Goffs - Churchgate Academy

INFORMATION ABOUT GOFFS-CHURCHGATE ACADEMY AND GMAT

Goffs-Churchgate Academy was the first school to join the Generations Multi Academy Trust. The school is now in its sixth year of operation and continues to go from strength to strength.

The school is a fully mixed comprehensive school from 11-16 years of age, with 605 on roll. The school has rapidly established a very strong reputation in the area, and is now consistently oversubscribed. In addition, the school recently received its OFSTED report from May 2022, which graded the school as “good” with outstanding features.

One of the school’s key strengths is its highly cohesive and supportive community. As such, the decision to cap student numbers at 600 is entirely deliberate, enabling us to maintain a strong sense of community where everybody knows everybody else - if you visit, you cannot fail to be struck by this. It is a very special part of who we are.

The post offers a genuine opportunity to work in a school community that changes the lives of the young people we care for.

PROFESSIONAL WORKING AND LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

The school has benefited from brand new facilities, opened in October 2016, including professional teaching and learning facilities for all subjects. The school also benefits from a recently installed 3G playing surface for PE; a gym with a professional sprung floor; a Dance Studio; recent refurbishment of additional classrooms and an indoor swimming pool. The new facilities provide a light, modern, professional, and fit for purpose working environment for all. The Trust has also invested significantly in modernising additional teaching spaces, providing a fantastic environment for out students and staff.

THE GENERATIONS MULTI ACADEMY TRUST

Generations MAT, GMAT, was established from 1st September 2016. Subsequently, the Trust took over the former Cheshunt School and established Goffs-Churchgate Academy, which is now a thriving secondary.

Recognising that not all children thrive in large secondary schools, the Trust made a deliberate decision to offer both a larger and much smaller secondary school for local parents to choose between. As such, the decision to cap student numbers at 600 is entirely deliberate, enabling us to maintain a strong sense of community where everybody knows everybody. Both secondaries enjoy extremely high levels of Year 6 applications, with both being fully over-subscribed.

Flamstead End Primary joined the MAT from 1st January 2023, and is another highly successful, thriving and nurturing community, rated “Outstanding” by Ofsted.

All of the schools are within close proximity of each other and share many activities, including CPD for staff. One of the Trust’s fundamental principles is that no one school is in any way more important or successful than the other. As such, CPD and other events are rotated through all schools in the Trust, with everyone learning from and sharing with each other. This collegiate and collaborative approach permeates our Trust.

In Spring 2023, the MAT opened nursery provision on the Goffs-Churchgate site, with subsidised and term-time only places for staff. The nursery is run by Ashbourne Nurseries - https://ashbournedaynurseries.com/.

The MAT is extremely clear about its daily purpose, reflected in its motto of “No Set Destiny for Any Child.” All of our schools, leaders and staff fiercely believe in the life-changing nature of education and work tirelessly to that end, day in and day out. There is no set destiny for any of the children in our care; rather, our daily work across the piece allows children to forge new futures and destinies.

The MAT is extremely financially secure. Finances are overseen by a Chief Finance Officer with considerable financial expertise in the private sector, plus a highly experienced Finance Manager. The Trust deliberately created an Income Generation function, and extensive lettings and business development work now takes place across all sites in the MAT. This additional income – now yielding in excess of £500k per annum – underpins generous levels of staffing at both schools, plus many “extras” that would otherwise be unaffordable in the current funding climate. As one example, all teacher loadings were reduced from 19/20 as a direct result of the additional monies coming into the Trust via this income generation work.

Further information about GMAT can be found here: https://generationsmat.com/.

OUTCOMES

Our strategy for continuous school improvement has had huge success and we are actively committed to ensuring that our very popular and successful schools continue as centres of excellence in the community.

Goffs-Churchgate secured an impressive set of GCSE outcomes in 2023. For the third successive year of published performance measures, the score achieved outstanding progress measures which are significantly above National Averages (2023 +0.32, 2022 +0.47, 2019 +0.47).

• The overall P8 of 0.32, remains      significantly above the national average
• The outcomes across all the      headline measures are comfortably above the national average
• English and Maths progress      scores, continue to be comfortably above the national average
• The outcomes in the ‘other’      element are very strong, and significantly above the national average,      with an overall P8 score of 0.62
• Male outcomes are significantly      above the national average, and above female outcomes. This is in contrast      to the national trend where an achievement gap of around 0.50 remains with      Females outperforming Males
• SEND outcomes are significantly      above the national average and comparable to non-SEN.
• The combined pass rate for      English and Maths at grade 4+ was 62%
• The proportion of students who      achieved English and Maths at grade 5+ was 45%, a 28% increase in the last      three years

To achieve such fabulous progress in such a short period of time, is testament to the school’s staff and students. We know that this success represents just the start of their journey, and that very exciting times lie ahead.

COMMUNITY

Goffs-Churchgate prides itself on its sense of community – both within the school and in the wider locality. We are members of Cheshunt Extended Services (ChExS), offering a variety of extended school and community-based activities for both students and parents. Our students actively support local charity work and maintain strong links with our local primary schools.

We firmly believe in every student feeling a strong sense of community, and on entering the school, each student is placed in one of four Houses: Attenborough, Rashford, Seacole, and Trott. Each House is led by a team of student House Captains and has a clear sense of identity. Regular competitions and assemblies strengthen this sense of community.Students within each House arrange a variety of fundraising events throughout the school year. The House raising the most money in the year for our school charity is awarded the annual Charity House Shield. Our new House names were introduced in September 2021. This was part of a wider school project on diversity to ensure that our school community reflects the diverse culture that it serves. An example of this project, is the impact that it has had in English. As a result of the diversity project, there has been a complete overhaul of the Key Stage 3 curriculum, with students now studying books representing a very diverse range of authors.

