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BDAT Briefing September 2021

Learning during the pandemic: OFQUAL publish key findings on how students have

been affected by COVID 19

On the 12th July, Ofqual published five reports studying how different

aspect learning have been impacted during The context for assessments

in summer 2021.

Quantifying lost time.

Quantifying lost learning.

Review of research from England.

Review of international research.

The overarching objective of the research was to understand the impact

of the pandemic on levels of learning that were likely to be achieved by

summer 2021, with a particular focus upon students in England from

years 11 to 13. The report findings were wide ranging and concluded

that overall there has been a system wide net learning loss as a result of

the pandemic, with socio-economically disadvantaged students likely,

on average, to have lost relatively more learning than their more

advantaged peers. Students from certain areas are also likely, on

average, to have lost relatively more learning than students from other

areas, although this is best understood locally rather than regionally.

Further details can be found: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/learning-during-the-pandemic

INCLUSION MATTERS!

As you will know promoting inclusion and equity is a priority for a BDAT and will continue to be a focus in 2021-

22.

In July, Edurio published their report 'Equality, Diversity and Inclusion among School Staff' - which sets out the

findings from Edurio's first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Review with school and Trust staff across

England. This collected the largest data set on EDI issues within schools to date. Over 16,500 staff members from

380 schools took part between January-March 2021.

Welcome back to school colleagues. We hope you had a long and restful summer and are

ready to hit the ground running for the new academic year.

This newsletter is packed with national news around academisation, potential growth, the launch of our new sister site

“BDAT People” and an update on how we will look to reconnect and reinvigorate pure accountability as we settle back

in to school routine. Plus we have some wonderful news from our schools who have opened new nature hubs, featured

on Songs of Praise and more…..

Happy reading!

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A major focus of this analysis is how different staff groups - across a range of demographic and other

characteristics - experience life in the school and Trust structure. The main findings from the report are

summarised below (source: Edurio):

Staff confidence in workplace commitment to EDI is high, but there are material differences between respondent groups and school types - leadership staff are more confident their workplace is committed to EDI, compared to staff overall.

Less than half of staff feel their workplace is diverse.

Diversity is higher in urban areas. Most staff do not feel their workforce reflects

their student body. Leadership teams are seen as less diverse

than the wider staff body. White staff, men, and staff without a disability

feel more confident than their peers that staff are treated equally.

Staff experience can be worse for those with more than one protected characteristic. Disabled staff, Minority Ethnic staff, and those with a faith other than Christianity feel less valued in the

workplace. A higher proportion of White British/Irish men feel valued, than Minority Ethnic men and women of all

ethnicities. A higher proportion of staff with protected characteristics have experienced comments, jokes or

behaviour they perceive as offensive. Women, Minority Ethnic staff, and staff with a disability, are less confident that their leadership would

take action to prevent discrimination. There is more to be done in ensuring that different groups are supported and comfortable throughout

the recruitment process. Four in ten staff are not confident that decisions on career development are free from bias.

Further details can be found: https://home.edurio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EDI_Report_Final.pdf

At BDAT we believe it is important that our children see themselves in the leadership and management of their

schools. Having the right people around the table is one of the elements to good governance. Historically we have

not recorded the diversity of our governors and we believe that it is important that we need to do this as part of

our Inclusion Strategy. Over the summer and this term we have launched an equality monitoring exercise of our

governance profile. If you are a governor and have yet to take part please do so here: Trustee and Governor

Monitoring Form

In the Autumn, we will be repeating this exercise across all our staff. This will help inform our recruitment and

retention strategy moving forward.

We will also be running a cross-Trust consultation with staff and students on our equality values and equality

objectives to ensure that the work we do in this area supports the areas that matter to our students, staff and

families. Watch this space for more information, coming soon.

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NEW For September 2021,

we are pleased to introduce……..

“There is no improvement for pupils without improvement in teaching, and no improvement in teaching without the best professional development for teachers”

(Confederation of Schools Trusts, 2021)

At BDAT we have always said we can’t have great schools without great staff. We work hard to recruit, retain and develop the very best staff so we can provide the very best education for our children and our young people. We aim to be an employer of choice.

NEW for September 2021, we are delighted to launch our sister website called “BDAT People”. This site is a one-stop shop summarising and providing useful information about how BDAT seeks to recruit, retain and develop the very best teachers and school staff. It contains details of our ITT offer, our professional development networks, recruitment and promotion opportunities, links to the ECF, new NPQs and much more.

Whether you are a teacher, a head, an office manager or member of our pastoral team, BDAT People contains lots of great information about how you can develop yourself to be your best self.

