Dave Baker, Chief Executive of Olympus Academy Trust, spoke to us about his Trust’s experience of Challenge Partners’ Trust Peer Review and the Trust Leaders’ Network. The trust has been in partnership with Challenge Partners since 2020.
Located in Bristol, Olympus Academy Trust was formed at the start of 2012 and has grown to 9 schools (3 secondary, 5 primary and 1 all-through). All schools are within 4 miles of each other.
In 2021, Challenge Partners was invited by four trusts in the South West, including Olympus Academy Trust (alongside Cabot, Cathedral and Futura) to pilot a regional approach to our established Trust Peer Review.
When did you first hear about Challenge Partners, and why did you join?
I’ve known about Challenge Partners for a long time, not least because in South Gloucestershire, where our schools are based, the secondary headteachers worked with Dame Sue John on school improvement work.
Kate Chhatwal and I have been talking for a number of years about how Challenge Partners could have a foothold in the South West. It felt like a natural evolution when we found a project we could collaborate on - the Trust Peer Review - where we set up the pilot in the South West.
I have been involved with the Trust Leaders’ Network with my Deputy, Claire Banks. Our Trust facilitates and leads a Trust Leaders’ Network in the South West with 120 trusts and we run 6 events a year. Having an external reference point in the national network through Challenge Partners has been useful for us.
And I had some history with Catherine Bailhache. I was involved in Jubilee Networks with her. It felt like a sensible step to realign with one another and get involved with the network, and it has been really useful.
What attracted you (and South West colleagues) to the Challenge Partners Trust Peer Review (TPR)?
I am part of a Trust Leaders group with the regional directors’ office in the South West called the MAT Development Group. We were involved in developing a self-evaluation framework, which was a model that was developed and then rolled out nationally. It was a natural next step to think about how to formally set up peer-to-peer trust review. We decided that the Trust Peer Review process that Challenge Partners had developed would be a good starting point for us.
What was attractive about the Challenge Partners model was that it was an externally validated process - it had credibility beyond the people who created it saying it was good. As a group we were interested in being able to road test it and tweak it as we went to suit our purpose and context.
What did you hope to get out of the TPR experience? Was this achieved?
All of us involved hoped to get an external view and some validation about the processes that we had put in place for school improvement within our trust. We also hoped to get some good ideas from the other trusts that we were reviewing.
Our dynamic was that we had a CEO and Deputy CEO in each of the four trusts who were the reviewers for all 4 reviews, so it was a tight group. There was a lot at stake for that group of people in terms of credibility and knowledge. We are four neighbouring trusts and the vulnerability of allowing people to see “under the bonnet” locally needed to be explored. The trust peer review process is reviewing a trust on its own terms, it’s not a fixed framework in terms of judgments.
What came out of it was a deep sense of understanding of one another's trusts and a desire to collaborate more, build on that shared learning, and support one another with the gaps or underdeveloped areas. When it came to our turn to be reviewed, I was surprised how significant the process was in terms of the importance of what was fed back to us and how that could be used. Also, in preparation for it, it was useful to think about how we articulate what we do. We had to articulate in a way that allowed other people to understand it. It has moved us forward in our documentation of the Olympus way of doing things.
What constructive challenge did you receive through hosting a TPR and what actions have you taken?
We have done a lot since the review. There were some things that were obvious and we knew about, but there were others that were penny-dropping moments. One of them was that we talk about being a values-led trust, but the challenge was thrown back at us about the fact that those values are not framed around what they mean for the young people. We have since done work with external support about providing descriptors for the values and the behaviours that we will see where the values have been enacted at all levels.
The other big development was that we were in the process of launching a revised school improvement strategy at trust level. It helped us to have to articulate that during the review and for the strategy to be tested. We have now gone through a process of refinement within the trust since the review. We have also been doing a massive review of our scheme of delegation to make sure that we have absolute clarity about people's responsibility for decisions and where the accountability sits. I think that is going to give us a lot more clarity.
The final piece was about trust growth. The feedback from the review was to not be shy about pushing forward and saying to schools: “This is what we do. If you want to join us, this is what you are buying into”, instead of being apologetic about the Olympus way of doing things. It was confidence-giving that what we are doing is working well and we should be sharing it with others and inviting others to be a part of that. That has shaped our growth strategy.
Individually, those things may not be big, but actually together, they are big pieces of work that will help move us forward over a period of time.
What has been the impact of your leaders reviewing other trusts?
It has deepened relationships with other trust leaders locally. It has enabled us to have honest conversations about things we know about one another’s trusts, and talk openly about what the future might look like in the local landscape and how we might work together within that. It has given us confidence to have conversations with one another about where there are gaps in expertise and where we might be able to draw support from one another’s trusts.
Also, there have been follow-on conversations where the leader of one trust has been asked to do something in support of a developing leader in another trust, whether that be in a mentoring or coaching role, or giving someone an opportunity to go on a placement. I think we are in a good place in terms of the way we work together - it has been taken to another level in a way that is unusual for neighbouring trusts. It might usually be seen as though it needs to be competitive, but from my perspective it feels cooperative.
Have you implemented any changes as a result of the TPR process? If so, what are they and what has been the impact on your schools/pupils?
One of the challenges thrown at us was seeing ourselves as an all-through trust and making sure that we are all-through in the way that we operate. We got into the habit through lockdown of having secondary heads and primary heads meeting separately and remotely. We started doing them face to face post-lockdown, but we had not really embedded the idea of all heads meeting together again. Now we are doing that once a month without fail and talking about issues and themes that thread through from primary to secondary, and really looking at what that means in an all-through sense, rather than looking at them separately.
For example, we have gone back to curriculum principles that fit across primary and secondary, and making sure our policies are fit for purpose across all phases. For the young people’s experience, I think this will make a massive difference to them in terms of the coherence of going from primary to secondary, whether that is in one school or between schools because most students do go from one of our primary to secondary schools. It is important that that continuity is real.
Is there anything you would like to add on about the Trust Peer Review?
The role of the Lead Reviewer is really important. We had the same reviewer for 3 reviews and that was useful to have continuity throughout the process. She was able to build her knowledge and ask challenging questions. That has been a really positive relationship with the group over that period.
The question for us now is ‘what next?’ We have agreed that we are going to have a get-together after 6 months or a year on from the first schedule to discuss the impact and what we have managed to achieve. It is good to hold ourselves to account.
You’re also a member of the Trust Leaders’ Network - what have you found the value of this to be?
The visits are brilliant. We hosted a virtual visit to our trust during lockdown and it was really interesting because a couple weeks ago we were able to host an actual visit to our trust. It was interesting for the people who had also been in the virtual one to come and see it in person.
Being a geographical outlier in the West of England made it quite challenging for us to get to all the actual in-person visits, but the ones we have gone to have been excellent. We went on the first Residential. That was brilliant and we really enjoyed working with BTS Spark who we have done some work with on an ongoing basis since, which has been great for our trust leadership team.
The other part is the access to the other networks through Challenge Partners. I have really enjoyed accessing the business webinars and the annual conference. Also, to feel a part of a bigger network and to meet new people has been a really good thing for us to be involved with.
We thank Dave for taking the time to talk to us. If you are a partner with Challenge Partners and would like to share your story, contact partnershipsteam@challengepartners.org and we would love to talk to you!