A message from our CEO Rebecca Meredith

It would be remiss of me (especially in light of this year’s WTD theme and namesake), to let today go by without acknowledging the brilliant teachers I have the pleasure of working with and those that I have met along the way. As a pupil I always admired my teachers and inherited a level of respect for education and a curiosity and drive for transformation that is still in force today.

I’m sure that anyone who has been involved with the Transform Trust family would agree with my view that we do things differently here. We roll up our sleeves and we get things done. We said we wanted to be a Trust that supports all schools, all staff teams, all pupils to be the very best versions of themselves every day – and we do. We demonstrate through our actions and behaviour how we go about our day ‘transforming education’ for the better. And it’s not always easy. But it’s the most rewarding job on the planet in my book.

A year ago, we returned to our classrooms after what seemed like an eternity of disruption to our typical school day. As well as reconnecting face-to-face, tending to those children and staff that had suffered setbacks in isolation and ensuring gaps were filled on the social, emotional and academic front, six of our schools were paid routine visits by Ofsted. We carried on our ‘business as usual’ and thankfully received improved grades of ‘Good’ and retained our ‘Outstanding’.

Whilst I was delighted and grateful that our schools’ improvement journeys were officially noted as good and better, it was the way in which everyone within our Trust pulled together to support one another that gave me hope and made me so proud. We saw headlines in the press that celebrated the transformations in our schools that were directly benefiting our pupils. It was refreshing to see they understood the impact on a community when a school that has spent a decade in special measures battling alone with funding and teaching issues, instability in leadership and other difficulties come into a Trust that wants to help – that has a track record of turning such schools around.

It takes time and we don’t always get it right. But sometimes it’s the mistakes we make that really makes us stronger. As of last week, we now have 20 primary schools all of which are on their own improvement journeys. Whether it’s one of our ‘Outstanding’ schools or a school that is just joining us and beginning its journey out of special measures we work just as hard to keep transforming education. Our schools are based in some of the most challenging areas of the country in terms of social and economic pressures. Education is the best chance our young people have to level up and receive the same life chances as anyone else.

I’m so looking forward to coming together as a Trust on Friday to gather our thoughts and inspirations at our INSET day, fittingly entitled At Our Best Together: A Focus on Belonging. In keeping with WTD wider messaging it’s vital that we continue to invest in and include all of our staff if we want to achieve our mission. We firmly believe in our motto ‘Together, we achieve’.

As one of our Executive heads said recently “it goes without saying that the children are the most important people in the school, but the staff is its most valuable resource”. Whilst I would like to recognise the continual hard work and dedication that our teachers have shown on their own journeys of improvement for their schools and our Trust, I would also like to give the same thanks and respect to rest of our staff that do all the other often thankless jobs that really do make the biggest difference to our children on a daily basis.