Policies

Our Approach

The DfE publish Statutory Policies for trusts with details of the policies and documents that must be in place.  It is the responsibility of our Trust to ensure that these are in place. We take the following approach:

  • Trust Policies – these are policies which the Trustee Directors approve and all schools within the Trust must follow these. Sometimes a highlight may be applied where localisation of names or contact details etc may still be required.  There is no formal adoption by the school as the policy has been set by the Trust Board and may have involved consultation with third parties, such as the employment unions or follow a model personalised to the Trust context e.g. from the Local Safeguarding Children's Partnership.  We sometimes refer to these policies as "trust-wide" or "blanket" policies.

  • Trust Policies requiring personalisation – These policies are where the Trust sets the direction, but the policy requires a degree of personalisation around individual practice and procedures within the individual schools.  The Trust will advise the schools that the policy has been reviewed and request the personalisation is undertaken by the school leadership.  We sometimes refer to these policies as "template" policies.

  • School Policies – these are policies which are based on individual schools practice.  These will be written by school leadership.  

  • Some policies and procedures only apply at trust level.

  • Many policies are statutory and some of these must be approved by the Trust Board or one of its committees.  

 

Accessing Policies

Please see individual school websites for policies and procedures that apply to schools.  Links to our school websites may be found here.

 

Some key policies are provided below
Safeguarding

This documentation can be found on our dedicated safeguarding page.  Click here to visit the Safeguarding page.

CCTV

CCTV policy (Larch Building)

Complaints

The Department for Education, in partnership with Ofsted and ParentKind, has published new guidance for parents on how to raise concerns or make complaints to resolve any issues quickly, easily and positively.  

Parent Guide to School Complaints

Each school within the Trust has a ‘Complaints Procedure (School)’ which must be followed for complaints relating to the school.  That local policy sets out the procedure to be followed that is facilitated by the Headteacher and Local Committee for all complaints relating to the particular school.   In addition, should your complaint relate to the Headteacher of a school or a member of the central team then please use the 'Complaints Procedure (Trust)' below

Trust complaints policy and process

Data Protection and Privacy notices

This information can be found on our dedicated page.  Click here to visit the Data Protection page.

Modern Slavery Act Statement

GST's Modern Slavery Act statement 

Public Sector Equality Duty and Objectives

For details on how academies comply with the public sector equality duty, please see individual school websites

Public Sector Equality Duty: Equality Objective Statement

Recruitment of Ex-offenders

Our policy statement on the recruitment of ex-offenders, can be found below. 

Recruitment of Ex-offenders

Whistleblowing (Protected Disclosures)

A culture of openness and accountability is essential in order to prevent situations occurring or to address them if they do occur.  If you would like to raise any concern, please refer to our Whistleblowing policy.

Whistleblowing Policy 

 

For all other queries regarding Trust policy or procedure, please contact us here.