Central Services

Our Central Services Team provides extensive support to all schools in the trust, this includes;

  • School Improvement- for more information click here 
  • Governance – for more information click here
  • Training and Professional Development – for more information click here
  • People and Human Resources Support – for more information click here
  • Estates Management and Health & Safety - see below
  • Marketing - see below
  • Finance - see below

Estates Management 

Our Estates team is led by Director of Estates and Marketing James Routs, the team has 3 core functions which are:

  1. Health, Safety and Compliance, the team provide support to all schools to ensure they are operating in a safe and healthy environment and are meeting all the statutory compliance guidelines. Termly meetings are held with the Headteacher and Site Manager.
  2. Estates Development, we also lead the overall estates development strategy for the schools, this can include refurbishment projects and new build projects.
  3. Estate Maintenance, the team manages how the trust will allocate its annual Schools Capital Allowance (SCA) funding to ensure essential maintenance projects are delivered, this often includes roofing replacements, heating and boiler upgrades and electrical development work.

Over £6m on Estates Development in the last 18 months

Over the last 18 months the trust has invested £6m on a range of development and expansion project across the trust this includes;

  • Congleton High School, a 10 classroom building and a new dining hall to meet the growing pupil numbers at the school
  • Knutsford Academy, extensive refurbishment of their Sixth Form building
  • Black Firs Primary, a 2 classroom extension
  • Wistaston Church Lane Academy, a new standalone nursery building to meet growing pre-school demand

Marketing Services

Our central based Marketing team is led by Director of Estates and Marketing James Routs, this team provides an extensive range of services to support and improve schools with their marketing and communication strategies, this includes;

  • Marketing planning and strategy
  • Advising and supporting schools on their vision, values and branding
  • Events planning and delivery such as Open Evenings
  • Central support to all school websites
  • Design and delivery of marketing material for all schools, including prospectuses, display boards and school identity
  • Delivery and support with social media strategy across schools
  • Supporting plans to increase student numbers at schools

Finance

The Finance team are based at the Trust offices in Knutsford. The team is led by Director of Finance, Ian Simpson and provides financial support to all schools to support improvement and the wider aims of the schools, this includes; 

  • Establishment planning and future strategy
  • Sources of funding, conditions of use and regulatory compliance
  • Capital planning
  • Budget setting, monitoring and control
  • Procurement
  • Providing management information to support decsion making

School Improvement