Charity Number 1185497
Annual Report
September 2022 – September 2023
The partnership has continued to work collaboratively; supporting colleagues in these challenging times and continuing to share good practice and undertake professional development programmes to fulfil the vision, mission and core moral purpose of the partnership:
Our Vision: Together we support and collaborate to inspire and succeed
Our Mission: To create a collaborative culture in which all children and staff are supported and inspired to succeed.
Our Core Moral Purpose
To improve the life chances of all children and young people To facilitate high quality training and collaborative school to school support To nurture the well-being of children and adults
Membership
In July 2023 St George’s CE Primary School, Wrotham requested to join the partnership. The Board of Trustees recommended to the members at the June 2023 meeting that St George’s should be welcomed into the partnership. It was agreed at the meeting, taking the number of member schools to thirty-two.
Partnership Training
The planned core offer of training was delivered almost entirely through face-to face sessions using three venues; Sevenoaks School, The New Beacon School and Amherst School. Training offered included a one-day training session for support staff on the topic of positive behaviour management playtimes, the 3-day programme for Teaching Assistants was also delivered face to face and on-line in 5 half day sessions. A new programme for 2022-2023 was the Higher-Level Teaching Assistant and Cover Supervisor Programme which was well received. The three-day professional development programmes for teachers and school leaders provided as part of the core offer were: the Early Career Teachers in the first year of their careers, Earlier Career Programme for teachers in year 2 or 3 of their career, a programme for middle leaders to equip them to lead school pedagogical development, the Deepening Leadership Programme for experienced middle leaders and newer senior leaders, NPQSL and the Headteachers’ Strategic Leadership and Coaching Pairs. Feedback has
been very positive, and attendees speak of the positive impact the training has on their practice in schools. A new initiative for 2022-2023 was to offer the Deepening Leadership Programme to nonpartnership schools for a fee. This offer was taken up by two leaders from outside of the partnership. In 2-23-2024 the intention is to open more programme to non-partnership schools.
In addition to the career stage training opportunities, the partnership has purchased one licence for each school from MyattandCo. On this website there is a good range of subject leadership webinars. Subject leaders are being encouraged to meet virtually to discuss their learning from these webinars. In 2022-2023, two such discussion groups met and six are planned for the coming year.
Safer Handling training took place in the Autumn and Spring Terms. By organising the training as a partnership, schools sending staff to the training benefitted from significant savings in the cost.
First Aid and Paediatric Training was arranged several times through the year through Knole Academy and Sevenoaks School outreach. Working collaboratively significantly reduces the cost of the training.
Staff well-being days
A new initiative for 2022-2023 was two well-being days for twenty people per day at a local retreat centre. – the Quadrangle. The day was organised by staff at the Quadrangle who also secured match funding for the events. Feedback has been very positive, and the initiative will be expanded to more days in 2023-2024.
Conference
Our annual conference was held at Sevenoaks School. It was attended by nearly 300 people. Sharon Gray OBE was the keynote speaker for the morning session and led an afternoon workshop. Two other workshops were also offered by colleagues from Grange Park School and Limpsfield Grange School.
The conference provides a unique opportunity for all schools to access professional development from leaders in Education, which would be unviable without membership of the Partnership.
Forums
The Forums are an important part of the collaborative work of the partnership. These are led by teachers and leaders and give opportunities for sharing good practice and organising CPD. The Early Years and SEND forums have met regularly and undertaken shared CPD events and meetings to share good practice and support one another with current challenges. The Deputy headteacher and Assistant Headteacher forum met a couple of times but increasingly teachers are finding it difficult to attend twilight meetings off site and a new arrangement will be made for this group of leaders in 2023-2024. A partnership with The Granville School enabled a Computing Forum to meet twice followed in the summer term by the opportunity to receive support from staff at the Granville School on using new software or online programmes relevant to the curriculum.
Learning Hubs
All learning hubs maintained some contact through another challenging year. Some hubs are managing to meet regularly and collaborate on school improvement initiatives, training, and moderation. Others are finding it difficult to meet up and plan events. Consequently, the decision was taken in June 2023 to reduce the number of hubs from five to four from September 2023. It is hoped the increased number of schools in each hub will lead to more collaboration.
School Effectiveness provision
The school effectiveness offer has been used for school audits, reviews, CPD session and subject leadership support alongside the well-established use of the offer for leadership coaching sessions for subject leaders, senior leaders and headteachers. 74% of schools took up the school effectiveness offer during the year. Many of these schools requested more than the initial five hour offer and the complete budget was spent on the 23 schools which requested support. Feedback highlights the positive impact on staff confidence and clarity of next steps in their roles. Feedback from staff engaged in the coaching session is positive.
Procurement
The Bursars’ Group, ably led by Rachel Harland has continued to support one another, share good practice, and seek out cost savings. The Bursars’ Group works effectively together and demonstrates the benefits of collaborative working across different aspects of school leadership in our schools. All partnership schools continue to make significant savings for supply staff, resources, and contracts for a range of essential provision.
Multi- Academy Trust information meeting
The partnership organised a meeting to give headteachers and chairs of governors the opportunity to find out more about forming or joining a multi academy trust. Two trust CEOs attended the meeting and answered questions and the assistant regional director joined the meeting virtually.
Maintaining and developing working in partnership with other organisations
Spurgeon’s
The on-going relationship with Spurgeon’s has continued to be an important element of support for individual pupils the one-to-one therapeutic counselling for three pupils per school. The feedback from schools demonstrates how the counselling is having a positive impact on children’s wellbeing, mental health, and learning. Unfortunately, Spurgeon’s found appointing counsellors and keeping them challenging during the early part of 2023. Consequently, less counselling was made available for the children in need of it. The situation improved from May 2023 onwards.