And if you are thinking about joining us you can

find out more about what we offer when you

work within the BDAT family.

Visit www.bdat-people.org today to find out more.

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BDAT News

NEW FOR September 2021: Revised Scheme of delegation

The BDAT scheme of delegation has been updated and re-published for

September 2021. As part of our funding agreement the Trust is required to

review and share this annually with our local governing body committees and

with our school leadership staff. Key changes this year include a new section

on strategy and vision (1 and 2), a new section on significant funding

agreement changes (41 and 42), reference to the digital strategy (78-80),

additional items on safeguarding (93-96), legal services (98) website

compliance and gifts and hospitality (103-105).

For a full list of changes please contact Claire Berry or your clerk. To review

the latest checklist visit: https://www.bdat-academies.org/bdat-

business/our-articles/

NEW for September 2021: Academies Trust handbook.

DfE have published the updated Academy Trust Handbook (ATH) (previously Academies Financial Handbook). The

new ATH has a far greater emphasis on Trust governance including new sections on:

trusts’ existing obligations in relation to safeguarding, health and safety, and estates management

parental representation on trust governance structures

cybercrime

external reviews of governance

renaming the financial notice to improve (FNtI) to notice to improve (NtI)

The DfE has summarised the changes to the 2021 edition on page 9 of the PDF. It can be found here: Academies

Financial Handbook - Guidance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

BDAT had already planned a Trust wide review of the Governance in the Autumn and we will be in touch with

you shortly to share how you can get involved and the next steps.

BDAT considers further growth to support Government and Diocese vision of schools

within strong Trusts

Back in 2018 BDAT made the considered decision to pause growth to consolidate and strengthen our business and

school improvement functions to ensure they were robust to support the schools within our existing family. This

Autumn the Government and Diocese of Leeds will be encouraging all stand alone schools to consider joining a

strong Academy Trust and BDAT will be renewing conversations with local Bradford schools who may be

interested in joining our family. As always we remain committed to only growing at a slow and steady pace so

every school is known, understood and supported as they consider joining us.

Any school who is interested in joining BDAT should contact Hayley.budge@bdat-academies.org in the first

instance for an initial conversation and to find out more.

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NEW FOR SEPTEMBER:

BDAT Plan 2021-22 and COMING SOON “Reconnecting Pure Accountability”

BDAT has published our plan and priorities for 2021-22: https://www.bdat-academies.org/trust-development/

detailing the key areas of focus for the Trust this year including our usual education improvement work plus the

inclusion strategy, work to enhance student voice, digital strategy roll out and the review of governance mentioned

above. As part of this work we will also shortly be publishing our follow up 2021 version of our accountability matrix:

“Reconnecting Pure Accountability”.

Reconnection is all about joining the dots. It’s about harvesting the new good practice – “the silver linings of how

we have improved and adapted our practice during the pandemic” and combining them with the great practice and

progress we have traditionally celebrated and measured. Now is the time to reignite our ambition to provide the

very best education and school experience for our students.

The “Reconnecting Pure Accountability” paper has been updated for September 2021 to consider what we can now

measure as we learn to live alongside the pandemic and to reflect on what we want keep as success measures for

our schools.

We recognise that the old traditional accountability

measures will quickly return but that doesn’t mean our

newer wider framework on measuring impact is not just as

important.

In this document we look to mix the old measures with the

new, drawing in our distinctiveness as a value led MAT. We

also look to identify where we can begin to measure trends

in improvement as we adapt again to another new normal

and where we might look to identify further accountability

and impact trends in the future.

Summer 2021 Staff survey shows vast majority of BDAT staff feeling safe and happy

Throughout the academic year 2020-2021 we ran two short survey across all staff from the BDAT family of schools to find out how staff felt during the pandemic. The survey considered how staff felt they had been supported and cared for during the pandemic, school communications, staff wellbeing, workload and morale. Highlights from the May Survey 2021 included:

93% of staff agreed that school had done everything they could to make the workplace safe (Up from 79% from last survey) and 94% knew who to talk to if they had concerns.

95% of staff also agreed they were happy to be in school (up from 79% from the Autumn survey) 96% of staff agreed communications from the Trust and school had been good (again up from 83% from

the last survey)

Wellbeing and workload was perhaps understandably viewed as more of a concern – we have been living and working through a pandemic. Professional and career development also scored less well than usual indicating staff did not feel as able to access CPD and training this year. These are areas we will explore further as we enter the new academic year. This PowerPoint which covers the full survey findings provides more detailed

information.

