CEO Blog

• 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. 

   

  

• Sharing Batley Expertise

  Mon 23 Feb 2026

  Welcome Back! We hope you enjoyed a great half term break and plenty of time to relax, unwind and see family and friends. Our Trust family of schools have been busy over the break with lots of exciting site development work underway to make all our schools the very best learning environments for the children we serve. The school holiday periods are when the magic happens! A huge thank you to all our caretakers and site teams who work really hard and take enormous pride in our school sites. Ramadan has also now commenced and we wish everyone taking part, Ramadan Mubarak during this holy month. Ramadan is a time for giving, sharing and spreading kindness.

   

  We would also like to congratulate Upper Batley High School and Assistant Headteacher, Mr Sherrard who was asked to join a panel of experts to share his best practice work on careers education in a national webinar for practitioners and school leaders to discover the latest research from The Skills Imperative 2035 Programme, funded by the Nuffield Foundation. Mr Sherrard leads Upper Batley High School's work on careers and the excellent use of Skills Builder. Learners develop essential skills, and track how they use these which helps build their knowledge, skills and expertise and prepare them for the world of work as well as make them highly employable when they leave Upper Batley High School and enter the working world. Careers is the golden thread of our Trust school's curriculum from Early Years right through to our adult education programmes, and the hook to engage all our learners regardless of their background or starting point. Great careers education and guidance helps young people to know the skills and qualifications they need to achieve their goals. Our goal is for all learners to believe, achieve and succeed in their education and their lives. 

  

• Batley Celebrate Success

  Mon 09 Feb 2026

  Batley Girls' High School are celebrating real success with one of their highly skilled and talented learners winning the semi-finals of the Historical Association's Great Debate 2026.

   

  Afeefah has won the semi-final and secured a place in the finals in London. We are all incredibly proud of Afeefah and this fantastic achievement. She is already a winner in our eyes and a shining star of Batley.

   

  In the semi-finals, Afeefah competed against learners from 12 schools all across the country, many of whom are from private schools. Afeefah was superb! We now wish her every success in the finals, and we are all so incredibly proud of her achievement to reach this stage of this prestigious competition.

   

  Congratulations also go to Mrs Wilby, the Assistant Headteacher from Batley Girls' High School who coordinates this work with the Historical Association and coaches the learners to help prepare them for the competition. Batley Girls' High School has had two learners reach the finals in the last 3 years.

   

  Our whole Trust family of schools now wishes Afeefah every success, although she is already a winner in our eyes.

   

  Good luck, Afeefah!

  

• Every Day Matters for Every Child

  Mon 02 Feb 2026

  Manorfield Infant  and Nursery School has designed and shared with their families a great new poster to remind everyone how important every school day is, especially for our youngest learners. Attendance in nursery is just as important as attendance in every other year group. Some may argue attendance in nursery is even more important because this is when children learn the foundations of academic knowledge and skills, social skills and physical development.

   

  These skills underpin their learning and development for the rest of their lives. Learning is much like building a house, if you get the foundations right then you are ready for success, but if the foundations are weak then whatever goes on top of them will simply crumble.  

   

  Every Day Counts.

   

  Every child, and every adult in our Trust family of schools has an attendance target of 98% because lost learning days impact negatively on a child's education. Children will not make the required progress, and they may even lose their place in nursery or at school. Poor attendance also does not reflect well in a reference to another school, college or employer. 98% may sound like a lot, and if you achieved 98% as a test score you would probably be quite pleased with that. However, 98% attendance means you have already missed 4 days of learning and that's about 28 lessons. That's a lot of lost learning, so 98% is a minimum expectation, not a target. 

   

  Always remember Every Day Counts. Try not to miss any days.

   

  High Attendance = High Achievement. 

