Chief executive of multi-academy trust that runs three Corby schools sets out ambitions to 2025

Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of a multi-academy trust’s newly-published vision for education across Corby.

Inspiring Futures through Learning (IFtL) was established in 2016 and now supports more than 5,800 children across eight primary schools, four infant schools, two junior schools and one all-through school.

Three Corby schools are part of the multi-academy trust: Exeter School, Priors Hall School and Woodnewton School, as well as 12 Milton Keynes schools.

The IFtL strategic plan is being launched on Friday (March 31) as part of a trust conference focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion.

IFtL is prioritising ‘equality and equity of access to opportunities’ in its three-year strategic plan.

Under Equitable Futures, one of four strands in the plan to 2025, IFtL has committed to embed a strategy that ‘offers all children and young people the opportunity to thrive, with access to the right support, in the right place and at the right time, so they can fulfil their potential and lead happy, healthy and productive adult lives.’

It promises to create a system that provides ‘meaningful, effective pathways for families in times of vulnerability to unlock the responsive and respectful support of wider family networks and multi-disciplinary teams’, including safeguarding, social care, health and mental health, and SEND.

In line with its equality objectives, the trust will also ‘continuously and proactively encourage diversity, cognitive diversity and protection of personal individuality’.

In its Future Focused strand, the trust outlines plans to invest in immersive learning technologies for all children that are accessible, that strengthen engagement and learning for each child and that provide a wealth of digital skills.

It also highlights how ‘responsibilities to the environment will be reflected and embedded in our curriculum and learning as well as our everyday practice and use of resources, aligned with our environmental strategy and targets to reduce our carbon footprint’.

Ambitions around leadership and culture and achieving strong schools, supported by more than 900 staff and 100 serving governors and trustees across the trust, are also detailed in what is described as a trust-wide mission that ‘demands excellence, innovation and focus’.

Sarah Bennett, the trust’s chief executive, said: “Our vision ‘to inspire futures of us all through learning together’ ensures we are focused on the work of removing barriers, real and perceived, to ensure that world-class learning and enriched life experiences are available to all.

“We recognise the negative impact of inequality and we are dedicated to ensuring accessible, equitable and aspirational opportunities and educational offer for all. A ‘family first’ approach that is underpinned by the principle that family engagement is fundamental to the development of our children, young people and colleagues.

“At IFtL, we strive to continuously deliver high-quality education, including for disadvantaged children and children with SEND, operating fair access. Our celebration and championing of diversity provides opportunities and high ambitions for all are embedded in everything we do.

“In education, standing still simply is not an option. Young people only get one chance and everyone who works for IFtL, within our schools and within the central team, takes this very personally.”