Pope Francis CMAT - How We Support Our Schools

Episcopal Vicar for Education

The Pope Francis Catholic MAT is the first of the Catholic Multi Academy Trusts that are being formed by the Archdiocese of Liverpool. Each school within the Archdiocese will be given the opportunity to join one of 12 locally based Catholic MATs. Pope Francis is the first of these MATs and is therefore acting as a pathfinder for the CMATs that will follow; any school that joins in the near future will be part of shaping this vision.

At present there are three schools within the CMAT: St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic Academy in Whiston, Sacred Heart Catholic Academy in Crosby and The Salesian Academy of St John Bosco in Bootle. The Pope Francis Catholic MAT will serve the Sefton area and may ultimately include up to 29 Catholic schools, both primary and secondary.

The Archdiocesan Catholic MATs will work closely with one another and all have a clearly defined philosophy about the way in which a Multi Academy Trust works. know that the Pope Francis CMAT shares this vision. Their mission statement is focused upon, “Enabling schools, aspiration and faith to flourish by uplifting hearts and inspiring minds.”

The Archdiocese and the Trust strongly believe that each of our schools has their own distinct identity, history, tradition and values. The preservation of this identity is vital. The role of the Trust is to work with the Headteacher, governors and the wider school community to offer support and the highest quality services to enable the school to focus exclusively on providing the best education for the pupils they serve.

Father Michael Fitzsimons

“The Archdiocese and the Trust strongly believe that each of our schools has their own distinct identity, history, tradition and values. The preservation of this identity is vital.”

Welcome from the CEO

As CEO of Pope Francis Catholic MAT, I am proud we are the first Archdiocesan trust to be set up. These are exciting times and the opportunity to be part of the shaping of Catholic education for the next generation is a real privilege.

The decision to move away from the support received as a maintained school within Sefton Local Authority to becoming part of the Pope Francis Catholic Multi Academy Trust is a significant one. There are so many questions to ask and misconceptions to dispel. We believe the heart of the matter is whether joining the Trust family will support each school to deliver even better, quality provision to the pupils trusted to your care.

We are committed to our philosophy of enabling schools to thrive by creating a collaborative Trust where all individuals can flourish knowing that they are being underpinned with strong support.

Andrew Dawson

We are conscious of how we work and it is important to us that we define ourselves with our values in mind:

Unity working together for excellence. Excellence

to strive to be the best. Love respect and care for others and treat them as you want to be treated. Service following the teachings of Christ to become valued members of our communities.

Our Directors

The Academy Trust Handbook sets out minimum expectations as to how a trust should be governed. Each trust will have members whose role it is to ensure governance is effective and that Trustees are acting in accordance with the objectives of the CMAT.

Each trust must have a trust board who has responsibility for:

• Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos & strategic direction

• Holding executive leaders to account

• Overseeing financial performance

Our directors are very committed to Catholic education.

The Trust has a number of committees such as Finance Audit and Risk, Safeguarding, Standards and Catholic Life. Pope Francis Catholic MAT is committed to the principle of subsidiarity and maintaining the importance of the governing body to schools.

The CEO works closely with the Chairs of Governors with both half-termly focus meetings and regular informal contact to share information. The Trust calendar is established to ensure two-way communication between the Trust Board and LGBs.

“Pope Francis Catholic MAT is the first permanent Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool Trust“

Trust Board of Directors

Fr Michael Fitzsimons

is the Episcopal Vicar for Education in Liverpool Archdiocese.

Isobel Macdonald-Davies

had a career in the civil service with the final decade as Deputy Registrar General for England and Wales. Isobel has significant school experience as Chair of governors of both primary and secondary schools, Chair of admission appeal panels and is Vice Chair of Sefton Schools’ Forum.

Anthony Boyle

was a secondary school headteacher for 11 years and a deputy head for eight, Tony is a long-time Sefton resident whose children have attended Catholic Sefton schools throughout their education.