  

• Batley Brilliance at Batley Girls' High School

  Mon 26 Jan 2026

  Batley Girls' High School was delighted to host the PiXL Open Day event last week and share best practice with schools across our region. The event was coordinated by the fantastic Mrs Wilby, Batley Girls' Assistant Headteacher, and it was an opportunity for senior and middle leaders from Batley Girls' to showcase their exceptional work on school improvement to other school leaders. Batley Girls' school leaders presented their work on personal development, inclusion, careers and how they develop distributed leadership across their staff team, as well as how they develop and maximise learner leadership opportunities. Mr Scurr presented the bespoke and uniquely designed Batley Brilliance Bucket and how that is used to secure strong attendance, inspire learners to be the best version of themselves every day, and to play a positive and proactive role in school life, and their wider community.

   

  Careers is a golden thread of the entire Batley Girls' curriculum and Mrs Mehat leads this area of school life exceptionally well. Batley Girls' High School was also graded as outstanding by Ofsted for its Personal Development curriculum. 

   

  Feedback from the open day was incredibly positive about how the school builds a culture where the curriculum and wider learner well-being drives high academic achievement and how this is empowered by the distributed leadership model. One learner summed the day up the best when they said; "Learner leadership isn't symbolic - it is a meaningful part of how our school operates."

   

  Batley Girls' High School also received a letter from Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education last week praising them for their excellent results with learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. Batley Girls' has been recognised as achieving superb outcomes for these learners. This high achievement places Batley Girls' High School amongst the very best nationally. Really well done to Mr Kibble and the Batley Girls' High School team. 

  

• Attendance Champions

  Mon 19 Jan 2026

  This week we are congratulating Purlwell Infant and Nursery School for their fantastic attendance. Everyone in the Purlwell community has worked very hard to secure strong attendance over many months. As a result, Purlwell are the winning Trust School. Congratulations to all learners, staff and parents/carers for great teamwork in ensuring every learner has excellent attendance. Purlwell is also within the top 5 of all similar schools in the Department for Education analysis. Really well done Team Purlwell! It is great to see the silver trophies on display in your school. 

   

  Mrs Nazam, Purlwell's excellent Headteacher always has attendance as a high priority. School displays are excellent, all communication with children and parents/carers is about attendance and there are lots of rewards and incentives when children attend well. The Friday celebration assemblies are eagerly awaited by everyone! 

   

  Research also proves children make the most progress when they attend well, Every Day Matters. Every absence is a lost learning day, and every lesson counts, even our youngest children need to attend nursery and school every day if they are to reach their potential. This is when children learn the fundamental basics in maths and English, alongside social skills and physical development, and this underpins their learning for the rest of their lives. 

  

• Batley Brilliance

  Mon 12 Jan 2026

  Healey School was absolutely inspirational in their recent Batley Brilliance event. Trustees, governors, school leaders and colleagues from across the Trust family of schools were invited to see what unique strengths and talents Healey School and their superb learners have. Healey School did not disappoint!

   

  Mrs Lang, the Headteacher, shared her vision for the school, and their plans for future progress and development. School Leaders demonstrated the progress made in key areas such as maths, reading, writing and personal, social, health and economic education. 2025 saw great results in Key Stage 2 and even more success is predicted in 2026 and beyond. Every decision Healey School leaders make is child-centred. 

   

  Healey learners then stole the show when the choir performed the Power of Me which was truly inspirational. There was hardly a dry eye in the hall! The school's Attendance Ambassadors then talked about the importance of attendance and explained how they help all children across the school to have good attendance because Every Day Matters. The School's Learner Leaders then talked about how and why they were elected, and what role they play to help others.

   

  The school's values of 'Achieve, Believe and Succeed' shone through in every area of school life and every individual who spoke in the hall. One of the highly talented school governors had also made some absolutely delicious cakes and delicacies, complete with Healey School's logo and values. Well done Team Healey! Truly inspirational. 

  

• Happy New Year - 2026!

  Mon 05 Jan 2026

  Welcome back and Happy New Year! We know 2026 will be a great year in Batley for our Trust family of schools because our brilliant staff team have so many exciting learning activities planned for our young people. 2026 will be a year of high-quality education, inspiring and enriching educational activities which deliver success for all!

