ANNUAL REPORT AND FINANCIAL STATEMENTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2020 Registered Company Number: 07697171 CONTENTS Page Welcome 3 Strategic Trustees’ report 4 Administrative Details 26 Governance statement 27 Statement on regularity, propriety and compliance 34 Statement of Trustees' responsibilities 35 Independent auditor's report on the financial statements 36 Independent auditor's assurance report on regularity 39 Statement of financial activities 41 Net asset statement 42 Statement of cash flows 43 Notes to the financial statements 44 2 TAPTON SCHOOL ACADEMY TRUST STRATEGIC TRUSTEES REPORT Welcome We are delighted to present our Annual Report, Strategic Report and Audited Financial Statements for the year ending 31 August 2020. This has been an unprecedented year. For much of the 2019/2020 academic year, our schools were repurposed to provide childcare for key worker children, and some of the most vulnerable families in our communities. When the country was told to stay at home in March, schools officially closed their doors. But we didn’t stop. Throughout this time, we worked tirelessly to keep our children safe and supported. The year for Tapton School Academy Trust can therefore be divided into two: 1. The gains made as we worked collaboratively to improve the life chances for all our learners across the Trust before Covid-19 2. The response to the coronavirus pandemic as we supported the children, families and communities through the period from March to September. The response to coronavirus is a significant success but will also define our ways of working, priorities and decisions during the 2020/2021 academic year. The pandemic has had a profound impact on our schools and communities. It has deepened the inequalities that we have been striving to overcome. Our mission ‘to realise the life chances and dreams of every child’ has never had as much relevance as now and this will drive our purpose in the 2020/2021 academic year. The levels of impact and isolation are far more prevalent then prior to March, and the Trust will place evidence informed collaboration and co-ordinated collective purpose at the centre of our work as we recapture the successes of the Trust before the pandemic arrived. With this in mind, and in line with the celebratory approach taken to recognise the massive contributions of all our staff – teachers and support colleagues - school and Trust leaders have been invited to share their perspectives on gains and successes over the two parts of the year. We could not have achieved this without the incredible support of our staff, trustees and governors, families and children, and we hope that this report will capture the spirit that has been shown by all. Caroline Bagley David Dennis Chair of Trustee Chief Executive Officer 3 TAPTON SCHOOL ACADEMY TRUST STRATEGIC TRUSTEES REPORT About Us Tapton School Academy Trust is made up of over 7,500 learners and 900 staff. Children joining the Trust have a broad range of abilities and social backgrounds. We recognise and celebrate different aptitudes and interests and believe that everyone can develop through dedication and hard work, and leave our schools fully prepared for successful lives. Our Vision is to realise the life chances and dreams of every child Our Mission is to provide a safe place to be: provide great teaching and learning: create an environment where all opportunities are in reach Our Schools Our five primary and four secondary schools work in close partnership with the aim of realising the life chances of dreams of every child and being an outstanding Trust. 4 TAPTON SCHOOL ACADEMY TRUST STRATEGIC TRUSTEES REPORT Improving the Life Chances and Dreams of Every Child We review our strategic objectives each year to ensure we have a clear plan for the future development of the Trust. We listen to our members, headteachers, local governing bodies and staff to help define our strategy. In October 2019 we held our annual strategy day. Trustees and members approved the strategic direction for the Trust. The Trust continues to focus on 4 key intents – Effective Schools, Outstanding Outcomes, Sustainable Trust and A Great Place to Work. Our Strategic Objectives 2018 - 2022 Intent Objectives Effective Schools • Securing high levels of attendance • Reducing the number of exclusions • Closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged learners and other learners. Outstanding Outcomes • Improving the quality of education in each school • Ensuring that learning in every classroom for every learner is at least good • Achieving high rates of progress. Sustainable Trust • Actively engaging with all stakeholder groups • Increasing trust value for money and revenue raising opportunities • Future proofing buildings and facilities. A Great Place to Work • Creating opportunities for all staff to develop • Building capacity and collaboration • Securing succession. Trustees also approved targeted initiatives for our most disadvantaged learners. Chaucer School has led on the development of the Learning Inclusion and Support continuum (LINCS), which embodies the delivery of trauma informed practice and the awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The impact and importance has been the development of a culture within the Trust that sees trauma informed understanding and delivery as having an equal weighting alongside Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and safeguarding delivery. This paves the way for deep and impactful training to be rolled out across the Trust so that all young people irrespective of starting point can fulfil their life chances and dreams. We consider growth within all of our objectives. 