THE Beam Trust, involving four primary schools at Lymm, is celebrating its 1st birthday in May and making plans for next year after a successful first year.
Gill Marsland, CEO for The Beam Trust said “I am extremely proud to be the CEO of The Beam Trust, leading such a wonderful group of schools with dedicated staff, governors and children where collaboration is key to our further success”.
The Beam Trust was formed by four extremely successful schools; Oughtrington Primary, Ravenbank Primary, Statham Primary and Thelwall Infant School. The Trust celebrates the individuality of our schools, our pupils and our staff, is focused on the future and is driven to pioneering learning experiences.
The four founding member schools have worked collaboratively together for years and the formation of our MAT in 2021 has brought incredibly exciting opportunities for the schools to work even more closely together. It has allowed them to share knowledge, best practice, training and resources in order to ensure that children across the schools are able to benefit from the best experience of primary education possible.
Reverend Beverley Jameson Rector of St Mary’s Church Lymm and Chair of Trustees said: “The excellent dedicated teachers and staff of the Beam Trust supporting one another across the four schools will provide a brilliant education for our wonderful young people. Bringing my previous experience as a governor in other primary and high schools and my secular experience prior to ordination, as a Director of Corporate service in a local authority, I am thrilled and honoured to be part of this exciting adventure”.
The first twelve months of The Beam Trust have been amazingly productive. All four schools continue to work together on their OPAL Play Project, with the support of OPAL play mentors. OPAL’s vision is that every child in every school has access to high-quality play every day. The children are already reaping the benefits of this project and are having great fun building dens, playing in mud kitchens and using a wide range of play equipment including bikes, scooters and dressing up costumes. Pupils are developing their physical strength and their social and emotional skills, all whilst having great fun!
In addition to this, the School Councils of all four schools have also thoroughly enjoyed collaborating together in a number of ways this year. The School Councillors have toured each other’s schools and are making the most of new opportunities to use their collective voice for the good of their own and other communities. A superb example of this is the ‘Peace Day’ that they have helped to plan, where pupils and staff in all of the schools will join together in a Peace Assembly, wearing white to raise awareness of the need for peace and cooperation around the world, and raising money to support those affected by the conflict in Ukraine.
Staff across the schools have also reaped the benefit of collaboration over the past twelve months. Teachers from each year group have had meetings together where best practice in teaching, learning, assessment and moderation have been shared. Subject leaders have also worked together to support each other and share curriculum expertise with one another.
All four schools are very proud of all that The Beam Trust has achieved since its formation, especially as this has been such a challenging and uncertain time for all communities. As they enter their second year, they look forward to continuing their exciting journey together and to the many more opportunities we will undoubtedly have to work together in order to achieve their shared vision.
Anyone interested in becoming a Member or a Trustee, or know anyone from the local community who would be interested, and would like to find out more about the role, responsibilities and time commitment, please contact [email protected]