Cath O’Leary

was until recently the Diocesan Schools Officer for the Archdiocese of Liverpool. Cath is a former headteacher and governor at several Catholic schools.

Carl Gilbertson

is the Founder and Managing Director of IT Support company, MGL. A former recipient of the title ‘Merseyside’s Businessperson of the Year’, Carl is a governor at five local schools.

Bill Skilki

is a successful architect and property developer. Bill has worked at chief executive and director level in commercial and residential property development in the private, public and voluntary sectors.

Fr Mervyn Williams

is a Salesian of Don Bosco, was a Catholic headteacher for 17 years and has wider experience of governance in education and charities.

Jen Murphy

is Director of the Rainbow Teaching School Hub.

Jane Billows

Jane Billows is Senior OD Business Partner at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a CIPD Chartered Member.

Samantha Birchall

an Ofsted inspector and experienced headteacher, has the national award for special educational needs and NPQH.

Our People

The Pope Francis Catholic MAT Team

Andrew Dawson CEO

Andrew has over 30 years’ experience working in schools, most recently as Headteacher of St Mary’s in Wigan, the largest school in the Archdiocese. In the past Andrew acted as an executive headteacher for another Archdiocesan school and set up Catholic Schools Direct in Wigan and West Lancashire. Andrew is a current CSI inspector.

Daniel Hennessy

CFO

Daniel has over 25 years of leadership experience in both the public and private sectors including local government and DfE. Latterly Dan was involved in establishing two multi-academy trusts: The David Ross Education Trust (DRET) and STAR Academies.

Lisa Corrigan

Director of Secondary

Lisa has worked in education for over 25 years, working in five MATs and eight different LAs all over the country. Lisa has held three headships and most recently was headteacher of a school in Manchester which moved from Inadequate in all categories in 2019 to Good in all categories in 2023. Lisa is a Local Leader of Education and acts as a coach to new headteachers.

Jeremy Barnes

Director of Primary (secondment)

Jeremy has been Headteacher of All Saints in Anfield for 17 years. Jeremy has led significant school improvement including the amalgamation of infant and junior schools, the creation of specialist provision for 36 pupils with severe learning difficulties and the school being graded Outstanding. Jeremy has served as headteacher in another school, as an executive headteacher, is a consultant for the Education Development Trust and worked as an Ofsted inspector for 10 years.

Jacqui Bevins

Head of Finance

Jacqui is a Chartered Institute of Management Accountant with over 25 years’ operational leadership and strategic finance experience gained within private and public sector organisations.

Dennis Jones

Lead for Catholic Life (secondment)

Dennis has worked as a Lay Chaplain since 2002, working across four different high schools in two different dioceses. Dennis is part of the coordinating team for Chaplains across the Archdiocese and has been part of Chaplains’ representation at the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales. Alongside this, Dennis is currently in formation for the Permanent Diaconate and leads on the Lourdes Youth Pilgrimage in the Archdiocese.

Danielle Moran

Director of SEND

Danielle is a dedicated and compassionate SEN professional with a passion for supporting students with diverse learning needs. With over 10 years’ experience in the field of special education, Danielle has demonstrated her commitment to fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment across both primary and secondary provision.

Christina Derbyshire

Director of Governance, Marketing and Business Development

As a CMI Chartered Manager with 10 years’ experience in the education sector and an MBA in Senior Leadership, Christina has a wealth of governance and business development expertise, previously deployed in running a Liverpool education centre and as a Chair of Governors, then Director of Business Development, within a regional MultiAcademy Trust. Christina is a trained coach, Mental Health First Aider, trainer, Visiting Business Fellow at the University of Bolton and a Girls Network Mentor who is passionate about stakeholder engagement.

Dawn Johnson

Head of Data and Information Systems

Dawn has 20 years’ experience as a teacher, head of science and VP in a secondary school with responsibility for quality of education. Dawn led school improvement informed by the intelligent use of data. Dawn also has primary teaching and tutoring experience.

