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Share Being part of a trust should mean something to the people who work in it.
Part of Edurio’s national awards programme, the Trust Value Award recognises the trusts across England where staff feel genuinely confident that trust membership brings clear benefits, and those who have made the greatest strides in building that confidence over the past year.
These are trust-level awards. Results reflect aggregated staff feedback from schools across each trust, rather than individual school scores, meaning these results represent the experience of staff throughout the whole organisation, not just one site.
Two awards are presented in this category.
The National Trust Value Excellence Award recognises the ten highest-scoring trusts in England for staff confidence that being part of the trust is beneficial.
The National Trust Value Progress Award recognises the trusts showing the greatest year-on-year improvement in that same measure, reflecting a sustained focus on getting better.
With staff feedback from 1,729 schools across 165 trusts nationwide, competition across both categories was exceptionally strong.
As Ernest Jenavs, CEO at Edurio, explains:
“My sincere congratulations to the trusts receiving the National Trust Value Excellence Award. Finishing top in the country for staff confidence that being part of the trust is beneficial reflects reliable support, everyday collaboration and leadership that earns confidence through action. These trusts set the benchmark for what working together should feel like.”
National Trust Value Excellence Award
The trusts recognised below are the ten highest-scoring in England for staff responses to the question: “How confident are you that being part of the Trust is beneficial?”
National Trust Value Excellence Award winners:
National Trust Value Progress Award
The trusts recognised below showed the greatest year-on-year improvement in staff confidence that being part of the trust is beneficial, comparing 2024/25 results with the previous academic year.
National Trust Value Progress Award winners:
Two trusts, Roots Federation and South Pennine Academies, have won both awards this year, recognising the strength of their current performance alongside a sustained focus on improvement.
As Ernest Jenavs, CEO at Edurio, explains:
“We are proud to congratulate the winners of the National Trust Value Progress Award. Year-on-year gains indicate that staff in schools within these trusts are increasingly convinced that being part of the trust is beneficial to their work. It’s a sign of stronger, more consistent collaboration between schools and leadership that listens and acts on feedback.”
What these awards measure, and why it matters
Trust membership is meant to deliver something tangible: better support, shared expertise, stronger professional development, and the kind of collaborative infrastructure that individual schools cannot easily build alone.
But whether that value lands depends entirely on how staff in those schools experience it every day. These awards are grounded in that experience directly.
Both awards are based on Edurio’s national analysis of staff feedback collected across England during the 2024/25 academic year, using Edurio’s Staff Experience survey. In total, 1,729 schools from 165 trusts participated.
What drives trust value? Real examples from award-winning trusts
Knowing that a trust scores highly is useful. Understanding what those trusts actually do is more useful still.
In 2024, Edurio interviewed seven of the top ten Trust Value Award-winning trusts to find out what drives their success. The result is Thriving Trust Communities: a best-practice guide covering how leading trusts approach growth and stability, culture and values, staff development and wellbeing, collaboration and knowledge sharing, and community engagement.
No single blueprint applies. The guide makes clear that thriving trust communities reflect a careful balance between consistent principles and the specific needs of each school context.
Download Thriving Trust Communities →If your trust isn’t yet measuring trust value
Not seeing your trust here doesn’t mean the data isn’t there to be found. Many trusts collect staff feedback without a clear view of how they compare nationally, or without the right question in place to measure trust value specifically.
A short conversation with our team can help you understand what your current data shows, what benchmarking is available, and how other trusts are using feedback to make better decisions.
Book a conversation with our team →