Trinity Academy Leeds

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)

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.

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.

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.

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