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Movers and Shakers

Ann Mckercher joins the central governance team in September as a Governance and Compliance

Officer. Her role will include clerking for Cullingworth, Shipley, St Philips, Woodlands, Bradford

Forster Academy. Prior to joining BDAT, Ann has been a teacher for 14 years in both primary and early

years setttings.

Helen Jacklin joins us Executive Business Manager supporting St Oswalds

and the Academy at St James from September. Prior to working with BDAT,

Helen has been business manager at Newby primary school for 10 years. After working across many of our primaries over the years, Suzanne

Spencer (right) will be leaving BDAT in the Autumn to take up post at

Bingley Grammar School. We will be looking to reappoint for the post

across Clayton and East Morton early in the new academic year. After 5 years supporting BDAT as a member, The Very Reverend Jerry

Lepine stepped down at the AGM in July 2021. Jerry also retired as

Dean of Bradford Cathedral in July. Jerry has been a pleasure to work

with and was an enormous advocate for BDAT. Jerry penned the

following words which I wanted to

share: “I think very highly of BDAT and the

teams that supports the schools and although my

engagement has not been hugely significant, I have enjoyed being part

of things. It has been a privilege to be involved”.

Marilyn Bannister has been appointed by the Diocesan Board of

Education to replace Jerry and will join us at the AGM in July. To find

out more about Marilyn and our other members visit:

https://www.bdat-academies.org/our-members Finally after supporting the BDAT Audit committee as an

independent member for several years, Richard Giles (left) was

appointed as a BDAT Trustee in July. To find out more about Richard

and our other Trustees visit:

https://www.bdat-academies.org/our-board/

Last but not least a huge congratulations to two of our colleagues

who were recognised in the Queen’s birthday this summer.

Viv Brealey, our Chair of Governors at Belle Vue Girls was awarded a MBE

for services to Public Health, in particularly during COVID-19.

Liz Whetham, our Executive Head at Westminster was awarded an MBE

services for Education.

Well done to both of our colleagues for their amazing efforts.

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News from our Schools

We have a trio of good news stories from our primary school (come on secondary colleagues, make sure you send

us your news stories).

Wycliffe Primary (above) featured on Songs of Praise for their work with the Salvation Army to set

up a school uniform bank to help struggling parents pay for expensive new schools for their children to wear for

school. Click here to find out more: BBC One - Songs of Praise, Regenerating Communities, School Uniform Bank.

Well done particularly to Dawn Coleman for her work setting this up.

Dr Amir Khan opens new nature reserve at the Academy at

St James (right)

Dr Amir Khan was at The Academy at St James in Allerton to unveil the

reserve, which was built by a parent and has been supported by The Wildlife

Trusts, Manningham Concrete and SELCO.

Headteacher Chris Tolson said it was a "privilege" to welcome Dr Amir, adding

that the nature reserve will be used for outdoor learning and will aim to

support pupils' mental well-being.

"Given that we have been in a pandemic, being outside will be great for us. It

means our children will be able to experience outdoor learning on a regular

basis", he said.

“Children have been cooped up inside and not able to go out, so this area will

be good for their well-being. Nurture groups and children with social,

emotional and mental health needs will also be able to access it, and we hope

it can be a haven for all of the children”.

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The opening of Westminster’s parental hub and

spiritual sanctuary

The Rt Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds kindly cut the ribbon on

Westminster’s new parental hub and spiritual sanctuary in July.

Liz Whetham, Executive Principal hosted the event along with Lizzy

Pawson (Assistant Principal). The opening ceremony was well

attended and it was a real delight to see members of the school

community able to come together again to celebrate these new

spaces for our children and parents to use.

Liz Holland, Community Engagement Leader and Jade Marczynski,

Community Engagement Co-ordinator are thrilled with the new

spaces. They explained that the families, children and staff within

the school community will be able to use the hub for a range of

activities including cooking classes and a debt advisory service for

parents. The spiritual sanctuary (left) will be a safe, peaceful space

for the children to visit.

Please keep sharing your stories and thank you for all you are doing – email

info@bdat-academies.org

Keep up with the latest news and share your stories #wearebdat

Time for some Mindfulness….Headspace for Educators

We are really happy to share that the mindfulness and meditation app headspace.com are giving all BDAT

education-based staff a one-year completely free subscription (usually costing £79.99).

Teachers, school administrators, and support staff across all BDAT Schools can access this great offer.

‘Meditation has been shown to help people stress less, focus more and sleep better. Headspace is

meditation made simple, teaching you life-changing mindfulness skills in just a few minutes a day.’

If you are interested in taking up this offer, please visit

headspace.com/educators to register.

FREE FOR ALL BDAT STAFF TODAY