Join our Family of Schools
Four Stones Gateway is a forward-thinking, research informed Trust with strong educational outcomes. We welcome enquiries from individual schools and groups of schools who may wish to join us on our exciting journey in achieving excellence and opportunity for all our students.
We know that as a family of schools we are stronger together, therefore we all share the same vision and values of Ambition, Commitment, Creativity and Integrity whilst recognising and celebrating the differences and uniqueness of each school’s community. A key aspect of our Trust Dividend is our ability to provide a bespoke, tailored approach to school improvement to meet the needs of our schools’ varied contexts.
What you can expect from joining our Trust
Achieving excellence and opportunity for all students
A key advantage of joining the Four Stones Gateway is the shared approach to driving student attainment and progress through collaboration and leadership development. You will have access to:
- Considerable school improvement cross phase support via a number of strategic leaders including an experienced CEO, Executive Headteachers and Director of Curriculum and Learning
- Substantial support, knowledge and expertise from experienced Headteachers in varying contexts; four Trust-wide Directors of Subject (English, mathematics, science and MFL) and two Lead Teachers (history, ethics )
- Extensive access to School Improvement Partners and external reviews
- An individualised plan to school improvement to suit the needs of your context
- A shared focus on teaching and learning ‘best bets’
- High quality leadership and practitioner expertise in, Early Years, primary maths, literacy, safeguarding, attendance and SEND
- Expert-led network meetings for Headteachers, Curriculum DHTs, Directors of Subject, Lead Teachers, and leaders of literacy, safeguarding, attendance, SEND and Sixth Form
- Professional learning networks for Curriculum Leaders
- Membership to the Confederation of School Trusts
- Supportive leadership peer reviews
- Valuable Round Table meetings for self-evaluation, reflection and troubleshooting
- An enriching personal development programme – The Character Academy – which comprises of four pledges to develop aspects of character
- A comprehensive secondary curriculum alignment at long and medium term level to offer the best possible provision
- Collaborative ways of working to share best practice and resources
- Full access to our ‘Directory of Excellence’ for all aspects of school life: leadership, curriculum and assessment, pedagogy, literacy and other key areas such as safeguarding, personal development and HR.
- Streamlined assessment and data practices
- Access to talented trainee teachers for in-school placements or to recruit as ECTs from our SCITT
- Commissioned safeguarding reviews for all schools
- Wide-ranging support with Ofsted inspections
Shared services
It is vital that our school leaders invest their time and energy into making a difference to the lives of our students, so we have a number of shared services through our Central Team that enable this to happen, including:
- Expert HR advice and support in people management, administration, payroll, policies and staff welfare
- A finance team with over forty years’ worth of experience made up of qualified accountants. Support ranges from system management to external reporting requirements
- End-user IT support for software, hardware and maintenance issues through dedicated technicians
- Significant investment in our estate, facilities and IT. In the past few years, we have invested over £4m and we will continue to provide the best possible learning environment for our students
- Health and safety support, including oversight of planned maintenance services
- Full access to our trust-wide policy framework
- Trust legal advice for leaders
- An extensive package of staff benefits including access to the Employee Assistance Programme, a carefully considered workload strategy, flexible working and other significant benefits.
Governance
Within our Trust, we believe that accountability has an important place so that we truly do ensure excellence and opportunity for all our students. We therefore have strong governance to provide both support and challenge, which includes the following:
- Induction to the Trust and ongoing bespoke training to support each board understand their respective roles and functions
- Provision of effective clerking at all meetings
- Full access to a former National Leader of Governance (NLG) for advice and support
- An annual governance planner, including a meeting schedule and Headteacher’s report format
- Website compliance audit
- Central Trust team presence at LAB meetings for schools new to the Trust
- Maintenance of governance details and interests on GIAS and school websites
Collaboration and continued professional development
We know that we achieve exceptional things when we invest in staff development, so we prioritise high-quality CPD, which includes opportunities for our staff to work collaboratively across the Trust for the good of all our students. Our collaboration and continued professional development opportunities include:
- A comprehensive new staff induction programme
- Engaging Middle Leader conferences to provide opportunities for training, sharing of best practice and curriculum development
- Full access to wider CPD offered through our Teaching School Hub, including NPQs and ECT package
- Strategic succession planning
- Bespoke training in order to become a mentor of ITTs, ECTs and to deliver CPD to SCITT trainees
- An in-house Leading with Influence programme for aspiring middle and senior leaders
- Developmental visits to other schools within the Trust to work with and learn from other staff
- Purposeful Trust training days to facilitate collaboration across teams
- Trust-wide access to the Leading with Influence programmes at middle and senior level
- A comprehensive CPD package for both teaching and support staff
- Exciting staff secondment opportunities
- Trust-wide CPD to fulfil statutory obligations i.e. fire safety, safeguarding, etc
- Support with funding towards qualifications
