Our Services

High quality learning and development opportunities for all colleagues are vital when providing the best education for our students. Our learning and development strategies are strategically driven, responsive to need and draws on expertise from both within and outside the Trust.

Our service offer will support continuous improvement at all levels, reflecting our philosophy that regardless of career stage or job role, we can be ‘better every day’.  Collaboration is at the heart of our work to draw upon talent from across the Trust whilst supporting innovation and research by forging exceptional partnerships from the wider education/non-education sector.  

Our ‘Guiding Principles’ underpin our clear rationale and support our sharing of best practice in curriculum design, assessment and culture and behaviour and our ‘Frameworks’ for learning and development outline programmes to which colleagues are entitled.

Our core offer, which drives school improvement and the learning & development of all colleagues, includes:

• Collaborative Review meetings which supports diagnostic assessment of school strengths and areas for improvement.
• Facilitated Self-Evaluations to systematically review and analyses key aspects of school operations by engaging peer support from across the trust.
• Trust-wide moderation facilitated by external partners and experts to support professional dialogue regarding benchmarking, standards and outcomes. 
• Professional networks provide a structured forum for the acquisition and sharing of subject/curriculum knowledge driven by headteacher assessment of needs.
• Targeted support for schools in need of rapid improvement in school standards, including the deployment of school development partner and brokering high quality external expertise.
• Early Career Teacher support through delivery of Early Career Framework and Induction in partnership with Bright Futures/Teach First.
• Access to a full suite of eight National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) through partnership with Bright Futures Teaching School Hub.
• Fully resourced deliberate practice clinics delivered by instructional coaches which has helped to galvanise staff, improve the delivery of the curriculum.

We aim to ensure everyone in our trust is known, valued and supported; this means children and young people, as well as our colleagues in all areas of our work.   First and foremost, this means our schools are safe and happy places to learn and work.  If successful in our mission, a strong culture of safeguarding will leave nothing to chance; we will understand risks to children and young people and we will work together to minimise these risks.  We will show genuine care and compassion in our approach to the wellbeing of young people and staff alike.

Our People Services department support all schools with all HR support, advice and guidance.  The team of five is led by Director of Safeguarding and People with additional specialists in employment law, pensions and redundancies provided by The Schools People.

The HR team work closely with each school to ensure staff and leaders are supported with day-to-day HR matters and concerns through to complex case work and employee relations issues.

Areas of support include:

• Manage the full employee life cycle from recruitment through to retirement
• Support and advise school leaders on employee relations matters
• Manage contracts and terms of employment
• Produce Gender Pay Gap reports
• Lead Union consultations
• Develop and review policies and procedures
• Support and advise employees on all aspects of their employment
• Implement the staff wellbeing charter, strategies and resources
• Manage the employee benefit packages
• Facilitate payroll processes
• Single Central Record maintenance and audits
• Provide of Occupational Health services
• Employee recognition and rewards schemes

Our financial department ensure that trustees, management and each of our constituent schools, can take full responsibility for our financial affairs, so that we use resources efficiently to maximise outcomes for pupils. 

This means we carefully review expenditure making best use of the trust’s size to secure economies of scale. 

Operational Financial services are provided centrally in combination with localised services provided by school-based business professionals. 

Our core offer and areas of support include:

• Strategic Financial Planning and the production of the three-year financial plans
• Provision and maintenance of the system of internal financial controls incorporating the Trust’s Scheme of Financial delegation and the associated devolved budgetary control system
• Preparation of the annual budget l working with the Trust’s Executive Team, Headteachers and school-based business professionals incorporating both revenue and capital budgets.
• Strategic advice on capital projects. 
• Preparation of monthly management accounts and forecast outturns. 
• Transaction coding advice and enquiry resolution 
• Payment advice, enquiry resolution and payment runs
• Management of agreed payroll services contract
• Management of the annual external audits and ensuring that our financial controls are as prescribed by the Academies Handbook.
• Management of the Trust’s Treasury Management policy 
• Completion of Statutory Returns to the DfE, ESFA and HMRC 
• Ensuring that all schools meet all the current and future requirements of regulations and standards associated with ESFA/DfE guidance contained within the Academies Handbook and other EFSA/DfE instructions.

We invest in our schools to ensure they are inspiring and engaging places to learn and work and that they exploit every opportunity to raise standards and improve pedagogy.  The investment and management of our estates will ensure our buildings are well-maintained, safe and welcoming spaces that are conducive to learning and work.

