Please return completed questionnaires or direct any queries in relation to the consultation to

info@staugustinesrc.lbhf.sch.uk

The governing body of St Augustine's Catholic Primary School has applied to become an academy under the Academies Act and is proposing to join The Saint John Southworth Catholic Academy Trust.  Further information about what becoming an academy means, and how to comment on the proposals, is set out below. 

Will St Augustine's Catholic Primary School definitely become an Academy?

The governing body has submitted an application to convert to academy status and is working towards a conversion in April 2023.  However, the school is not obligated to become an academy until the contract between the academy trust and the Department for Education (known as the Funding Agreement) is signed.

The academy trust will not sign the Funding Agreement until parents and carers of pupils at the school, staff at the school, all stakeholders and the pupils themselves have had the opportunity to comment on whether the conversion should take place. We have written to all parents and carers and have also invited them to attend a meeting on Tuesday 14th March at 9:15am or at 6:30pm, to learn more about the proposals to become an academy, or to comment on the proposals. 

We will also hold meetings with staff, and will be keeping pupils informed throughout the process. 

Any comments or representations which are made about the proposals will be considered by the academy trust before a decision is taken to sign the Funding Agreement. Details of how to provide comments and representations are set out below.

The academy trust will not sign the Funding Agreement unless they are content that conversion would be in the best interests of the school taking account of all of the legal and practical ramifications.

What is an academy?

A state school funded directly by the government, rather than maintained by a local authority.  Each academy is run by an academy trust.

What are the benefits of joining an academy?

• CATs provide a formal framework for collaboration, shared curriculum expertise across schools and enhanced opportunities for sharing good practice in a variety of settings and phases.
• Curriculum support for secondary schools by primaries and for primaries by secondaries in targeted areas – with possible cross-phase teaching – will enhance pupils’ learning and enrich professional practice.
• Formal collaboration frameworks allow for more shared planning, more shared examples of good practice, more shared resources and more shared assessment and moderation.
• Inbuilt collaboration facilitates buddying/mentoring systems to enhance teaching and learning and enriches school-to-school support.
• Shared curriculum events such as Science Days, Languages Days and shared concerts become much more practicable.
• Greater opportunities for career progression enable schools to grow their own leaders. The Ambition Institute research shows that MATs have much higher rates of promotion from classroom teacher to middle leadership, particularly at primary school, than non-MAT schools.
• Improved recruitment and retention. The evidence is that CATs, with the flexibility and career progression opportunities they allow, attract more applications.
• In short, CATs systemically enrich professional dialogue and practice, thereby improving pupils’ learning experience.

Saint John Southworth Catholic Academy Trust

The Saint John Southworth Catholic Academy Trust was established in September 2021 by its founding members, the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School and St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Cadogan Street.  Their mission is to create a community of schools, built in solidarity and operating by subsidiarity, to give our pupils all they need to grow.  The schools model unity in diversity, together but unique ('Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ' – 1 Corinthians 12) and work for the formation and achievement of all their pupils (‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart’ – Colossians 3

The patron is St John Southworth, one of the Tyburn martyrs who laboured fearlessly for the Faith in the area which the Trust serves and who is buried in Westminster Cathedral, which is also situated within its bounds; Southworth is a powerful symbol, and presence, in our endeavour: the formation of the whole person.