About the Trust
The Four Stones Multi Academy Trust (MAT) is a family of like-minded schools, that collaborate to provide mutual support, share good practice, and learn form each other. Our students deserve the best and we do this most effectively by working together.
We are dedicated to improving standards and are driven to achieve excellence by living and breathing our core values of Ambition, Commitment, Creativity.
Our core principles underline our commitment to being a diverse and inclusive organisation where all staff feel valued, respected, and empowered to be who they are at work.
The core purpose of the MAT is to provide excellence and opportunity for all, enabling lives to be transformed. We want all students to access university or a high-powered alternative. The Character Academy is an umbrella term for our enrichment offer to all students across the MAT. It is how students feel a sense of belonging and identification with the MAT. The Character Academy is underpinned by the desire to foster students’ personal development through teamwork, resilience, leadership, and positive challenges.
Our Teaching School Hub leads on teacher and school leaders professional development and disseminates excellent practice allowing for greater autonomy over professional development. Our leaders have the freedom to explore and learn from different practices. As we know that authentic leadership and personal accountability are founded on ownership and self-direction within the principles of the Trust. We will use our professional development programme to recruit, progress and retain the best talent for the Trust.
The opportunity for extraordinary outcomes collectively is sitting within our schools. Releasing it and building it into our systems and culture is the next stage of our development.
The MAT has come a long way in a short time and now is three schools, over 3.5k students, a Teaching School Hub & SCITT. We are ambitious about our future work together and being the very best home for our schools, our staff, our students, our families, and our partners. We will invest in providing our students and staff with the knowledge, skills, and support to thrive and be mentally healthy.
Sustainable and future growth
We have strong schools, leaders, trustees, and governors who are committed to the mission. We have grown quickly to a group of three schools and outreach organisations. Our ways of working and scale of support needed to support to support this growth, which will continue. We are though committed to growing our impact rather than growth for growth’s sake. We are committed to welcoming schools that need more significant support. The MAT will remain agile and evidence informed to sustainably grow our impact whilst staying true to our mission, providing excellence and opportunity for all, enabling lives to be transformed.Additional information
- Invest in teachers and leaders to carry out their roles effectively in order to attain excellence in all our schools;
- Offer a broad, balanced, and academic curriculum at both GCSE and A level. At the same time, we emphasise the importance of educating the whole child with attention to their physical, emotional, and social development and so we are proud of our character development of teamwork, leadership, resilience, and challenge that comes from teaching an academic curriculum and holding students to our high expectations; Complement our academic curriculum with an extensive enrichment programme. From after school clubs to international trips, we give our students access to the cultural literacy to enable them to fully participate in adult educated life;
- Operate with a warm-strict approach to discipline ensuring our students can learn in calm and purposeful classrooms, free from distractions and develop the habits that will be necessary to be successful independent adults; Provide engaging and effective teaching based on our core values and the best and most up-to-date educational practice;
- Are unapologetically ambitious for every student, no matter what their background, prior attainment or needs. We take great pride in developing relationships between students, staff, and families, in order that we can ensure that success is desirable, demanded and achievable; and
- Recognise and celebrate effort, achievement, and excellence.
We are dedicated to improving standards and driven to achieve excellence by living and breathing our core values of:
Ambition
- We are ambitious for ourselves and our students. We set high expectations and standards and strive to achieve excellence in all that we do.
- We are unashamedly ambitious for the students we serve. We want to provide access to opportunities within the classroom and beyond. We will continue to strive to be the best we can be.
Commitment
- We are committed to being the best we can be. We consistently deliver on expectations, go the extra mile to get the job done and give 100% in all that we do, approaching everything with a “can do attitude”.
- We constantly look to improve ourselves and our service, cultivating our knowledge, skill, and attitudes to achieve excellence.
Creativity
- We always seek innovative solutions for our students and staff so that they achieve everything they are capable of.
- We believe that creativity is only possible when it is based on knowledge which in turn is based on literacy. Our schools, where students develop the literacy skills on which all further learning depends, cultivate creativity by providing a broad base of academic knowledge that students need to be properly creative. The knowledge we deliver is powerful in that it changes students’ perceptions, values and understanding. It encourages students to ask new questions and explore alternate explanations.
Integrity
- We always do the right thing. We treat others with respect and honesty, take care of our environment and utilise knowledge and understanding wisely.
- We nurture our students so that they become young adults of principle and character who support each other in their quest for excellence.
To ensure that we achieve our vision in the right way, and with integrity, the Trustees established the following principles within which we operate:
Inclusivity
- Ensuring our schools are open to and supportive of every student and their family.
- Supporting the social, emotional, and academic development of every student, so they are intrinsically motivated and free to learn.
Promoting a knowledge-based curriculum
- Developing and implementing a knowledge-based curriculum across all schools as the best way to raise academic achievement and aspirations for all our students.
Partnership
- Accessing best practice and support for our staff, students, and their families both within our family of schools and through working with community, regional and national partners.
Transparency
- Recognising our responsibilities as a publicly funded organisation, adhering unwaveringly to the ‘Nolan Principles’ of Public Service, being open at all levels about how we work, and welcoming feedback as a way to continuously improve what we do.
