Joining AET last year, I needed to understand the trust's history and its current trajectory. This meant getting to know the character and context of our 57 schools as quickly as possible. But as our schools span the length and breadth of the country, there are invariably limits to how quickly anyone can really get under their skin to understand the challenges and opportunities in context.
To get a lay of the land, it was essential to have an objective external appraisal of our trajectory and current state. We commissioned EPI to give us an accurate evaluation of our performance in both comparative and relative terms. Today, we have raised the curtain on the pre-Covid performance of AET, by publishing our EPI report.
As you read this report, you will get a sense of the many positive legacies that I inherited when I joined AET. Secondary schools in the trust had improved outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, ranking in the top half of Progress 8 scores. At Key Stage 2, our primary schools had improved attainment faster than other trusts of our size and scale.
However, the EPI report exposed several areas that required direct and immediate attention. Attainment was not as strong at Key Stage 4 as it was at Key Stage 2; permanent exclusions were higher across our primary schools compared to similar trusts; and attendance was a real challenge for schools across all phases.
The patchwork of performance depicted in the report mirrors what I saw as I visited all 57 schools across the country in my first year. Our schools reflect the regional disparities we are all familiar with across the breadth of social, economic, health and educational outcomes.
Variation is our prevailing challenge. Historically, AET has not developed an explicit strategy for schools to outperform their local context. Unsurprisingly, our schools in more affluent parts of London perform better than those in deprived coastal communities.
We must unpick the contextual challenges and ensure that the enabling conditions for teachers and children to fulfil their potential are universal across our network.
Unapologetically, I have a vision that every child at an AET school receives their entitlement to an excellent education and for the trust to be a net-giver to the system. To ensure that every pupil - whether they live in Middlesbrough, the Isle of Wight, or anywhere in between - receives an excellent education, in every classroom, every day.
Over the past year, we have defined ambitious goals and imagined what an entitlement to excellence looks like - AET 490. By 2028, we want 90% of our children: to read at their chronological age, pass the phonics check, achieve the expected standard in RWM at Key Stage 2, and achieve grade 4 or above in English and maths GCSEs.
These are goals that collectively have never been achieved before. But unless our children are in school and have the capacity to access the curriculum, the truth is that we simply cannot reach these heights of national standards. Entering year two of our mission to AET 490, informed by the findings from the EPI report, we're focussing on two areas that are critical to education improvement: attendance and reading.
AET 490 has fast become the unifying strategic priority running right across our network. But although we have set ourselves ambitious network-wide objectives, we know that we will only solve the enigma of variation by being grounded in the reality of our local context and communities. Although we are a nationwide trust, we are clear to foreground the importance of localism.
Over the past year, our shape and structure have shifted to reflect our local and regional focus. New Regional Education Directors and Academy Councils, a community-based governance model in each of our schools, will boost both accountability and educational effectiveness.
And Project H will be a tool we use to consciously realign around our purpose. To question: how are we focused on delivering an entitlement to excellence? How do we provide an entitlement to excellence in practice? What conditions are needed to prevent variation in the quality of practice and performance at scale?
No single person in our trust has the solution to everything. Still, we believe we have the collective capacity and talents to rise to any challenge! We need to harness those solutions and scale them so everyone benefits. Strategic intelligence is vital, as the EPI report showcases that each school has different starting points and challenges on their journeys.
The book ‘Belonging’, by Owen Eastwood, refers to Maori culture being strengthened by ancestors “carving their stories into the walls” for descendants to learn from. But what if we take this concept of carving stories into the walls further so that we’re sharing our journey in real-time… wouldn’t schools across the country be stronger for it?
Only by being unashamedly transparent about our current performance will we be able to develop a more open approach to engaging with peers. A culture of openness will allow us to exchange ideas and insights with other trusts and schools and multiply educational opportunities beyond our network.
Here, I've shared an open and honest state of play on where AET is. Next term, EPI will evaluate our progress from our first year, looking again at academic outcomes and attendance, alongside the reputation of our schools within their local communities.
AET is in better shape to embed the enabling conditions for network improvement, but there is still much to be done. For better or worse, through Project H, we look forward to sharing our progress alongside our methods for others to look at and learn from.
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