Ambitious academy trust to rebrand, as Education Uncovered reveals that fewer than half of its schools have been inspected

A medium-sized academy trust, which has been covered a fair bit on this website, is to rebrand itself, with questions inevitably being raised as to whether this is the best use of taxpayers’ funds.

Wellsway multi-academy trust, based outside Bristol at its flagship school of the same name, will become the Futura Learning Partnership from September, an information pack for the role of “principal and executive head of school” for Wellsway School and another of the trust’s academies confirms.

The information pack, giving background information on the role of school leader to oversee Wellsway School and its associated studio school, IKB Academy in the town of Keynsham, suggests the trust believes it is time for a new name as the chain has grown swiftly, to 13 schools, having been launched by Wellsway School in 2014.

The job pack states: “Our trustees are in the process of introducing a new name, Futura Learning Partnership, in recognition of the size and nature of our organisation. You will be joining us at an exciting time as we launch our re-brand in September 2021.”

As seems the trend in these traditionalist-leaning times under the Conservatives’ stewardship of English state-funded education, the name has a Latin link. 

The job pack continues: “Our new name is taken from the motto of Wellsway School, Futura Aedificamus – ‘We build for the future,’ and will therefore retain a subtle link to our founding school.”

However, one source close to the trust was less than impressed. They described the rebrand as a “vanity project”, which was likely to cost tens of thousands of pounds.

I asked Wellsway how much the rebrand was going to cost, but was told that staff were away for the school holidays so there was no-one to answer the question.

Despite the job specification’s reference to the seemingly changed “size” of the organisation, DfE records suggest that the chain has stayed static in terms of institution numbers over the past two years, with a free school – Two Rivers Church of England primary, also in Keynsham – added but a studio school (see below) having closed.

The new job will see the successful applicant oversee Wellsway School, IKB Academy and also comes with co-ordinating responsibilities at an infant and a junior school which are situated next to these secondary institutions. It comes as Matthew Woodville, Wellsway’s current principal, prepares to move to head another of the trust’s secondaries: Bedminster Downs, in the city of Bristol.

Rumour also has it that IKB Academy itself is to be merged with Wellsway School, meaning that the former would technically close. If so, this would be the second studio school run by the trust to shut in recent years, following the Bath Studio School last August.   

Further background: fewer than half of Wellsway’s schools have been inspected

The Wellsway trust is led by Andrea Arlidge as chief executive. Its latest annual accounts suggest her salary rose last year, from £140-£145,000 to £145-£150,000, with her employers’ pension contributions also climbing, seemingly by a hefty amount in the £10,000 range: from £20-£25,000 to £30-£35,000.

Arlidge is a busy person: she is a member of another medium-sized academy trust operating in the region – Palladian Academy Trust, based in Bath, which has 10 schools – as well as being a trustee of City of Bristol College (that organisation’s chair, Peter Rilett, is also a member of Wellsway multi-academy trust). Arlidge’s biographical details on the college’s website state that she is also on Ofsted’s South West region headteachers’ reference group, and a member of Ofsted’s South West region’s “scrutiny committee”. She is also listed as chair of the trust board of the County Sports Partnership for the West of England. And she is a governor at the fee-charging Bristol Grammar School.

Wellsway’s accounts suggest that the chain is ambitious for growth: it lists 5,614 pupils across the 13 schools, but with the financial statements outlining a goal to possibly near-double that in the next five years by seeking “opportunities” to take on new schools.

The accounts state: “Trustees have approved a new 2020-2025 Strategy which aims to grow the number of pupils educated by the Trust to between 8,000 and 10,000 by 2025.

“The Trust will therefore continue to seek opportunities to expand and is working closely with the Regional Schools Directorate [Commissioner, ed?] to identify suitable opportunities.”

This month, in a trust newsletter, Arlidge announced the arrival of four new trustees to the chain’s board, with two more to follow.

All this may sound impressive. However, the Wellsway chain’s Ofsted record seems patchy, and surprisingly incomplete.

