Fostering a values-led, supportive culture where staff and pupils thrive: A Spotlight on Trinity Academy Leeds

About

Trinity Academy Leeds (TAL) is a new school, formed in 2021 by founding Principal Kat Cafferky.  It currently comprises years 7-10, and, when at capacity, will serve 1200 pupils from one of the most disadvantaged communities in the country, Harehills/Burmantofts in east Leeds. The school recently received an Outstanding rating in all four measures in its Ofsted inspection. 

Trinity MAT is a high-performing family of schools that spans across the north of England. All schools within the trust share the same distinct values and work closely to share best practices whilst retaining their own character and individuality suited to each school’s context. 

Key Contributors: Gemma Mitchell (Head of HR), Kat Cafferky (Principal Trinity Academy Leeds)

Key Topics in this Spotlight:

Practices and Impact:

• A Values-led Approach
  
• Adopting a Sensible Approach
• Providing a strong Foundation for Growth
• Commitment to CPD
• Centralised Support 

Challenges and Solutions:

• Supporting Growth 
• Acknowledging the Challenge and Showing Appreciation
• Ensuring Ongoing Commitment to Challenge and Growth

Practices and Impact

A Values-led Approach

A commitment to building a strong organisational culture sits at the core of Trinity Academy Leeds. The school was founded in 2021 with Kat Cafferky as Principal, and as a new school this presented an opportunity to craft a strong and impactful culture designed to suit the needs of the local community. An experienced senior leader, Kat held a distinct and compelling vision for how the school could have a transformational effect on the educational landscape of east Leeds. Having previously worked in another school within the Trust as a Senior Vice Principal for curriculum and outcomes, Kat consciously “stood on the shoulders of giants” building on the successful systems and processes that existed at other MAT schools.

Kat was determined however that TAL would forge a unique and bold culture from the moment of its inception and crafted a recruitment and interview process to ensure that staff joining the project shared the same ethos and values. Kat describes this as having both ‘head and heart’ a passion for curriculum and pedagogy combined with a hunger and determination in closing the disadvantage gap and championing young people. Kat believes strongly that teachers need to feel excited and challenged by their work and invested in their school. By taking a values-led approach through every aspect of her leadership, from classroom routines to the structure of CPD, Kat is confident that she has developed one of the strongest teams of practitioners and wider staff that she has ever worked with. 

Providing a Strong Foundation for Growth

Trinity Academy Leeds has invested in ensuring that it has the strongest foundations for rapid and sustainable growth. A ‘behaviour first’ school, leaders successfully drive a culture where young people want to learn and where disruption to lessons is rare. A large non-teaching support team enables teachers to feel safe and supported and empowers them to teach their best lessons daily. Many systems are centralised to cut down on teacher workload such as detentions and home learning. Kat recognises the importance of clarity and consistency for all staff and ensures that strong and transparent systems for line management are in place in addition to providing clear mental models for day to day practice.  Kat believes that a commitment to improving conditions for teaching staff and supporting wellbeing is instrumental in achieving an ethic of excellence which essentially leads to better outcomes for everyone. There is a clear focus on ensuring the fundamentals are in place and are working well. By providing clear parameters, staff members are able to innovate without being held back by lack of structure.

Commitment to CPD

Kat believes that all teachers are ‘challenge seeking creatures’ (Myatt 2022) and ensures that all CPD is of the highest quality, challenging and where possible subject specific. In addition to the coaching programme, all staff take part in deliberate practice and extended fortnightly subject specific masterclasses. Expert practitioners from across the country are also invited as part of TAL’s Curriculum Conversation programme to work alongside subject areas producing a bespoke training session at the end of each day. Further to this, TAL teachers are offered free membership to the Chartered College of Teaching and contribute to an in-house research journal, ‘TEACH’ which documents their coaching journey and outcomes. MAT-wide Inset days also allow for subjects to collaborate and share good practice. At TAL there are no ‘graded’ observations; instead, continuous and meaningful feedback is provided in the form of ‘lines of enquiry’ to discuss and work upon during coaching sessions. Teachers at all stages are support through the ‘Expert’ series of training programmes including the Expert ECT programme which supports those new to the profession through a range of additional CPD opportunities and reduced responsibilities within school. 

