Infinity Academies Trust
Infinity Academies Trust, a multi-academy trust with a diverse portfolio of schools ranging from small to large and serving various community contexts, has demonstrated a commitment to creating a positive and sustainable working environment for its staff. This case study explores the strategies and approaches that have enabled Infinity Academies Trust to successfully manage staff workload and maintain high standards across its diverse network of schools. By examining Infinity Academies Trust’s experiences, educational leaders can gain valuable insights and identify best practices for improving staff wellbeing and retention within multi-academy trusts with varying school contexts.
Their insights illustrate how leadership fosters a strong organisational culture conducive to manageable and fulfilling workloads. Along with other schools and trusts we interviewed we created a Balancing Workload in School Trusts guide, which acts as an encyclopaedia of approaches, practices and advice, this guide is built on interviews with 18 leaders.
Infinity Academies Trust, is a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) focused on primary education, in greater Lincolnshire, encompassing Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, and North East Lincolnshire. Currently comprising 13 academies, with engagement in 18 schools total. The Trust includes a diverse set of schools, ranging from small schools with 31 pupils to larger ones with 420 pupils, serving various community contexts.
St Nicholas CE Primary is a single form entry primary school, located in Boston, Lincolnshire. It serves a very diverse community, with high mobility with up to 60 children entering or leaving throughout the year. Approximately 60% of students are English as an Additional Language (EAL) learners, 32% of students have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and there are diverse linguistic backgrounds with 20 different languages spoken by pupils at any given time.
Key contributors: Gavin Booth (CEO), Fiona Booth (Headteacher of St Nicholas CE Primary)
In this case study:
- Practice and impact
- Challenges and solutions
- Other highlights
Practice and impact
Courageous leadership and clear purpose
A mantra at St Nicholas CE Primary is “To be clear is to be kind, to be unclear is to be unkind.“ Headteacher Fiona Booth admits that it takes a lot to be a courageous leader and to have fierce, honest conversations about the reality of many situations the school staff face. When the school joined Infinity Academies Trust there was a turbulent transition phase with extreme staff turnover; at one point the reception class had 17 different teachers in one year. But these growing pains were a part of the journey to get to the inclusive culture they are at today. Fiona says she has to be explicitly clear what new staff are signing up for as the school is not an easy place to work, requiring high emotional resilience, and this starts at the staff interview phase to not waste the time of candidates. CEO Gavin Booth describes the school as one of the toughest schools in the Trust to work in, but having a clear purpose makes the hard work more rewarding, allowing staff to feel they are working towards something meaningful rather than just completing tasks.
Facing challenges as a team
“We don’t shy away from the recognition of challenges. I’m frequently standing up in front of school leaders and staff to say this is a really tough job. And the only way to do it is as a team game and you cannot do it in isolation, either as a single person or as a school, we need to be in a place where we’re doing it together.”
Living values
At Infinity Academies Trust, living the Trust’s and school’s values is at the core of its approach to staff culture and wellbeing. Survey results are used annually to measure how well the values are being embedded in each school, reflecting the strength of the school’s culture and how supported staff feel. Schools that are further along in their improvement journey, like St Nicholas CE Primary, tend to score higher in terms of staff satisfaction with workload and overall wellbeing, as the values are consistently lived out in daily practice. In contrast, schools that are newer to the Trust or experiencing changes often show more fluctuation in their survey results, reflecting a need for time and consistency to fully integrate the values into their culture. The Trust’s Values into Action book serves as a guide for embedding these principles across the schools, ensuring that values are not just talked about but actively lived.
Living the values boldly
“The Trust has been so vocal in saying we need to live our values. Not many establishments nail their colours to the mast and say, ‘The way to do that is by living with integrity, by loving each other.’ And this is what it looks like. That seal of approval for me as a leader is a really bold one, to be able to say to our community that we commit to living our values in this way.”
No repetition of effort
CEO Gavin Booth highlights the importance of reducing unnecessary workload by avoiding the repetition of effort across the Trust. Through the Trust’s culture of collaboration, teachers and staff share resources, ideas, and best practices across schools to ensure that nobody is working in isolation. Informal networks, such as WhatsApp groups and emails, allow teachers to quickly share lesson plans, teaching strategies, or solutions to common problems and many times prove to be more effective than more structured CPD. This sharing of resources ensures that teachers are not reinventing the wheel, saving valuable time and energy. The Trust also carefully selects user-friendly systems and software that minimise administrative burdens on teachers, putting ease of use for classroom staff above centralised needs.
Sharing time-saving strategies
“If you’ve done something that can save a colleague five minutes, it is a duty upon you to share that with somebody else.”