   

  Whilst there are so many challenges to face financially within the education sector, issues such as division across the country and the world; and heart-breaking tragedies some people face, we realise at the start of the new year that we can only control the controllables. Rather like the weather, which we cannot change, we also cannot change much of what the world throws at us. However, we can decide how it will affect us and how we will respond.

   

  As the highly acclaimed author Mel Robbins writes; rather like the weather, consider the true nature of the sky. The clouds that once frustrated you can be seen as a larger, ever-changing masterpiece. The storms that once frightened you are now moments of power and beauty, teaching you resilience and strength. The sky's unpredictability is what makes it so magnificent, so endlessly fascinating. 

   

  Therefore, consider that the sky will do what it does - clouds will gather, snow may arrive, storms will come, and the sun will shine when it pleases. You can't control it, but you can control how you navigate beneath it. You can carry an umbrella; you can dance in the rain, you can open schools in the snow and deliver great science & geography lessons about why snow falls (and great assemblies all about resilience and how to overcome any obstacle) and you can chase the sun when you need to!

   

  In Batley, we choose to maximise every learning experience we can. We recruit and retain only the very best staff in our teams, because they will deliver the best education for our children. We train our staff well so they could choose to leave, but we treat them well so they choose to stay.

   

  These great staff teams deliver a super education for all our children and give them the very best start in life. We can see this through strong attendance, high academic outcomes, great careers experiences and educational enrichment opportunities that take learning beyond the school gates. We never miss a learning opportunity. Every Day Matters.

   

  We look forward to seeing our young people believe, achieve and succeed in 2026 and beyond and we will support them to do so every step of the way. 

  

• Batley Brilliance

  Mon 15 Dec 2025
  The last school Monday of 2025 is here and we end the year in style with the Field Lane Batley Brilliance event. The new Headteacher, Mr Lorgat outlined his vision for making Field Lane a world class school. The new Assistant Headteacher, Miss Dobson, spoke of the school's fantastic achievements and fully inclusive ethos, where every child succeeds no matter what their background or starting point. Outcomes at Field Lane are exceptional. Inspirational Key Stage 2 learners spoke about the school's STAR values (Strength, Togetherness, Aspiration, Responsibility) and what a great education means to them. Then Key Stage 1 performed their nativity. There was not a dry eye in the house. Field Lane is a fantastic school, and a school at the very heart of the Batley community. 

   

  At the end of the Autumn term we would like to thank our whole community for their support for our schools and our learners this year. We are stronger together when we all work collaboratively for the good of our young people to give them the very best start in life.

   

  We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Enjoy the Christmas break and we look forward to 2026 and all that we can achieve together! 

   

  Community Makes Us. 

  

• Every Day Matters

  Mon 08 Dec 2025

  Every Day Matters - attendance is everything, and for children to achieve exceptional outcomes they need to attend school every day. Hyrstmount Junior School were all celebrating when they won the attendance trophies for Half Term 1 across the entire Trust family of schools. Well done to all staff, parents/carers and learners. 

   

  You can see from the face of Headteacher, the brilliant Mr Leach just how pleased the school were to win the trophies, which are now in proud display in the main reception.

   

  Our target for everyone in our learning community is 98%. This is because we know illness happens and at times you may be too unwell to attend school. 98% is equal to 4 lost learning days and 28 lessons missed. That is a lot of lost learning time, so although 98% sounds high, in terms of attendance it isn't really as every day matters, so we all need to aim for 100%.

   

  It is also crucial families do not book leave during term time. We know flights are cheaper during term time sadly, but there are 13 weeks a year when you can go overseas during school holiday periods. When children are of school age, a great education should come before saving money on cheaper flights. It is only for the first 16 years of a child's life-then there is much more flexibility. A great education is priceless! So let's all aim for that 98% minimum. Every Day Matters.