New Funding Awarded from Trust Capacity Fund

We are delighted to have been granted £99,000 from the Government’s Trust Capacity Fund (TCaF). The funding will be primarily used to recruit and release our staff as secondments to a number of part-time posts to raise standards in Mathematics and English across our schools.

TCaF is a competitive grant fund to help trusts develop their capacity to grow. The fund has a particular focus on supporting strong trusts, and strong schools forming trusts, to take on underperforming schools in areas of higher need. At its core, the purpose of the fund is developing capacity by adding schools and providing funding to support the central capabilities of high performing and high potential school trusts so that they can grow more quickly and effectively to support more schools. 

Our funding has been used to create a seconded key post of Trust Maths Leader, working with headteachers and our senior leaders to plan and design appropriate maths strategies for each school, monitor the implementation of these plans and lead on staff training. The post has been filled by Richard Waddington, Headteacher at Whytemead Primary School. Richard has worked with us for many years, holding the post of Head of School at Edward Bryant School for five years. His first staff training session, focusing on the Inspire Maths scheme used across all Trust schools, was held last month, attended by staff from across the MAT.

Other posts being recruited include Maths Lead Teachers and Lead English Teachers. These appointees will be experienced Maths and English teachers who will work on the ground to help deliver planned improvements.

The funding will also enable the appointment of a Shared Services Administrator and additional Finance Manager to support our central team in their growing workload and help establish new and more effective processes. We’ll also be funding the installation costs of broadband upgrades in all schools where needed along with a new telephony system and supporting IT systems for our main office.

We are pleased that we’ve been successful in this important round of funding. This money will enable us to strengthen our educational offering, which is even more important in this period of recovery and re-engagement with children following significant gaps caused by the Covid pandemic. We’re also keen to boost the capacity of our central team who work hard to provide the administrative backup for the benefit of all schools.