Kestrel Mead

Trust Peer Review

Advance your trust with actionable insights on the areas you want to develop 

All trusts are different. The challenges they can face vary with location, maturity and size, as well as character, ethos and approach. But all trust leaders share a singular ambition to drive school improvement and create better outcomes for the children and young people they serve. 

Overview

Aligned to the Confederation of School Trusts' Strong Trusts Assurance Framework – which Challenge Partners helped shape – our innovative Trust Peer Review (TPR) evaluates your school trust’s effectiveness in achieving that ambition.

Dave Baker CEO, Olympus Academy Trust

The approach

Aligned to the Confederation of School Trusts' Strong Trusts Assurance Framework, our innovative Trust Peer Review (TPR) evaluates your trust’s effectiveness in achieving that ambition and your specific development goals.

This expert-led three-day review enables trust-wide development on priorities you identify through peer challenge and collaboration. It celebrates strengths, brings new insights and identifies actionable next steps in a written report. Recommendations to strengthen your trust are based on evidence gathered from across your trust by a trained peer review team guided by a skilled Lead Reviewer.

The external team links up with host leaders to understand each trust’s unique history, context, and approach. Host leaders are encouraged to involve their colleagues and focus on the challenges they need to address to move forward.

Challenge Partners trains trust leaders as peer reviewers to review other school trusts, providing the experiential development in leadership and evaluation skills, and the chance to learn from trusts in different contexts, and magpie ideas to take back to their own trust.

We encourage trusts to join the Trust Peer Review nationally but also welcome the opportunity to work with groups of trusts to deliver regional reviews.

Kestrel Mead

The Trust Peer Review:

Aligns

Aligns with CST’s Strong Trusts Assurance Framework

Evaluates

Evaluates our trust on its own terms – it is done with, not to, your trust

Bespoke

Is bespoke to your needs, focusing on development priorities defined by you

Captures

Captures and shares effective practice while providing actionable, evidence-based suggestions of how to improve

Powerful

Provides powerful training, unrivalled experiential CPD and insight for reviewers

Identifies

Identifies opportunities for collaboration and connection, deepening relationships between trusts at multiple levels and building a shared sense of responsibility for education, children and young people 

Michelle Plumtree, CFO, Learning without Limits Academy Trust

100%

of TPR Reviewers reported gaining valuable insights or experiences from their participation in the Trust Peer Review, which they planned to apply within their own trusts.

Orchard Mead

95%

of Host Trusts stated the TPR will lead to changes/refinements in the trust's approach to school improvement that will have a positive impact on pupils' life chances.

Curious to find out more?