The Bushey St James Trust is fully committed to improving the schools within the Trust and has an excellent track record of this work over recent years. Systems of local and trust wide governance fully support the school improvement agenda and regular scrutiny of key performance indicators (KPIs) at both Local Governing Body and Trust Board level monitor progress over time. This ensures that appropriate interventions and resource capacity are in place to support both rapid and sustainable transformation.

The BSJT has a proven track record of school improvement and the key leaders within the BSJT have first-hand experience of improving schools in both the primary and secondary sector; they themselves have led schools from the spectrum of inadequate to outstanding using proven school improvement models.

Within the BSJT there is a real focus on making teaching as good as it can be and enabling the key school leaders’ to have the time to do this by centralising administrative, finance and HR functions where and when appropriate. Data is used effectively to hold the school leaders within the BSJT to account for performance and as far as possible all unnecessary burdens have been reduced for leaders and teachers by streamlining information management processes across the Trust.

The BSJT adopts a standardised approach to using and sharing information in regard to quality assurance across the schools. This enables the Trust Board to be provided with consistent information so that they can quickly see and make comparisons of the performance of each school, both as a whole and in particular areas (such as the impact of pupil premium funding). It is also easier to identify areas of strengths and weakness within individual schools and, where support needs and can be provided. There is an expectation that every school within the Trust will be both a giver and receiver of support as there are pockets of outstanding practice and areas for development in each school.

All staff are able to learn and share good practice. Teachers across the schools (both primary and secondary) observe and learn from each other to improve the quality of teaching for all pupils. This helps to reduce teacher workload and increases creativity. The Headteachers also work together and support each other to manage change.

All school leaders work hard to ensure that every member of staff within the Trust has a personalised and bespoke professional development plan, irrespective of their position or seniority. Being in a MAT can facilitate greater opportunities for all staff which helps to attract, retain and support the improvement of high quality teachers and Associate Staff.