Successful Trust Peer Review Outcome: Challenge Partners

BPET welcomed seven leaders from other academy trusts across the country to carry out a trust peer-to-peer review. The aim of the review was to evaluate our performance as an academy trust and identify how we can improve our offer to schools. The review has been organised by Challenge Partners in November 2024.

The seven trust leaders visited the BPET central office and heard presentations about our vision, ambition and how we support schools. The reviewers then visited eight BPET schools and met with a range of staff and pupils to test out how our support is working out for them and what can be improved on. 

We are delighted that the educational autonomy BPET offers schools has been recognised and valued, as it is our strong belief that schools should have their own identities alongside the BPET's vision to Learn, Enjoy, Succeed.

We are proud the feedback from the reviewers highlighted many positive areas, with remarks such as: "BPET has a strong commitment to centrally providing a strong and effective operating model for all the schools with common systems for finance, HR, IT, etc, and devolving to the schools the responsibility for designing and delivering their educational model to deliver the vision. This division of responsibility is valued by the schools who feel they have better systems and more capacity to concentrate on designing and delivering the curriculum that reflects their school context".

Our learning review process was also mentioned as being "embedded within a robust and structured school improvement monitoring cycle, with additional support provided to emerging schools." The report also referred to the "whole trust strategic plan closely aligned with individual school development plans, ensuring a clear focus on shared priorities."

We were also particularly pleased that our peers could see that "school leaders are proud of being part of BPET and believe their schools, their staff and their children are better and do better because they are part of BPET. This was also true of other groups of staff e.g. middle leaders".

Areas for minor improvements of food for thought were also offered, such as:

• Involving schools' local governors in the annual conference and considering revisiting their role
• Explore how we can go further to attract and retain high quality support staff who are crucial to further impact for SEND and inclusion
• Exploring the possibility of growth in the secondary school sector.

Thanking Challenge Partners and the trust leaders, the BPET Chief Executive said: "We are so pleased the reviewers celebrated how proud teachers and leaders are to be part of BPET and that our structures for supporting pupils are delivering high outcomes across the schools.  There are many great suggestions and actions we can take forward, a few now, many as we plan for next year and some of our thinking as we draft our next 5 year strategic plan."

BPET empowers its schools and staff through a culture of autonomy. Teachers have the professional freedom to adapt curriculum, teaching and learning, and formative assessment practices to meet the specific needs of their pupils. This approach encourages innovation and ownership within the classroom.