In addition to therapeutic counselling for children, Spurgeon’s secured additional funding to employ a parent support worker for 3 days a week to work with families of children in partnership schools. This resource has been used by a small number of schools to date, with good outcomes for families.
The counselling has been funded by a generous grant from The Combe Bank Trust . This is an excellent example of the benefits gained by being a member of the partnership. The trustees of the partnership and the trustees of the Combe Bank Trust are keen to develop further opportunities to work together as the purposes of the two charities share many similarities. Combe Bank Trust is committed to supporting the counselling in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.
Aquila Trust
Through making a connection with the Aquilla Trust, Canterbury Diocese MAT, the partnership secured ten days of work from an education psychologist at a good daily rate - below the usual fee. Ten school benefited from this initiative. Feedback has been positive, and the arrangement will continue in 2023-2024.
Sevenoaks School
Our relationship with Sevenoaks School is a strength of the partnership and benefits the partnership, and the schools individually. The partnership continues to hold most of the training events at the school. Sevenoaks School continues to support the primary schools with excellent outreach support. An addition to the expertise given by the school to partnership schools has been the provision of a music teacher in the primary school for a series of music lessons and the opportunity to hold a Hub concert in the Pamoja Hall to celebrate the outcomes of the music making. The partnership is very grateful to Sevenoaks School for its generosity.
Sports partnership – Knole Academy
As sporting events returned after Covid, more opportunities were offered supported by the strong relationship between Knole Academy and the Sevenoaks Sports Partnership.
First aid training and paediatric first aid training has been delivered to significant numbers of staff at a greatly reduced cost thanks to our partnership working with Sevenoaks School and The Knole Academy.
West Heath School
West Heath School continued to offer a range of Mental Health First Aid course throughout the year, but very few schools were able to take up the opportunity to send staff on the training due to the challenges of covering classes due to high levels of staff absence. Six SENCos received one to one counselling which they found very helpful. This will continue in 2023-2024.
The New Beacon School
New Beacon School kindly offered the partnership venues, refreshments and lunch for two of the three-day training programmes. The partnership is very grateful for this support and the school’s generosity. Partnership training programmes will continue to be held at the school in 2023-2024.
CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For the perlod from To Section A Receipts and payments Uniestricted funds Restricted funds Endowment funds Total funds Last year to the nearssl to the nearfysl£ to the nearest£ toth8 nearest£ tho ngarost£ A1 Recelpts Income 92,6B4 92,664 Sub total{Gross income for ARJ 91684 92,684 41,780 A2 Asset and investment sales, Ise8 table). Sub total Total receipts 92,684 92,684 41,780 A3 Payments Exp&Ddilure 72,993 71993 48.83B Sub total r2.993 72,993 48,838 A4 Ass•t and inve5trnent purcha58s. (see table Sub total Total payments 72,993 72,993 48.838 Net of recelpts/(payments) AS Transfers betW88n funds A6 Cash funds last year gnd Cash funds thls year end 19,691 19,691 7,058 46.408 66,099 46,408 66,099 7.058 CCXX R1 a¢coun15 ISSI 2eiow2024
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrestricted funds tD npargst£ Restricted funds to ngarest£ Endowment funds to nearest£ Categorles Details Bl Cash funds Cash al yearend f6,09B Total cash fvnds 66,098 lawBeb8k8meswith recEipts paymarts A¢tI$ll Unrestricted funds to nearest£ Restricted funds to nearest£ Endowment funds to nearest£ Delails Bmughl Forw?rd 46,408 Fund towhlch ss•t bèlon Delai15 Cost loptlonall Current value UoJ)•l Fund to which asset belon Oetai15 Cost loptlonall I rri Current valu9 B4 Assets retained for the Charitys own use Fund to %Yhlrh rolates Arnount dup When due on•1 DetaI15 B5 Llabilitios Signed by one or Mo Iws1885 on behalf of all the Iru51ees Signature Pfint Name Date of val 2L 6124 CCXX R2 aecrAJnls ISSI 2610612024
CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to Ihe trustees SEVENOAKS PARTNERSHIP OF PRIMARY SCHOOLS On accounts for the year ended ST 31 AUGUST 2023 Charity no (if any) 1185497 Sot out on pages 1AND2 I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity {'Ihe Trust.) for the year ended 3110812023 Responsibllltles and basis of report As the charity's truslees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 ('the Act.). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Ad and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145{5)Ib) of the Act. Independent I have compleled my examination. I confimi that no material matters have examiner's statement come lo my attention in connection with the examination lolher than that disc105ed below ') which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect.. the accounting records were not kept in accordance wilh section 130 of the Charities Act, or the accounts did not accord with the accounting records-, or the accounts did nol comply with the applicable requirements concerning the lom and content of accounts sel out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a Irue and fair, view which is not a matter considered as part of an independent examination. I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Please delete the words in the brackets rf they do not apply. Signed: Date: 1810612024 Name: SARAH LOUISE WALKDEN Relevant professional qualificationls) or body lif any): CSBM Address: 22,HUNTERS CHASE, RH9 8HR IER Oct 2018
Section B Disclosure Only complete if the examiner needs lo highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts.. directions and guidance for examiners). Give here brief details of any items that the examinerwishes to disclose. NO MAThERS OF CONCERN IER Oct 2018