Established in September 2007, the Ashington Learning Partnership is a unique educational organization which has achieved national acclaim. It links five schools to form a single, virtual, all-age school of over 3,000 pupils. It was the first Trust to be formed in the country, meaning that the land, buildings and assets are owned by the Partnership.
The Trust has five partners who provide representatives on the Board of Trustees: Northumbria University, Action for Children, the Wansbeck Business Forum, Northumberland College and Northumberland County Council. The Trust Partners bring experience and expertise from outside the schools’ community to enrich our provision.
As part of a 3 tier system of schools, we formed the Partnership initially to overcome the issues of students transferring from First to Middle School part way through Key Stage 2 and from Middle to High School part way through Key Stage 3. This disrupts a young person’s education, so we have overcome this by working as a single school over five sites. Staff meet frequently to share information about learners, agree a common curriculum, share good ideas and innovations, discuss teaching methodology, plan joint events and generally put provision in place to ensure as seamless as possible a learning journey from Nursery to Sixth Form.
The Principals of each of the schools form a Senior Leadership Team coordinated by an Executive Director who monitors the quality of education across the Partnership. In addition to this team achieving unparalleled communication across the schools, it also means that there is enormous leadership capacity and experience. The Principals are supported by a team of Vice Principals, some of whom work across more than one school to ensure consistency of standards and support for learners.
Ashington High, Bothal Middle and Hirst Park Middle all have specialist school status as sports colleges. Ashington High is a High Performing Specialist School which has a brief of developing leadership in other schools across the country. All the schools in the partnership have International School status.
The partnership has acquired a national reputation for innovation in:
 Developing a skills-based curriculum supported by our own ‘Skills Matrix’ which identifies the different stages of the skills we wish to develop in our learners.
Developing the themed curriculum where we work across subject barriers in a cross-curricular approach.
Developing a single, shared system for tracking pupil progress from First School to High School.
Developing new approaches to governance, with a single large governing body across five schools.
Developing the highest quality arrangements for transfer. In addition to regular visits between the schools, all students move into their new classes two weeks before the end of the Summer Term.
Since it was formed, the Trust has made major savings by working cost-effectively as a large single organization and sharing specialist staff, facilities and resources.
To extend our provision, we have built an Enterprise Centre (ALPEC), where students of all ages develop their enterprise skills, our Business Centre (ABEC) and a Teaching and Learning Development Centre, where learners can work in a specialised environment on intensive study programmes to accelerate their learning.
The Ashington learning Partnership Trust isn’t just about young people, as we are also the largest Adult Education provider in Northumberland with over 800 adult learners per year.
We are justifiable proud of what we have achieved in the Ashington Learning Partnership and are ambitious to achieve even more in the future. If you wish to find out more about us, please get in touch with me by ‘phoning the Trust Office on 01670 812360.
Ken Tonge
Executive Director |
