MAT October Update

Hello everyone

Here is an update on our plans to form a new Multi-Academy Trust with schools across East Riding, North Lincolnshire and Hull with the founder settings of the Riverview Family of Schools comprising of Baysgarth School and Castledyke Primary School in Barton-upon-Humber, The Market Weighton School and Market Weighton Infant School in Market Weighton and Wyke Sixth Form College in Hull.

Since September, I’ve had the great privilege of being able to spend roughly a day a week in each of the localities getting to know the staff, the way the schools work and some of the students and children.  I’ve seen so much, and learnt a great deal, with particular highlights being the annual Market Weighton School walk (I very much look forward to the 50th anniversary next year), getting a much better understanding of the challenges faced in primary settings by spending time in lessons and lunches with the children at Market Weighton Infant School and Castledyke, and learning about all the additional services that Baysgarth provides for the community including Headway, Get Ahead and the Sports Village.

We are rapidly developing the infrastructure for the future trust including procurement of legal support to manage moving land, buildings and staff into the new organisation.  Our governance arrangements are being formed, led by our very strong group of future members and trustees; you can see their biographies on our webpage: www.thewlt.co.uk and also using the link below.  Through learning how each organisation works we have now identified areas where we can implement shared systems in relation to financial management, staff information and student details, all of which should make it easy to work together and allow leaders and teachers more time to work with young people.

More recently, we have started sub-groups sharing our approaches to teaching standards and Initial Teacher Education so that we can also hit the ground running with delivering the exceptional education we are all passionate about.

Due to the general election, the Department for Education paused all applications to form new trusts.  I am pleased to share that they are now reviewing our application again and will be providing feedback shortly.  We are also making progress in agreeing an approach to the privately financed loans that Wyke holds which were used to invest in our excellent estate.  All parties remain committed to delivering the potential of our project.

In my last message I explained that Wyke and the Market Weighton settings plan to convert in April, and the Riverview Family of Schools in Barton would convert next September due to their planned building works.  This remains our planned timeline, however, there is lots of work to do and our overall target remains that all founder settings academise through the 2024-25 academic year in time for the new year in September 2025.

I hope this is a helpful update.  I have to say that it has been such a pleasure to work with all the people involved with the different settings.  These really are super schools that are doing great things for our young people and it is exciting to think about how we can do even more by working more closely together in future.

Please do get in touch if you have any questions; your feedback throughout the process has been so helpful in developing our plans.  We will continue to update the webpage as more details come through. 

Paul 

Proposed CEO of the Wyke Learning Trust

paul.britton@wyke.ac.uk