Our Trust Offer

Our vision is to create an inclusive multi academy trust where every young person and every member of staff has the opportunity to flourish and realise their full potential.

Working together to strengthen our organisation, to further develop expertise and to add value to the communities we serve 

Provide the best possible education

We believe that all children within our communities have a right to the same high standard of inclusive education.

We are committed to nurturing an ethos that secures the very best outcomes for all our young people so that they are successful in the future and make a positive contribution to the communities they serve.

Collegiate and partnership working, utilising local strengths and identities

We are a trust of diverse schools including both community and church-based, primary and secondary that exist within a shared vision to provide the very highest standards of education.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for providing the best education, and although the academies in the STAR Multi Academy Trust are all within a short driving distance, each has different needs, has different challenges in improving academic outcomes, and has its own unique identity. We uphold and value this identity, celebrating and nurturing similarities and differences of individual ethos and values.

We firmly believe that effective education needs to be focused on a true understanding of the community that the school serves, and the community of the school itself.

School improvement at the heart

We maintain highly successful academies where self-help, self-determination and self-improvement is encouraged.

We have strong quality assurance systems with the setting of personalised improvement targets, monitoring of real time data, formative and diagnostic assessment, curriculum impact analysis, effective intervention programmes and internal reviews, and expect active participation in school improvement initiatives from all of our staff and member schools.

The best staff in the places where they are needed

We utilise collective strengths to positively impact upon our provision. We strive to develop leadership at all levels. By creating positive learning environments, we enable all staff to flourish and develop professionally.

Securing the best outcomes

We work in partnership with the Church of England, other schools, educational institutions and private providers and local County Councils to ensure that we provide an outstanding education from pre-school to post-16.

Fun & enjoyment

We celebrate the uniqueness of all pupils and through outstanding pastoral care, academic challenge and inspirational teaching we ensure all children and young people participate fully and enjoy their education.

Achieving best value

We utilise innovative approaches to providing services and developing economies of scale to the benefit of all children and staff.

For further information about our existing offering, or to discuss joining the Star Multi Academy Trust, email ceo@starmat.co.uk

 

What do we provide for our schools? Our core offer:

We are proud of the range and depth of services provided to our schools through our core offer.

We believe that the vast majority of what we do as an organisation must benefit our core vision and aims, and therefore benefit our students. However, School Improvement also has a specific focus as defined in our School Improvement Strategy.

This is led by the Chief Education Officer and the Strategic Leadership Group, but has specific resource allocation in four key fields: school improvement consultant primary (62 days); school improvement consultant secondary (15 days); proactive support for project work and reactive support for any schools in need of structured input.

We also provide many and various structured opportunities for professional development which impact on school improvement, from Early Careers Network, Deputy/Assistant Headteacher Network, subject groups, writing moderation, Early Years Practice Group…. a comprehensive list, linked to our strategic plan. We also run an internal Peer Review Deep Dive programme.

All schools utilise the IPM financial planning tool alongside Sage accountancy software. We provide training and support for all school based financial roles, but also have a central financial team who secure aspects such as account reconciliation, audit, financial planning assumptions and support schools in all aspects of reporting.

HR advisory is outsourced to EPM who provide an extremely effective service to both schools and Central Trust on casework and overarching policy. Payroll is outsourced to Neopeople who provide a responsive service with an employee access portal ensuring ease of use and very high reliability. The Central Team also employs a Trust HR and Payroll Coordinator who works to facilitate and further progress all aspects of our work with our valuable workforce.

As a single employer we use a Trust-wide approach to recruitment with centrally available support and processes, online application and a Central Team Officer who facilitates all aspects of recruitment.

We also provide a wide variety of employee benefits accessed through our instar employee portal

As a sizeable Trust we will benefit from approximately £1.2million Schools Condition Allowance in 22/23. This is in addition to schools devolved formula capital. Our small Estates team consists of our Estates Director and also an Estates Maintenance Manager. Our Estates Director drives forward our 10 year Estates Plan and project work at every school including compliance and improvement work.

Schools have seen considerable improvement ranging from flooring and decoration, through refurbishments, to TCU replacements, new windows and replacement boilers. Every school has a 10 year plan and a safety action plan. Our Estates Maintenance Manager is there to support schools on a daily basis and get things fixed! Our Estates Team also have oversight of the whole of the Trust caretaking team at primary which is in house and of the cleaning contract which is outsourced to Bulloughs.

Our Health and Safety Advisory Service and Competent Body is contracted to North Yorkshire County Council. This contract supports document checks, fire safety risk assessments etc but is in addition to compliance visits and training provided through our Estates Team.

All schools have electronic access control systems and InVentry visitor registration.

We also provide the Every training portal for health and safety and estates compliance training including legionella, asbestos, etc

From September 2022 we are proud to be bringing primary catering in house under the brand STAR EATS. We have our own Executive Chef who supports menu development, standards and in school staff training and delivery, with all of the catering team becoming Team STAR. Our produce will be locally sourced, orders placed online and all nutritional standards and dietary requirements of course met in full.

Legal services are outsourced to a specialist educational provider for Multi-Academy Trusts, Stoneking. With offices based in Leeds, Stoneking are on a retainer contract which allows us to seek legal advice across any aspect of school life from estates, to health, uniform and contracts.

We have both re-active (crisis communications) and pro-active contracts with Hamilton Communications to support our schools with press coverage.

We source our educational trips and visits guidance and training from North Yorkshire County Council and provide access to the Evolve online management tool for all of our schools.

A full-time core Central Team role is to provide strategy, drive, support and challenge in all of these vital aspects. All of our schools utilise CPOMS online child protection logging and our Single Central Records are held using SCR Tracker.

We provide DSL and link governor support networks and DSL supervision through our outsourced Educational Psychologist contract. This contract also supports our SENDCO network and provides contracted advice and support to our schools outside of statutory work.

Within the Multi-Academy Trust and school landscape an evolved and effective approach to governance is vital. You can find out more about governance roles and our Scheme of Delegation via the Trust website here.

We outsource governance advisory support, including clerking for our Local Governing Bodies, from Judicium Education.

We also subscribe to NGA and The Key for School Leaders and Governance for all of our schools.

Working with our outsourced partner TransforMATive and our schools we are securing our infrastructure, connectivity and digital resilience as well as building a long term plan for how technology can support and empower our organisation, our schools and our young people. We also provide direct support to our schools through contract provision of broadband, Smoothwall, backup solutions, MFA, Google Classrooms, MIS contracts and many more.

This is provided through a role on the Central Team and also an outsourced contract to Veritau as our DPO. We support all individual school contract procurement exercises where required.

Our primary schools operate assessment under an agreed Policy and Calendar (with a shared secondary policy under development). This includes use of certain standardised tests which are provided as part of the Central Core Offer as is the analysis software. Currently we utilise RS Assessment PUMA, PIRA and SHINE interventions. We also use No More Marking National Assessments. We also utilise FFT Tracker in all primary schools.

Many of our policies have developed over time to become aligned as ‘Trust Policies’ – these have been progressed through a collaborative, consultative approach using the above services alongside a member of the Central Team who has a dedicated role in supporting schools with policy development.