Winsford Education Partnership

How the Winsford Education Partnership is exploring trust status to develop whole-town 0-19 provision in rural Cheshire.

Summary

This case study looks at Winsford Education Partnership’s use of established collaborative leadership arrangements and trust status to enhance whole-town 0-19 provision.

Key outcomes

The Winsford Education Partnership has successfully applied to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) to become a trust early adopter.
Based on this case study, leaders of large-scale partnerships of schools could usefully consider the following questions:
- What additional bargaining power and influence can be gained by uniting all schools in a locality? What efficiencies in provision and economies of scale become possible?
- How best can a new trust or federation take into account and build on existing arrangements? What are the legal and financial complexities and who is best placed to resolve them?
- Which local authority officers need to be involved in a whole-town partnership? What opportunities can the partnership offer the authority?

Background

Winsford is a small town in the centre of rural Cheshire with a population of 36,000. There are pockets of high deprivation and around 23 per cent of children are educated outside the town. The Winsford Education Partnership (WEP) includes all 15 schools in the area.

The local authority has been reviewing and rationalising provision, as a result of which the two high schools have federated, two pairs of infant and junior schools have amalgamated and one primary school is marked for closure. A new build will house 14-19 provision. An SEN review has led to the local authority working with the partnership to develop a vision for a fully inclusive all-through school on a central site.

The schools in the partnership are: Darnhall Primary School, Grange Primary School, Greenfields Primary School, Handley Hill Primary School, High Street Primary School, Leaf Lane Infant and Nursery School, Over Hall Primary School, Over St John CE Primary School, St Chad’s CE Primary School, St Joseph’s RC Primary School, Wharton CE Junior School, Willow Wood Primary School, Winsford High School Federation, Oaklands Special School and Hebden Green Special School.

Challenges and issues

Barriers to trust status

The partnership’s church schools already have trust arrangements and the implications for a whole-town trust are not yet clear.

Some schools leaders and governors are anxious about the extent to which they will be asked to relinquish control over their schools and how trust status will affect their individual identities and reputations.

Complex negotiations

Negotiations are complex and challenging to implement new leadership and governance arrangements for a long-established and cohesive voluntary partnership.

Sustainability

Speed of progress has been slower than hoped at the outset. The longer it takes to achieve significant progress, the more it is likely that partners will find sustained involvement possible, for individuals and for funding.

Long-established partnership

The schools have a history of collaboration, first as a Single Regeneration Budget area and then as a Networked Learning Community. The depth of collaboration and commitment within the partnership has made it more likely that local decisions can be strategic and widely owned. However, the fact that the partnership is well established makes it easier to organise resistance to undesirable change.

The Winsford Education Partnership approach

Exploring trust status

Winsford Education Partnership (WEP) shared ideals and a great deal of history, but was finding it difficult to make progress with its voluntary and informal structure.

The WEP leadership has therefore been exploring the potential of trust status in order to secure whole-town 0-19 provision by harnessing the partnership’s considerable energy and goodwill. Trust status would bring security, economies of scale and additional bargaining power.

Leadership of the schools and the partnership

Except in the case of the federated high school, individual schools each have a headteacher. Schools devolve proportional funding from their individual budgets to finance the work of the partnership.

Models for governance

WEP is revisiting its traditional governance models to ensure that the infrastructure supports its vision for inclusive education. The models under consideration include shared boards of governors, an advisory board or information-sharing forum, or becoming a whole-town trust that could include partners from outside education, such as the primary care trust.

Aims for governance

The partnership is committed to raising the profile of governance within the town so that it develops strategic educational vision and achievement across the community.

It is planning for faster decision-making through slimmed-down focused governance, increased collaboration and higher levels of skill and knowledge for governors and leaders.

Mobilise the partnership

The partnership aims to use its collaborative capacity to take strategic advantage of the major reviews and developments underway in Winsford.

Specifically, it aims to ensure that more families choose to send their children to school in Winsford, to raise aspirations and increase post-16 participation, to ensure more effective intervention strategies for children with challenging behaviours and to improve access to better and targeted provision for the full range of child-centred services.

Continuing professional development

The partnership organises bi-annual whole-town in service education (INSED) and offers an annual continuing professional development (CPD) programme.

A programme of work shadowing with staff from other agencies has helped to develop the Every Child Matters agenda.