Louise has worked within schools for over 22 years and has a wide range of administrative experience ranging from attendance to Headteacher’s PA. This has equipped Louise with exceptional organisational skills and she is hugely experienced in coordinating and administering meetings with many stakeholders, both internal and external.

Louise Jones Executive Assistant

School Improvement

School Improvement combined with the strong spine of support services

The Trust exists with the advancement of education at its core, and we know that every school is constantly evaluating its provision to provide the best opportunities for their young people.

We have a strong focus on enabling schools to improve by providing the best in field support services so that headteachers, governors and their staff can focus on student learning.

In the last six months we have been building our provision to ensure that we can offer the best quality of support. We have a balance between highly experienced, direct employees of the Trust, combined with market leading service providers.

School Improvement

The Trust employs a Director of Secondary and a Director of Primary Education. Both Lisa and Jeremy are highly experienced and very successful headteachers. Lisa has extensive secondary headteacher experience, leading three different schools; whilst Jeremy has led All Saints in Anfield for several years as well as supporting other schools as Executive Headteacher.

Our Trust is very committed to collaboration. All our common approaches, from the Trust quality assurance mechanism to our approaches to curriculum design and assessment have been developed with the Headteachers and senior leaders in our schools. We have built in opportunities to share good practice and undertake joint developments.

We facilitate school to school collaboration and common learning as well as the sharing of resources to help reduce workload. At the same time our CMAT encourages schools to continue to engage actively with the established networks they have; we work closely with Archdiocesan school improvement teams.

The Trust is committed to providing a similar offer of excellent school improvement support for primary schools, as and when they join the Trust. This offer will build on existing partnerships as well as providing more targeted support in line with the needs of individual schools.

We see being part of our CMAT as belonging to a family of schools. At times there will be a need for some schools, or teams within schools, to be given more intensive support. We will provide it.

Due to the experience of the central team, we have been able to access nationally renowned experts to support the school improvement journey in our schools. They include:

• Dr Antony Edkins is an experienced school leader who had led local authority schools and schools within a MAT as a MAT CEO. Today, he is the Regional Lead for the DfE’s Advanced Maths Support Programme in the Northwest and is an Ofsted inspector.

Laura Kay is a highly regarded School Improvement Partner and works with MAT leaders and individual schools. Laura has been a cohort tutor for NPQML and NPQSL. She represents School Improvement Liverpool as their lead for improving reading and literacy across Liverpool secondary schools and is the content manager for their curriculum networks.

Vicky Atherton is the former Director of Loreto Grammar Teaching School Alliance and previously worked as Senior Secondary Adviser for Trafford LA. She is a serving, experienced Ofsted inspector.

Alison Burrows is the former Head of Thornleigh Salesian School in Bolton and now works for the Archdiocese of Liverpool leading Catholic Leadership/ CPD programmes.

The Trust also has experienced Ofsted and CSI inspectors within its leadership team to help colleagues prepare for inspection and an experienced external safeguarding lead, who leads on safeguarding audits and DSL supervision.

“We have a strong focus on enabling schools by providing the best in field support services“

Primary Schools Offer

Our core values of UNITY, EXCELLENCE, LOVE and SERVICE lie at the heart of several key principles contained in our primary school offer.

• That schools will retain their autonomy over curriculum choices where this is benefitting their pupils and local community

• That schools will work together in deepening partnerships, sharing best practice and resources.

• That we support our staff together, providing them with pathways to excel and flourish as Catholic leaders, teachers and support staff.

• That we engage with wider partners organisations and the wider world to provide our staff and pupils with exciting and rich learning opportunities

• That we are unfailingly inclusive welcoming all pupils into our schools, with a focus on the most vulnerable and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

Our offer promotes collaboration and mutual support between our schools. Providing a detailed Pope Francis Directory of Expertise will allow schools to procure support from within the Trust, thus providing opportunities for others to grow and flourish as teachers and leaders. This school-to-school support extends to a range of staff networks, each enhancing the curricular offer for the schools.