Estates services are provided centrally in combination with localised services provided by school-based business and estates professionals. 

Working together with trusted partners and suppliers, school are provided with a range of services including:

• Building and Condition surveys
• Compliance management systems to ensure buildings are compliant with relevant legislation.
• Block replacement and refurbishment projects
• Energy efficiency projects
• Boiler and heating system renewal projects
• Lighting projects
• Roof projects
• Kitchen and dining facilities improvements
• Ongoing refurbishments of classrooms 
• Improvements to external areas (Forest schools, EYFS play centres)
• Planned maintenance schedules
• Asset Management Plan
• Carbon Management Plan
• IT & Edtech strategy and Investment
• Internal audits

We drive a culture of compliance, ensuring risks and are understood, well-managed and treated appropriately.

We partner with Compliance Education to provide leaders, Trustees and Governors the reassurance that they are complying with statutory Health and Safety requirements. 

The service provisions we provide are:

• Annual health and safety audits
• Accident investigation and reporting services including RIDDOR
• Risk assessments
• COSHH assessments
• Fire Safety Advice
• The development of trust-wide and d school-specific health and safety policies and procedures.
• Assistance with building-related health and safety management such as fire risk assessment, asbestos, glazing, accessibility, etc.
• Support and assistance for the School Site Managers or equivalent role.
• Access to a range of health and safety training i.e. asbestos and legionella awareness, fire safety and management, manual handling, working at height, ladder training, etc…
• Educational visits advice, assistance and support

Governance and Compliance

Effective governance is crucial to the success of a multi-academy trust. It provides confident, strategic leadership and creates robust accountability, oversight and assurance for the educational and financial performance.

Within Omega Multi-Academy Trust we work hard to ensure that the governance structure supports the Trust and its constituent schools in being compliant in meeting their statutory and civic duties.

This is achieved through the Trustees focusing on the core functions as defined by the Academy Handbook:

• ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction;
• holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the performance management of staff; and
• overseeing and ensuring effective financial performance.

Trustees in turn delegate to the Local Governing Boards the following key overarching areas of focus:

• Pupil / Staff wellbeing and Safeguarding;
• Health and Safety;
• School Performance and Improvement;
• Monitoring of Teaching and Learning; and
• Parent and community monitoring and feedback.

Through a culture of compliance, care is taken to ensure that the Trust operates within the legal framework of its Articles of Association, Scheme of Delegation and Scheme of Financial Delegation and within the regulations of the Academy Handbook. 

We ensure that risks and threats across the Trust are understood and well managed through internal controls that measure and manage the risks.

Our core offer and support includes:

• Developing and driving the annual schedule of business/agendas in consultations with the Chair of Trustee, Chairs of the committees and executive/school leaders to ensure that business is planned to enable the core governance functions to be fulfilled effectively and coherently across the Trust.
• Convening the meetings as required by the Board of Trustees and the committees, drafting agendas, writing minutes and following up action points.
• Ensuring that decisions are taken within the remit of the Scheme of Delegation, Scheme of Financial delegation or Terms of Reference.
• Advising the Board and the committees on membership, and succession planning and ensuring there are open and transparent procedures for appointments, elections and removal of individuals as appropriate.
• Managing the Register of Business Interest for Members, Trustees and Local Governors;
• Arranging an annual Skills Audit and Trustee/Governor development through accredited training packages.
• Ensuring that the Trust and each of the schools has in place the statutory policies and procedures to meet the regulatory and statutory obligations.
• Supporting internal audit preparation and following through on audit recommendations; and
• Overseeing the Risk Register, mitigating actions and reporting the positions to Trustees.
• Membership to GovernorHub which offers a set of board tools designed to help boards work together better, keeps members connected and provides a ready-made body of evidence. 

Details coming soon...

We embed robust data management systems in all our schools to empower leaders to promote strong school culture, performance and highly effective governance. We have a toolbox of systems that will support the delivery of a full curriculum and data analysis to identify strengths and areas of support.

Our core offer includes:

• Provision of, and training in, our modern cloud Management Information System, which minimises workload whilst maximising operational insight
• Access to the full suite of school analytical reports in PowerBI that will provide granular, up to date data.
• Bespoke research reports and data analysis to establish firm foundations for school improvement, which draw on cutting edge statistical analysis to bring best practice research to operational applications.
• Support for all staff to deliver on GDPR best practice, respond to subject access requests and mitigate and prevent data breaches.