Trust Development Plan
Inspired by the teachings of Christ and the example of St Francis, we strive for excellence, cherishing every child in our care as a unique thumbprint of God, enabling all to realise their full potential.
On this page you will find the overall Trust Strategic Objectives for 2024/25, as well as the more detailed Educational Trust Development Plan. The development plan arises from a close collaboration between Trust Headteachers, the Executive, Directors and Local Governing Bodies throughout April to July 2023. Our key development priorities are:
1. Deliver ever better School Improvement initiatives via the 24/25 Trust Development Plan's ambitious programme of educational cross-school collaboration;
2. Caring for Creation; effective environmental stewardship in every school, based on the example of St Francis;
3. To grow by welcoming St Paul's into the Trust, and by continued active engagement with the Director of Education at RCDOW and the Bishop's strategy for Diocesan-wide Academisation;
4. To support the Interim Leadership at St Joseph's and St Mary's in Bishop's Stortford, and recruit substantive Headteachers for those posts during 2024/25; to support the new Executive Head role across St Cross and St Augustine's;
5. To use the new Government-approved employment flexibilities to create a unique flexible working package to encourage the best recruitment and retention;
6. To participate in and contribute to St Mary's University system-wide research and collaboration on the distinctiveness of Catholic Trusts;
7. To successfully install five new Central Team posts to provide increasing levels of service to schools through aligning the central team work with the DfE's Trust Quality Descriptors;
8. Realise ever-increasing savings, identify and win new funding-streams, and secure more efficient HR processes through the capacity brought by the new dCFO and our experienced CFO;
9. Deliver more effective communication to 'tell our story'; building confidence across the Trust and beyond;
10. To use the CEO's commencing work as an OFSTED Inspector to help schools prepare for the new Framework of Inspection launching September 2025.
You can find more about these objectives in the documentation on this page and across our website.
These objectives arise directly from the mission of our Trust which is to provide outstanding Catholic education for all the children in our schools. The projects were felt by Heads to be of the highest importance across all our schools, and as will be seen in the development plan arising, the resulting collaboration across our schools will deliver more transformative and sustainable school improvement than would be the case were each school working on these priorities as 'lone islands'.
Our development plan is inspired by the example and teachings of Christ as we strive for excellence in all areas of our work and cherish every child in our care. At the heart of our mission and purpose is the belief that every child has a right to educational excellence through high quality teaching and pastoral care. Through our support for the spiritual, moral, social, cultural and physical development of each child, we will ensure their intellectual growth, progress and achievements meet their aspirations.