However, we also link with local partners to broker curriculum support if requested, such as the Teaching School Hubs, DfE Maths and English Hubs, the Early Years Stronger Practice Hub and other curriculum consultants, all overseen by rigorous quality assurance.

Led by the Director of Primary, the Trust oversees a programme of annual audit, support and advice in areas such as Early Years, safeguarding and SEND, whilst also providing bespoke training and preparation for Ofsted and/or CSI inspections. It organises annual conferences, shared training events and retreats for staff and pupils.

At the heart of all our work is our Catholic mission, so all primary schools are offered a wide range of chaplaincy support, from retreats and mission days, through to guidance on faith in action, prayer and liturgy.

All schools receive a wide range of services designed to allow headteachers to focus on the teaching and learning in their schools. These include detailed data analysis and statistical management, human resources, legal advice, press and marketing support, business and financial planning, estates management, to name but a few.

Our Trust Structure

SEND

The Trust has a Director of SEND who has extensive experience working within both primary and secondary contexts. We understand that as Catholic schools we should be judged on how we are providing for those who are the most vulnerable, including those learners with SEND. Our Director of SEND works with SENDCOs in our schools to ensure we follow best practice as standard within our schools, this includes collaboration and access to resources and specialists that will ensure that all our pupils are able to succeed.

Chaplaincy

It is important that our MAT is different; we are Pope Francis Catholic Multi Academy Trust. Our next appointment, after a CEO and CFO was a Chaplaincy lead to develop the Catholic Life of the schools alongside prayer and liturgy. Dennis Jones has extensive experience as a chaplain and works with school leaders and chaplains to support schools in the development and celebration of their Catholicity. Dennis provides resources for collective worship reflecting the themes of the liturgical year and opportunities for chaplains and school leaders to work together in the development of their mission. The Trust is also very

happy to provide any training and preparation necessary for Catholic School Inspection.

Financial Support

As a Trust, we believe schools should manage their own budgets; we work with our schools to ensure that we have prudent accounts, setting balanced budgets. Our CFO has worked for over 20 years within trust finance in some of the most highly regarded MATS in the country. We employ a chartered accountant to provide astute financial planning support to each school within our Trust.

Information and Data Management

The Trust’s information and data management work is led by a highly skilled data and information management professional who is also a qualified teacher with experience in both primary and secondary schools - this gives us a invaluable insight into how data needs to work for school leaders. As an expert in MIS, our Head of Data and Information Systems supports each school to optimise these. Amongst other things, this has included creating a pastoral tracker described as best in class by the 2023 SRMA report.

Our Trust has engaged the services of Computeam, a nationally recognised ICT service provider that specialises in education ICT provision across primary and secondary MATS. This means that the Trust provides a strategic overview of ICT that meets the needs of a 21st century school. Our vision is one of collaboration, sharing resources and best practice to ensure that technology enhances the learning experience.

The Trust and Computeam are experts in enabling schools within trusts to achieve this vision. This is underpinned by a costed strategic roadmap for each individual school, based on a thorough initial audit that reflects the individual requirements and educational aims of each establishment. The roadmap ensures that infrastructure and devices are state of the art and that training for staff supports teaching and learning, using ever advancing education technology.

Website, Communications and Social Media

The Trust has an overarching website whilst each school within the Trust has a bespoke website. This ensures the distinct identity of the school is maintained whilst at the same time belonging to the Pope Francis CMAT family. The websites operate on a pre-set framework that is compliant with DfE and ESFA expectations. Prior to conversion, the Trust ensures that all relevant content migrated to the new website will go live on the conversion date. All central policies are automatically updated on the website and regular compliance checks are made. This also allows for social media content to be promoted to wider audiences across all social platforms.