Of its 13 schools, only four are currently rated good having achieved that judgment while controlled by the trust, with none yet given the inspectorate’s top rating of outstanding. A further two are currently rated “requires improvement”.

This leaves a further seven academies – staggeringly, more than half of all the schools currently run by the trust – which have not been visited by inspectors while under the trust’s management. This is despite them having racked up a total of 22 years under Wellsway, without an inspection visit.

Although all of Wellsway’s secondary academies have been inspected under its control, remarkably only one of its eight primaries has been.

The reason for the non-inspection of the other seven so far would appear to be that:

-In one case the trust took over a previously outstanding school – St John’s CofE, also in Keynsham – which was given the rating eight years ago and so under Ofsted’s rules has escaped inspection since;

-In another, it took over an Ofsted-inadequate school, the Meadows in Kingswood, which failed an Ofsted in January 2017 but then had its inspection slate wiped clean when it academised under Wellsway in December that year; (This contradiction – the Ofsted record of a previously failing school wiped clean, but outstanding records retained – is a national phenomenon: see here.

-Wellsway opened Two Rivers, the free school, only last September. Unsurprisingly, it has yet to be inspected;

-Four other of its academies have gone an average of three years each without inspection since academising under the trust, their predecessor schools having been rated “good” before joining Wellsway.

The only one of Wellsway’s eight primaries to have been inspected since being taken over by the trust is Saltford CofE primary school, in Bristol, which was rated “good” in 2019, three years after joining the trust.

Obviously, the suspension of inspections over the past year because of the pandemic has pushed out the length of time that any institution will go without a visit from Ofsted. However, it still seems remarkable that this reasonably-sized trust, which has not taken on many new schools in recent years, has had fewer than half its institutions visited by the inspectorate.  

Chair of under-pressure trust steps down

Denise Strutt, chair of a single-school academy trust which has been in the news following an employment tribunal judgment in favour of a former teacher, has stood down ahead of the publication of an external review of the organisation’s governance.

The John Kyrle High School in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, lost the tribunal case against its former head of drama and union rep, Joanne Lucas, last year, in a verdict which featured in the pages of the Guardian.

The local newspaper, the Ross Gazette, also reported how a “failed court challenge over [the expansion of] a rival sixth form” – Dene Magna in Gloucestershire - had cost the trust £187,000 in legal fees, with members and trustees then commissioning a governance review “in the wake of these issues”, at the end of 2020.

The governance review is understood to have been carried out by Denis Barry, who readers of this website might recall is the chair of governors of a primary school in Wakefield, West Yorkshire – Crigglestone Mackie Hill Junior and Infant – which has been one of the few local authority schools in recent years to successfully force the Department for Education into a u-turn on its forced academisation. Barry’s report on John Kyrle has yet to be published.

A letter from the members of the John Kyrle trust, sent to parents earlier this month added: “While the [governance] report has yet to be finalised, Denise Strutt, our current chair of trustees, has reflected on how the school can best take forward any future recommendations…she has concluded that it would be beneficial for someone new to be at the helm of the board of trustees to help any changes to be implemented. Denise has, therefore, made the difficult decision to step away from the board.”

Strutt’s move comes with not only Barry’s findings thought to be imminent, but with a “remedies” hearing, which will decide on the level of Lucas’s compensation from the trust, also upcoming.

Nigel Griffiths, the school’s headteacher, was paid £145-£150,000 plus £30-£35,000 in employer’s pension contributions in 2019-20 for leading this single-academy trust, its latest accounts show. The second in command in the trust was paid £100-£110,000, plus pensions costs. Yet normally a single school leader, of an institution in John Kyrle’s location and of its size, would only be paid up to £103,000, if it was in the local authority maintained sector*.

A statement from the members of the John Kyrle trust, quoted in the Ross Gazette, thanked Strutt for her work “during her six-year involvement” with the trust, and said she had “always acted with the best interests of the staff and students at her heart”.

*The reference for that is the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document 2019-20, which of course applies to maintained schools but not to academies.