Strong relationships are at the core of our schools’ culture. We believe that supporting one another and working towards a shared vision creates success for students, teachers and teams.

We believe that the attainment of pupils is greatly affected by how well they are known by their teachers. We arrange the school day and timetable to ensure that pupils and their teachers can form excellent relationships. Understanding every child’s needs means we are able to make sure no child is left behind. We consider parents to be our most important partners and make an effort to get to know them from the beginning of their journey with us. We are able to walk through milestones with families, with a nuanced approach, and handle any difficult situations with tact and an awareness of a families’ specific circumstances. We place a large emphasis on kindness and respect within every context, including the way our staff teams work together. By rallying around a shared vision, we are able to celebrate wins and overcome challenges together.

Sustainability and staff well-being has never been more important to us. We need to maintain a continuous dialogue at all levels of the organisation to ensure that the adults at Reach Academy can maintain energy levels and enthusiasm about their work so that the children can achieve the very best start in life and gain the academic qualifications, attitudes and skills needs to go on to enjoy lives of choice and opportunity. 

We model great leadership across our schools. The ability to lead well is imperative in both staff teams and within the classroom. Success and humility go hand in hand. Leaders at Reach Academy care deeply about every child and every staff member. Leaders operate with kindness and clarity about the vision and how to achieve it. 

We aim to inspire our students to make good choices and develop positive habits, in order to lead themselves and their peers well. We believe that great leaders develop great leaders. Our teachers embody warmth and strictness with pupils to develop clear expectations and confidence for all. We employ staff and external services specifically to support pupil, parent and staff mental health and physical well-being and know that healthy lifestyles and clear expectations around food, exercise and routines such as sleep, will result in better learning outcomes for the children. We work with families to promote these things.

We employ Senior Leadership teams who value relationships and professional development. We also look for opportunities to provide skill building or career progression in all contexts. During our internal Professional Development sessions, educators work in pairs and small teams in which teachers at every level can give feedback to their peers at every level. We value the input of all members of our team – regardless of job role or seniority – and encourage continuous dialogue as well as opportunities for anonymous feedback. Humility is a key characteristic of great leadership.

We survey parents twice per year and consistently over 96% of parents say that they would recommend the school to a friend. We also constantly talk to families and seek their feedback informally. We have two parent governors and a staff governor on the local Governing Body.

Everything we do is in pursuit of excellent outcomes for pupils. These include academic, personal and social outcomes as we believe that to enjoy lives of choice and opportunity involves all aspects of life. With this in mind, we work to prepare our students for their entire school career through carefully planned curriculum and character development. We currently plan our curriculum backwards – in other words, we focus on the skills and knowledge needed to pursue subjects in higher education and work backwards to make sure all learning scaffolding and opportunity for progression is present in each previous year. We constantly focus on improving the curriculum so that pupils know more and can do more over time.

We place a high emphasis on attendance in order to provide children with the best education possible. We reward students collectively and individually for excellent attendance, in order to create a culture of teamwork and contribution.

When recruiting new staff, we make sure to employ a range of people from different cultures and with different areas of expertise. When thinking about how to best serve our students and community, we place our staff based on their unique skills and characteristics. We have increased INSET days to ensure dedicated staff time for curriculum and assessment analysis, reflection and re-design. We also respond to current affairs, learn from past internal data and learn from colleagues within our school and from other schools.

We communicate the importance of reading and literacy in bringing success in core subjects. However, we also offer a breadth of options and extra-curricular activities in order to find children’s passion for their life and well-being (as part of our ‘Have Fun’ value).

We consistently plan and create positive transitions across our schools. This includes our carefully backwards-planned curriculum which ensures children have each set of building blocks and tools they need to progress in their subjects year on year.

We organise the school systems, rewards and sanctions so that pupils can experience consistency of approach across the school. Making sure these rewards are based on our clear Reach Values, we are able to promote ownership of our school values throughout a students’ school career.

Through the opening of innovative Sixth-Form colleges, we provide the opportunity for students to study post-16 in Reach Schools and continue their excellent education in a familiar setting.

We care about our local area and every person that walks through our schools’ doors. This means we are able to build relationships with organisations and charities that meet the needs of our families and enhance our educational offering. We make sure to go above and beyond in hosting community events and celebrating the achievements of our local alumni as they move forward in their chosen careers. Reach Academies are located in Feltham because it is an area of deprivation. Currently only 20% of pupils in our local area progress to higher education. The vision of our schools is that every single pupil will leave us with the skills, attributes and academic qualifications to go on to enjoy lives of choice and opportunity. At all admissions points we prioritise admissions for pupils eligible for the pupil premium, both at Nursery admission for our 2 year olds and via our oversubscription criteria.

The Local Governing Body is diverse. We always have democratically elected parent governors who support leadership to provide a useful, and honest, conduit to the community. Our parent governors often hold other areas of expertise (e.g. SEND, young carers) and are generous in the time they give to support and challenge the leaders and staff in the school to ensure the practice in all areas is excellent. We also have two members of staff from local schools (Hampton School and Lady Ellenor Holles) who support via the board and also lead on the Feltham College partnership.