5 TAPTON SCHOOL ACADEMY TRUST STRATEGIC TRUSTEES REPORT September 2019 to March 2020 – Key gains prior to the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic We celebrated strong attainment in GCSE and A-Level. Our secondary schools secured strong results to open up Post-16 and Post-18 pathways, enabling our students to continue to realise their life chances and dreams. We welcomed our newest academy, Bradfield School, in February 2020. Bradfield is the 4th secondary school to join the Trust, and under the transfer is benefitting from: • Access to strong support and guidance from within TSAT • Effective governance • Strong financial management • Access to Post-16 provision at Forge Valley School and Tapton School, with additional support at transition • Professional development opportunities and a focus on TSAT being a great place to work. Three of our academies received visits from Ofsted, highlighting their school improvement journeys. Key achievements are below: Before lockdown, Hillsborough Primary School had completed its groundwork in all the wider curriculum subjects and was well on its way to embedding the learning journey approach within years 1-6. Children were beginning to recall previous knowledge in wider areas of learning and there was a clear structure of planning and delivery that teachers were using well. This was ratified at the Ofsted inspection in January 2020 where the curriculum was an area that was good. Another gain had been the work completed around middle leadership. There was a strong focus on improving middle leadership during the last academic year and this was also seen as a strength at the Ofsted inspection. The coaching and mentoring for groups of teachers was one of the driving forces behind the success of the curriculum as the programme ensured that all teachers understood their responsibility in leading individual subjects, but that they also had a good understanding of what it means to be a leader in its widest sense. On 2nd March 2020, Chaucer Secondary School was deemed by Her Majesty’s Inspector to be taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the Section 5 inspection in order for the school to become good. This was particularly important to cement and acknowledge the important improvements made by staff that had taken place in the school regarding the development of curriculum and the delivery of pedagogy that had a demonstrable impact upon attainment and progress. It also recognises the improvements made in the development of student behaviour for success and learning. 6 TAPTON SCHOOL ACADEMY TRUST STRATEGIC TRUSTEES REPORT Meynell School have been judged as a school requiring improvement. A number of initiatives are in place to move the school towards a good grading. Meynell have been part of a Department for Education (DfE) funded project to improve teaching and learning in Phonics since January 2019. From September to March the teaching went from strength to strength, and children were making accelerated progress from their starting points. The school has been successfully accepted to continue this input with the English Hub for the next 2 years in order to maintain this achievement. Meynell also completed the Teacher Development Trust CPD (Continuing Professional Development) Project, and were awarded a Silver Mark. This project looked at the school’s approach to CPD, collecting views of staff regularly, and has altered the way CPD is approached for all members of staff. All support staff have a weekly CPD entitlement which is tailored to the School Development Plan and mirrors the CPD the teachers receive where relevant. Collaboration is at the heart of our Trust. Our aspiration, with collaboration and distributed leadership across TSAT, is to be greater than the sum of our parts. Our primary school leaders worked with external professionals to develop their practice around inclusive practise and metacognition. Having undertaken this training and sharing ideas amongst the primary teams, work is now being completed in line with the recovery curriculum to embed the work around metacognition and learning. Our primary schools have also taken part in curriculum ‘deep dives’, giving leaders insight into the policies and approaches used by colleagues and allowing them to further embed practices and developments within their curriculum. Primary colleagues also worked in partnership to complete assessment booklets in the Autumn term, so that each year group had a finished set of assessment criteria and exemplar materials to support assessment across the primary phases.