Human Resources and Safeguarding

The Trust has partnered with Hill Dickinson International Law Firm, based in Liverpool.

Each school has a designated professional to work with them and unlimited advice and support is available 24/7. Hill Dickinson will provide representation at any hearing with the potential to result in dismissal, at no cost to the school.

As part of due diligence, the Trust will undertake a review of safeguarding and support the school in undertaking any action that needs to be implemented. The Trust will support the school in the upkeep and maintenance of the single central record, ensuring full compliance.

GDPR

The Trust has partnered with Diddu, a dedicated education PR company, who work with schools and MATs to advise on all aspects of communications from promotion to crisis management.

The Trust has partnered with Hill Dickinson to provide the DPO in each school with unlimited access to GDPR support.

Legal

The Trust has an SLA with Hill Dickinson to provide unlimited educational law advice for example on issues such as; admissions, SEND, exclusions, land matters, complaints etc.

Governance and Compliance

The Trust has a Governance and Compliance Professional with responsibility for providing the highest quality advice for governing bodies in performing their duties, as well as ensuring all statutory regulations are met.

Payroll

With education payroll being such a specialist area, the Trust have selected a market leading schoolonly payroll provider. Neo People provide employees with an easy-touse portal, so staff have easy access to payslips and the ability to submit various requests and claims. Each school will have a dedicated portal and payroll manager to ensure that they achieve 100% payroll accuracy.

Health and Safety and Estate Management

The Trust has partnered with Compliance Education to provide health and safety audits for each of our schools, as well as supported action plans to achieve school and Trust compliance.

Staff Well Being and Benefits

The vast majority of any school’s budget is spent on staffing and it’s vital that we invest in them.

The academic, social, and emotional wellness of students is strongly impacted by staff wellbeing, which can be improved through a supportive school community.

“We understand that happy teachers and staff make for better learners and students that want to be at school” -

Andrew Dawson, CEO.

We support our staff with a variety of services, but we also partner with companies to enhance our staff benefits:

Simply Health: The Trust is committed to supporting staff wellbeing and partners with Simply Health including 24/7 access to a GP, access to counselling and financial support for some physiotherapy, dental work and glasses.

The Trust work with Octopus Energy to provide salary sacrifice vehicles for all employees who are interested. Edenred provide access to staff discounts and cash back for a huge range of products, including travel, shopping, insurance, motoring and utilities.

Cost and Benefits

We recognise budgets are tight and the Headteacher and governors will be rightly worried about costs. The Trust will ensure all reasonable expenses for conversion are covered: there will be no cost to the individual school for conversion.

Quality services do, however, come at a cost and whilst there are clear benefits of receiving significantly improved provision, schools will be mindful of the financial impact. To cover the costs of the services it provides the Trust levies a top slice of 4% (5% for schools that are RI or lower to cover the intensity of support provided).

It is worth bearing in mind that:

• The Trust can achieve lower prices for comparable quality because of economies of scale and the projection for the MAT.

• The Trust can access funds that maintained school and Local Authorities cannot access. These funds support school improvement and the executive team.

• We are committed to achieving value for money. We keep the number of roles within the executive team within budget, but these will grow as the Trust grows. For example, we currently employ a Director of SEND. Overtime, with expansion, we will employ an educational psychologist, a speech and language therapist and an occupational therapist for the exclusive use of Trust schools.

• Once the Trust gets to 3,000 pupils (it is already at 2,300) or five schools, we will receive a significant annual capital allocation. Two of the existing three schools are new builds/or are to be rebuilt and will have less demand on the capital funding.

• Once a school joins the Trust it will no longer pay for services from Sefton; these could include Finance, HR, School Improvement, Payroll, Sims, IT Support, Legal and GDPR.

It may well be that the cost of being a member of our trust is less than you would pay to Sefton as a maintained school. We would be happy to come and talk this through with you.

Pope

Netherton

Bootle

Telephone:

Email: info@pfcmat.org