Systems to reduce anxiety
Infinity Academies Trust has established systems that provide clarity and reduce anxiety for staff, particularly through consistent progression and appraisal processes. Staff automatically progress through the pay scale without needing to compile extensive evidence, as the Trust assumes competence unless concerns arise. This eliminates the burden of gathering proof for appraisals, allowing staff to concentrate on the children. Additionally, consistent approaches across schools, such as standardised curriculum delivery and classroom design, are in place to relieve pressure when new staff join the school and to counter the competitive nature of teachers trying to do more, which often leads to increased anxiety. However, there is flexibility in choosing curriculum tools, allowing schools to select specific resources that best fit their context while maintaining overall trust-wide coherence. By setting clear expectations, the Trust prevents teachers from feeling the added pressure to go above and beyond in areas like lesson preparation or classroom decoration, reducing unnecessary workload.
Consistency to reduce workload
“When those consistent approaches aren’t there, you get classroom competition… and that drives anxiety and workload for staff, so the more we create common systems and the more we do for children, the more we support staff in managing their workload.”
Challenges and solutions
Flipping the narrative
Headteacher of St Nicholas CE Primary Fiona Booth emphasises the importance of “flipping the narrative” when facing challenges at St Nicholas CE Primary, especially in the context of the diverse and complex needs of her school community. Rather than viewing high mobility, language barriers, or special educational needs as burdens, she reframes them as opportunities for growth. For instance, the implementation of a standardised phonics program and lesson planning structure initially worried staff, but these practices ultimately allowed both teachers and pupils to thrive. This mindset fosters resilience among staff and pupils, focusing on the value of embracing challenges.
Viewing crisis as an opportunity
“I learned not so long ago that in Japanese, the word for crisis and opportunity is the same… how powerful that can be in terms of how we see things.”
Building relationships
St Nicholas CE Primary School had a history of significant behaviour challenges. To address this, the school implemented a clear behaviour code focusing on positive reinforcement and built strong relationships between staff and pupils. Headteacher Fiona Booth made it a priority that no child should be sent out of class, ensuring that teachers worked closely with pupils to understand and address their needs, treating behaviour as a form of their communication, especially given the language barriers in the school population. The appointment of a staff learning mentor has given extra capacity for everyone to build relationships across stakeholder groups, ensuring everyone feels safe and welcome. Relationships also play an integral part across the Trust, and providing opportunities and networks between people in the Trust is a priority. Time and effort are given so that all groups of staff can come together, leadership, teachers and teaching assistants, in professional development groups and networks to share in expertise and to solve practical, everyday problems together. There is also a new effort to bring pupils together across the schools.
Transforming behaviour with reinforcement
“We implemented a positive reinforcement behaviour code, talking about the good behaviours to display… which required rewiring the blueprint. It was vital in turning the ‘oil tanker’ of behaviour around.”
Essential and non-essential tasks
Both CEO Gavin Booth and Headteacher Fiona Booth emphasise that while teaching is hard work, not all work is equally valuable, and perceptions of workload often differ. For Gavin, the focus is on ensuring that everyone is on the same page—understanding which tasks are truly impactful and necessary, and which create unnecessary burden. Fiona stresses the importance of distinguishing between essential and non-essential tasks, noting that many persist simply because “it’s always been done that way,” even when they no longer add value. By creating clarity around what is genuinely important, the Trust helps staff align their efforts with meaningful work, rather than feeling overwhelmed by tasks that don’t improve pupil outcomes. As they both reflect, the goal is to ensure that hard work is focused on what truly matters, not weighed down by non-essential tasks that increase the perception of workload without real impact.
Other highlights
A place for everyone
Given the diverse nature of the school, Headteacher Fiona Booth has made a concerted effort to make sure inclusivity and equity are at the forefront of the school’s work. The four walls of the school become a haven of safety and community for their pupils and their families, who come from a disparate community where deprivation is very high, whether it is crime, obesity, or social trust. When pupils and staff wear the school logo they agree to the behaviour code of the school, they agree to treat each other with respect, unifying them beyond their differences. But the staff also make a very practical promise to any newcomer, pledging that children will be able to speak the language that will unlock life in this country for as long as they are here. Fiona describes the systematic approach to phonics as revolutionary for both pupils and staff. By standardising and sequencing their approach to language acquisition, the staff now know the curriculum expectations inside and out, while pupils have a scaffolded way to build on knowledge and see their progress in tangible ways.
“From phonics work, to games on the playground, we do everything we can to get the children, who outside of our walls feel really unsafe, to feel that sense of safety and security within our walls to get them to play and to laugh because when they play and laugh, they learn. We don’t always know what story lies behind each person, but by creating a sanctuary, everyone can let their light shine.”
Master workload management
Unlock your complete workload balancing guide – grab your copy today!