Meet our Community Team!
We work for Co-op Academies Trust to help form the Academies community strategy.

We help the academy build strong connections with the local community and support Co-op's goals of:

• Providing access to food
• Supporting mental wellbeing
• Creating opportunities for young people

We're here to make sure the school is a central part of its community, supporting the region with its challenges. We find ways to improve the wellbeing of local residents, families and especially young people!

The Team

The Academy Community team focuses on fairness , ensuring that all students, pupils and community members, especially those from areas of challenge, have equal access to resources, opportunities, decision-making processes, and benefits. 

The goal of  this equitable approach is to empower pupils, students and groups who face social and economic disadvantages. We recognise  that different groups need different resources and support to achieve similar outcomes, the community model is consistent in its approach across all academies; however we recognise that we have a  model that is bespoke to each academy as to what their needs and wants are for their community. 

We aim to deliver this model in the following way: Empowerment

• We recognise that the Academy is the anchor point of the community.

• Active Listening: Listen to the voices of parents and students about their aspirations and the barriers to these, connecting people and facilitating the community to help itself to overcome the barriers identified.

• Listening to our communities via 1:1 conversations to utilise Parent Power to develop our understanding of our communities and their needs, and all that is currently being done to support them, sharing good practice at every opportunity.

• Build on the work already undertaken by our academies to understand the needs of their communities and develop student and parent/carer voices.

• Recruit and staff the Community Team, with colleagues that have the right attributes to listen and understand the staff and community, ensuring integration into the Trust’s Central Team and academies we serve;

Read some of the blog posts about the great work the Community team is involved in.