Scores of job cuts lined up by academy trust, whose schools’ “topslice” soared up to six-fold in three years

Last year the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership charged its schools a topslice of 20 per cent - more than £1m each in five of its schools. It is now poised to cut up to 100 jobs.

A controversial multi-academy trust whose finances were plunged into the red after buying iPads for all its pupils and 1,000 staff is now lining up 100 job losses as it seeks to balance its budget, Education Uncovered has learnt.

The 24-school Arthur Terry Learning Partnership (ATLP) has announced the cuts to parents, although the precise number of positions to be lost appear not to have been disclosed.

The revelation comes with Education Uncovered having reported yesterday on ATLP’s plans to close one of its school sixth forms, at Nether Stowe school in Lichfield, Staffordshire. 

And this website can also disclose that figures within the trust’s accounts show it recently taking a “topslice” – or money for its central services – of 20 per cent, although the only percentage figure listed in these accounts as a topslice is 4.5 per cent.

Yet the actual amounts charged to schools increased up to six-fold in the three years from 2021. Critics seem likely to seize on the data as showing how school budgets were cut, in order to pay for the central decision to fund the iPads.