Centralised Support 

A regular TAL saying is ‘the power is in the pack’ and leaders are always looking at ways to cut down workload through collaboration. The creation of a bookletised curriculum in many subjects across TAL has been really powerful in driving up the standard of teaching and learning, cutting down the amount of time teachers spend planning and increasing the opportunity for intellectual prep and curriculum explosions for subject teams. Home learning is also set centrally and relies on online platforms such as Sparx Maths and Reader and Carousel which is easy to set up and track whilst still being impactful. TAL adopts a low stress, high impact marking policy of sampling, zonal and live marking which again cuts down work workload and eradicates the more performative elements of marking. All teaching staff share the same three centralised appraisal targets based on culture, coaching and curriculum which helps make all members of the staff team feel that they are working towards one shared goal. At the trust level, the strong central team works to ensure that school-based staff are able to really focus on what’s going on within their setting. The trust works to model the culture they are looking for, providing support to leaders for key challenges that may arise (as leaders at TAL call it, “Shining a light into dark places”) to ensure that there is a collective effort to fix problems that draw on wisdom from the right people, rather than always leaving it for those closest to the issue. 

Challenges and Solutions

Supporting Growth 

Whilst forming a brand new school brought many unique opportunities, it also brought many challenges for leaders. In the first year of opening, with one cohort of students and a team of strong curriculum leaders it was important to capitalise on increased capacity, particularly as students were starting secondary school with gaps in their education following the pandemic. For example, in the first year Kat introduced additional sessions of literacy and numeracy and the school was able to adopt a more flexible approach with aspects of the day to ensure that key gaps in knowledge were closed. As the school has grown, Kat and her leadership team have found that their key priority is simplifying systems so that they are as effective at a larger scale. 

Acknowledging the Challenge and Showing Appreciation

Kat and the leadership team at Trinity Academy Leeds acknowledge that teaching is a challenging profession and education is a challenging sector. It is important that the conditions for teachers to thrive are created and that teachers feel that they are appreciated for their work. Leaders at TAL regularly share stories within CPD about students or positive moments throughout the school’s journey to help staff feel connected and rooted in the shared mission of the organistation. In Kat’s weekly bulletin to staff she spends time crafting a message to all staff commenting on the previous week and thanking specific teams and individuals. A wellbeing team meets half-termly and feeds back to the leadership team. Kat also runs a fortnightly Principal’s Clinic open to all staff.  In addition to its wellbeing charter, which outlines the structural aspects of practice at the school designed to cut down on workload, the school also has a Purple Star package of rewards for staff. Recently, they  held an awards ceremony following their Outstanding Ofsted review, which was so popular that staff have requested an annual event to celebrate collective and individual achievements. 

Ensuring Ongoing Commitment to Challenge and Growth

Looking to the future, the team at Trinity Academy Leeds is conscious that they need to keep challenging themselves and each other as the school continues to grow and develop. Kat is convinced that to be effective in her role, she needs to keep a very close eye on all elements of how the school is run. From regular feedback via office hours, working groups and staff experience surveys, Kat keeps an eye on the big picture, and by forming close relationships with all members of staff, she is also able to understand specific challenges and opportunities that may arise. During their Ofsted inspection, it was noted that “not one member of staff is invisible to this head”, and this is something that Kat is committed to as the school reaches capacity and staff, processes and culture become fully embedded. 

For More on Strategic Stakeholder Feedback

Explore our Stakeholder Feedback Hub for the ins and outs of getting from results to action as effectively as possible. The hub includes concrete steps to work through and downloadable materials to help you make the most out of the process.

Want to learn more about how we work with schools and multi-academy trusts? We would love to hear about your school improvement goals and see how we could help — you can also send us an email at hello@edurio.com.

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