CEO Blog

• Celebrations this Weekend

  Mon 23 Mar 2026
  We have so much to celebrate across our Trust family of schools this week. Myself and Rajinder, our brilliant Trust SEND and Safeguarding Lead were asked by Optimum Education to speak at a national conference in Manchester last week to share the great work being undertaken across our Trust family of schools on ensuring we always deliver a first-class education for all learners, including those with SEND. 

   

  Field Lane held their first ever Iftar event and the school hall was absolutely packed with family and friends of the school. The children were excellent, and very confident in delivering superb performances; our learners in Reception were truly excellent. A wonderful evening was had by all, and this was a great precursor to Eid celebrations all across our community this weekend.

   

  Batley Girls' High School then achieved national success with Afeefah competing in the Historical Association's national finals of the Great Debate. Afeefah was awarded a special commendation award. She came in the top 4 of 21. She was absolutely brilliant and will be sent a certificate and appear on the Historical Association's website. We are all incredibly proud of Afeefah and she is a winner in our eyes. Well done, Afeefah!

  

• Much to Celebrate

  Mon 16 Mar 2026

  This week we have so much to celebrate across our Trust family of schools. We have excellent attendance with our whole community demonstrating the importance of High Attendance = High Achievement. Thank you to all parents/carers who ensure their child attends school each and every day.

   

  Batley Girls' High School are launching a superb new framework all about Belonging In Batley. This work is based on educational research, and evidence-informed practice and is all about how a fantastic curriculum, coupled with engaging enrichment experiences supports young people to thrive academically and personally. Watch this space for further details in the coming weeks.

   

  Myself and our Trust SEND lead are speaking at a national conference in Manchester on Thursday about how to deliver great SEND provision across a Trust family of schools. We are delighted to share our work in Batley more widely across the sector. 

   

  Then, at the end of the week many members of our school and local community will be celebrating Eid. Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating and we wish our whole community good health, peace and happiness this week and always. 

  

• Attendance Guardians

  Mon 09 Mar 2026
  Attendance continues to thrive across our Trust family of schools, with every school improving their attendance each week. Field Lane School was celebrating their high attendance scores last week (a superb 98%), as well as having a fantastic careers week filled with exciting, enriching and inspiring activities for national careers week.

   

  Field Lane Airlines had pilots and airline staff, there were fashion designers, florists, engineers, doctors, nurses, care workers, teachers, footballers, dentists, a marine biologist and a paleontologist showcasing a vast array of fossils! A really diverse and exciting range of careers were on offer from visiting speakers and from the learning activities planned across the school week. The Batley Buzz was evident on every corridor, every classroom and all across the school site.

   

  Field Lane is also currently raising money to help transform their main school hall into a more engaging and inspiring learning space. Fundraising is going well and if you are keen to help them please make a donation on their Go Fund Me page and we will keep you updated over the coming months on our progress on this transformation of this really well used learning environment. The Trust is supporting this redevelopment project in the school and we hope the works can take place this summer so we have a fully refurbished school hall in place for September 2026. This isn’t just a refurbishment, it's an investment in Field Lane learners’ confidence, creativity and wellbeing. The new learning space in the main school hall will reflect the school's S.T.A.R values, their ambition and their vision: To grow Field Lane into a world-class school where all learners and colleagues are known, nurtured, challenged and inspired. Every donation – big or small – helps move us closer to a hall that our learners and community can be proud of for many years to come.

   

  

• Attendance Champions

  Mon 02 Mar 2026

  This week, we are celebrating high attendance in all our Trust schools. Children's academic and personal success is built on strong attendance. Our schools are fantastic places for children to learn, succeed, achieve and thrive but children can only do that when they attend school regularly. All our Trust schools have attendance above the national average which is super to see. However, national average is merely a baseline, not a target for us. Afterall, who in life only wants to be average? 

   

  Last week some of our nurseries achieved 100% attendance - it does not get better than that! The most important years in education are when children are aged between 0 and 5 years old as they learn all of the foundation building blocks of knowledge to underpin their entire lives. Our attendance target is 98% because we know life happens and sometimes we may all be ill sadly, but 98% attendance equates to 4 lost learning days and 28 missed lessons.  Many of our learners have achieved 98%-100% this year and the photo accompanying this week's blog shows the celebrations taking place at Healey school on Friday - with the golden tables celebrating all high attended learners. What a wonderful way to end a successful week at Healey School! 

   

  High Attendance = High Achievement and Every Day Counts.