The Confederation of School Trusts’ (CST) recently published its Building Strong Trusts: Assurance Framework and Challenge Partners is proud to have helped shape it.
Challenge Partners contributed to an early draft before it was shared across the sector and finalised in September.
Our CEO Dr Kate Chhatwal OBE is a member of the CST-led inquiry on trust-led school improvement, and Challenge Partners also supported the framework’s development by providing input from evidence gathered through our work with trusts and Trust Peer Reviews.
The framework is a practical tool to help trusts continually develop and improve, using it to identify their most significant areas of strength and challenge so they can build organisational capacity. As CST stressed in its announcement, it is diagnostic, not evaluative or judgemental.
Covering 14 key elements that make up CST’s model of what it means to be a strong trust, it invites trust leaders to consider where they are and what they need to do next to deliver an excellent and equitable education, recognising there is always room for improvement.
You can download the full framework here.
We have incorporated key elements of the framework - particularly around trust-wide school improvement and an excellent and inclusive education - into the latest iteration of our Trust Peer Review. Our expert-led three-day review evaluates a school trust’s effectiveness in driving improvement in its schools and outcomes for the children and young people it serves.
There’s growing interest from groups of trusts wanting to use Trust Peer Review to deepen their collaboration with each other, as well as drive trust improvement.
Contact us to learn more about our involvement with the CST framework, or if you’re interested in improving your trust or enabling deeper trust-to-trust collaboration via the Trust Peer Review:
Partnershipsteam@challengepartners.org
020 7803 4970