placed at the heart of our curriculum and teaching model because we recognise successful reading = academic success.
• highly skilled teaching staff confidently and effectively TEACH, MODEL and SCAFFOLD.
• high quality fiction and non-fiction texts are interwoven within a reading-rich curriculum.
• a curriculum carefully, cumulatively and explicitly connects knowledge together in a meaningful experience so that children can access prior knowledge when engaging with texts and engage with texts to further their knowledge and understanding.
• early identification of children with reading barriers and a clear, focused and effective plan in place that accelerates their progress.
• every member of the teaching staff who has contact with the child takes responsibility for supporting and enabling the child to achieve reading success – and they do!
• leaders and teaching staff all with the expectation that every child will leave primary school at least achieving ARE, with many achieving greater depth. There are no ceilings to expectation.

Our Reading Framework has six interwoven strands, all key to achieving our vision.

We are absolutely committed, as a Trust, to enabling each school to secure and achieve each strand and we are so pleased with the transformational impact of our work so far.

We are committed to ensuring an effective safeguarding culture is deeply embedded within each school and across the Trust. A community where children thrive. A community where EVERY child feels safe and secure and are safe and secure, both physically and emotionally, and their well-being is strong, providing firm foundations for their growth as learners.

Our Effective Safeguarding Culture Model is increasingly embedded within our practice, ensuring our practice is contextualised and truly meets the needs of our communities.

Children at the heart of everything

Working
with others

Welfare and well-being

Evaluation, reflection and learning

Policy procedures and compliance

Courageous leadership, management and governance

Safeguarding ethos and mindset

Robust Trust Safeguarding Policies and procedures ensure that we are compliant with all legislation.

However, we recognise that policies and procedures are merely pieces of paper.

At Inspiring Learners, the development of these are just the start...

At Inspiring Learners, we see the professional learning of our staff, governors and trustees, in relation to safeguarding, as a continual journey.

Our Annual Safeguardign Professional Learning Programme ensures we are compliant with statutory requirements but, more importantly, is integrally linked to our Safeguarding Risk Register ensuring our staff have secure knowledge and understanding of the key risks for our children and families and how to safeguard against these.

Staff supervision, specifically in relation to safeguarding is developing within our practice.

We strive to develop a culture of reflective supervision, providing support for staff and providing challenge in a constructive and structured way. This in turn increases confidence among the staff that good decisions are being made which will improve outcomes for our children and families.

Our Trust Safeguarding monitoring and Evaluation programme is implemented to ensure our safeguarding culture is effective and that there is robust compliance with all policies/procedures.

Any discrepancy is identified and addressed quickly.

Our Trust Risk Register is a live document that is continually reviewed after ongoing communication and consultation with stakeholders. The identified risks for our Trust and our schools are shared so that all action taken to minimise risk is 'shared with' and 'owned by' everyone (contextual safeguarding).

Our risk register sits alongside our safeguarding policies and brings our policies to life.

The risk register ensures we are sharply focussed on the safeguarding priorities for our context

1. Safeguarding Policies and Procedures

3. Professional Learning Journey

4. Staff Supervision

5. Monitoring and
Evaluation Programme

2. Risk Register

Effective Safeguarding Culture

Embedding an effective safeguarding culture across our Trust and within our schools is critical if we are to really make a difference and really safeguard our children,

Embedding an effective safeguarding culture is at the heart of our work

TTSA BEGINNINGS...

Back in 2015, the idea of TTSA was born from a determination to provide high quality CPD and research opportunities at a cost that Trafford Primaries could afford. Much of the CPD available at the time was high cost and beyond the reach of our community of schools. We were aware of amazing professional learning opportunities that were beyond the reach of our schools because of financial constraints.

In 2015, TTSA was awarded Teaching School designation and since then, over 55 Trafford Primary Schools have come together to support and enable our affordable CPD and research offer to grow. Working closely with Trafford LA and other partners, including The University of Manchester, we have been able to deliver a high quality offer that truly meets the needs of our local schools.

Whilst we are now no longer a Teaching School, the strength of TTSA lies not in a designation but in the strength of our learning community. Our mission ‘achieve more together’ couldn’t be more true! TTSA (now Trafford Together School Alliance) will continue to grow and thrive for as long as our community of schools need.

Collaboration
Innovation
Integrity

Achieve more together

www.ttsa.co