Our students have a wide range of student leadership opportunities open to them as part of actively encouraging leadership development. These student-led groups include:

• Student Executive
• Community Captains
• Wellbeing Champions

Across the Multi Academy Trust, a large variety of annual school trips give students the opportunities to sample different cultures, while an extensive programme of off-site visits provides opportunities for students to experience the diversity that exists within the UK, including theatre, galleries, and museum visits.

Goffs-Churchgate is proud to be a genuinely comprehensive school, with students and staff from different religions and several languages spoken in the school. We recognise and celebrate what makes us unique and different and acknowledge that we are also part of one community. Our aim is for everybody to feel valued and respected, and we strive hard to ensure we create a positive culture within the school to enable this to happen.

CARE, GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT

Successful learning occurs when students feel safe, confident, respected, valued, and are engaged. Goffs-Churchgate believes in supporting and nurturing all students in their quest to become successful learners. As such, we place a high value on pastoral care as an integral part of the school's life. We have an extensive pastoral care system to support the welfare and progress of all our young people.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT

The Trust has an extremely strong reputation for staff development, both teaching and support staff. Developing the next generation of school leaders, both middle and senior, and future Headteachers for those who wish to pursue this, is a responsibility that we take very seriously.

We have a full suite of staff leadership development which staff can join be they an ECT or highly experienced colleague, whilst I chair the national Leadership Partner School network, a group that brings together schools dedicated to developing outstanding leadership skills throughout their communities, and which allows us to visit other network schools, to attend national conferences and to share best practice.

In addition to innovative whole staff training days, we disaggregate a number of hours for training every year. This allows staff development to be highly personalised as staff can opt for the training which best meets their needs, including the opportunity to do a research project in partnership with Cambridge University. Many use their disaggregated time to coach others or to receive coaching. Moreover, there are specific training sessions for ECTs and other interested staff which run each week after school.

We also place a lot of emphasis on ‘on the job’ training and support. A thorough induction scheme is available to all new staff, and mentors/buddies are assigned to guide you through those new routines. Finally, external courses can of course be booked if, on very rare occasions, we cannot cater for a particular training need in house.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

The Trust’s Leadership Academy encompasses both staff and student leadership development through a series of student led groups and staff leadership pathways.The staff programme specifically provides opportunities for:

• Aspiring Middle Leaders
• Aspiring Senior Leaders

All pathways are personalised for the individual and staff receive one to one support from a mentor alongside working on a whole school project. Both support staff and teaching staff are welcome to join the Leadership Academy at any point in their career.

A full suite of leadership training is offered with a range of sessions including:

• Communicating vision and values
• Developing your leadership      approach
• Building a high performing team
• Supporting your team
• Leading your team day to day
• Quality assuring effective      teaching
• Observation for improvement
• Using data for impact
• Fostering positive behaviour for      learning
• Leading and managing innovation      and change

Attendance to all training sessions leads to certification by the SSAT. In addition, we encourage aspirant Senior Leaders to take part in the SSAT ‘Stepping Up to Senior Leadership’ training programme, which includes four external sessions throughout the year. As part of the Trust’s commitment to developing future leaders, a number of the existing Senior Leadership Team across both secondary schools gained experience through an ‘Associate’ SLT position before gaining substantive leadership posts.

TRUST STAFF BENEFITS

Alongside our very strong focus on outstanding professional development and promotion opportunities, we also offer a range of benefits including:

Competitive base salary with a tailor made development plan aimed at enhancing your future [earnings] potential through:

• High quality, personalised CPD
• Bespoke leadership development      programmes
• Subsidies for Masters and Degree      courses
• Secondment and shadowing      opportunities
• As part of our Multi Academy      Trust, “Generations”, potential to work across more than one school to      develop career enhancing skills and knowledge
• Supported Nursery provision with      Ashbourne at any of their nurseries in the Buckinghamshire, Essex,      Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Bedfordshire area:
  • 15% discount for all Trust       staff.
  • Term time only places are       available
  • A school day would be 9.00am –       3.00pm
  • “Sundries” would be applied to a       child taking up a funded only space (e.g. 30 hours funding only). This       covers the cost of: meals, snacks, nursery resources and consumables
• Onsite car valeting at a reduced      price for Trust staff
• Substantially discounted      membership to Lifestyle Fitness’s state of the art purpose built gym, at      Goffs Academy

Additional financial incentives and tax efficient benefits, including:

• Exam marker payment of £400 plus      2 days paid leave to do the marking (1st year)
• Payments for staff taking weekend      sporting fixtures: staff paid £200 for leading a minimum of six Saturday      fixtures plus 6 weekly training sessions
• A daily allowance of £50 for      school trips taken over a weekend or any school holiday
• A £1,000 Employee Referral Scheme      (i.e. finder’s fee) for any qualifying positions that you refer the      successful candidate for: £500 on the person starting, and £500 if the      person is still at the school 12 months later

Access to a wide range of health and well-being resources including:

• New, professional and fit for      purpose working environments
• Free use of a range of sports and      leisure facilities including a fully equipped gym and swimming pool
• Occupational Health &      counselling support
• Free flu jabs
• Subsidised social events
• 100% attendance reward – day in      lieu, taken at each school’s discretion
• Free tea, coffee and milk for      staff

LOCAL AREA

The Trust is located in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and is uniquely situated to benefit from the many green spaces in the surrounding area, whilst also enjoying transport links to central London and other large urban areas. The Lee Valley park, including the White Water Centre built for the London 2012 Olympics is located on our doorstep.

The journey to central London takes approximately 30 minutes by train. Close links to the A10 and M25 mean that the school is easily accessible from across Hertfordshire, as well as from north London and parts of Essex.