Since joining the Family of Learning Trust in January 2018, Dean Field has benefited in many ways as outlined below.
At the point of joining the Trust, the school was in financial trouble and if left without intervention the school would have gone into a deficit budget. The Trust’s Finance Director working closely with the School Business Manager has led to a much more streamlined approach to finance. In addition, Payroll, ICT and HR services were provided by the trust, resulting in us making some substantial savings as well as having a more effective and proportionate staffing team. Within just over two years we have added over £100,000. The support from the Trust has meant that as a headteacher taking on an inadequate school, I have been able to use my time wisely to focus on improving outcomes for pupils.
Through the supportive and now more collaborative working across the teaching teams within the Trust, we were very quickly able to implement an appropriate curriculum that met the needs of all pupils. Teachers share resources and planning across all year groups and phases and this positively effects teacher workload and wellbeing, whilst raising and maintaining high standards of teaching and learning.
The collaboration of staff across the two schools has evolved over time and is now much more equal, but certainly the rapid and sustained improvement seen at Dean Field was down to the high quality support teachers received from their counterparts at Beech Hill.
The development of leaders is a high priority within the Trust and in order raise standards at Dean Field it was necessary to provide additional leadership and management support in various areas to ensure a high quality of education was received by all pupils. This developed the leaders involved from the Trust’s lead school whilst also having a positive impact on teaching and learning at Dean Field. This model has now developed so that leaders at all levels work collaboratively together to monitor standards across both schools.
Finally, as a new headteacher, in an inadequate one form entry school with a small senior leadership team there have been many challenging times in the last three years. Having supportive colleagues to call upon in difficult times has allowed me to lead the school confidently to the position it is in today.
Mrs Fiona Pether
Headteacher
Dean Field Community Primary School