ATC News

This week has been the first week back for all of our Students across the Trust. It has been fantastic to see them all again and we look forward to continuing learning within the classroom. To help our staff and students to stay safe, lateral flow test have been given to staff and students in our high schools to help stop the spread of Covid.

The meetings in regard to the digital strategy have been taking place with the ATC Executive Team and the Headteachers across the Trust. So far the response has been positive and look forward to the next step of implementing the digital strategy cross the schools.

The ATC marketing department have been working with Thames Primary Academy in preparation for the launch of there new website. The website should be live at the beginning of April.

The catering at Thames Primary Academy and Roseacre Primary Academy will soon be inhouse. To help promote this and develop engagement, discussions across the two Primary schools have been taking place.

On Friday we will be holding interviews for the position of ICT technician based across the ATC Trust. Thankyou to everyone that applied for the role.

We still currently have the following vacancies throughout the ATC Trust:

Senior Finance Officer at ATC Trust

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/senior-finance-officer-blackburn-with-darwen-1410082

Teacher of French – Maternity Leave Cover (2 terms) at Witton Park Academy:

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/teacher-of-french-maternity-leave-cover-2-terms-blackburn-with-darwen-1410025

Associate Assistant Headteacher – Transition at Witton Park Academy

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/associate-assistant-headteacher-transition-blackburn-with-darwen-1408546

Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator at Bowland High (Please note internal applicates only).

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/special-educational-needs-co-ordinator-lancashire-1411248

To apply or find out any further information about any of these roles, please click the links above.

Next week we look forward to welcoming all of our students across the Trust back to school. It has been a tough Year however hopefully if we continue to follow the government guidelines and stay safe we will continue to follow the roadmap out of lockdown.

At Witton Park Academy, a testing swab video has been created to ensure our students are prepared and safe when returning to school. The link to the video can be found below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2AobOLthYI

We currently have some vacancies throughout the ATC Trust list below:

• • Senior Finance Officer at ATC Trust
    • https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/senior-finance-officer-blackburn-with-darwen-1410082
  • Teacher of French – Maternity Leave Cover (2 terms) at Witton Park Academy:
    • https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/teacher-of-french-maternity-leave-cover-2-terms-blackburn-with-darwen-1410025
  • Associate Assistant Headteacher – Transition at Witton Park Academy
    • https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/associate-assistant-headteacher-transition-blackburn-with-darwen-1408546
  • Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator at Bowland High (Please note internal applicates only).
    • https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/special-educational-needs-co-ordinator-lancashire-1411248

To apply or find out any further information about any of these roles, please click the links above.

Finally from 8^th March the ATC Office will also be open full time. If you are visiting the site, please continue to follow the government guidelines and wear a facemask to keep yourself and our staff safe.

This week we celebrated Chinese New Year the week before our schools break up for the half term holiday.

We are still advertising for the vacancy of ICT technician. If you do know anyone that would like the opportunity to work with us, please forward them the following link:

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/it-technician-lancashire-area-1403822https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/it-technician-blackburn-with-darwen-base-1394053?preview=1

The ATC dashboard is now live on the website. This will be a place where staff are able to access the latest news, forms, policies, wellbeing, and information from the different ATC departments. The link to the new ATC dashboard is as follows:

https://atctrust.org.uk/atc-staff-dashboard/

The ATC digital strategy has begun it’s development. Meetings with the ICT department have taken place to help unify the 5 ATC locations. The intention is to give ATC locations an overall common platform with contextual dependants to improve the quality of education. Further updates to follow.

Next week we would like to welcome Roger the new Operations Manager that will be starting over at Roseacre Primary Academy. We wish him well in his new role.

Next week will be the half term break, we look forward to see you all again after the holidays!

This week we celebrated Chinese New Year the week before our schools break up for the half term holiday.

We are still advertising for the vacancy of ICT technician. If you do know anyone that would like the opportunity to work with us, please forward them the following link:

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/it-technician-blackburn-with-darwen-base-1394053?preview=1

The ATC dashboard is now live on the website. This will be a place where staff are able to access the latest news, forms, policies, wellbeing, and information from the different ATC departments. The link to the new ATC dashboard is as follows:

https://atctrust.org.uk/atc-staff-dashboard/

The ATC digital strategy has begun it’s development. Meetings with the ICT department have taken place to help unify the 5 ATC locations. The intention is to give ATC locations an overall common platform with contextual dependants to improve the quality of education. Further updates to follow.

Next week we would like to welcome Roger the new Operations Manager that will be starting over at Roseacre Primary Academy. We wish him well in his new role.

Next week will be the half term break, we look forward to see you all again after the holidays!

The mornings and nights are starting to become lighter and signs of spring are starting to appear. Across the Trust we are working on a digital strategy to develop a common educational platform to enable collaboration.  Implementation for our digital strategy should start in September, with development and consultation over the next few months.   

We would like to welcome Julie Baldwin, the new Operations Manager, who has started her post over at Thames Primary Academy this week. We wish her well in her new role. 

We currently have a vacancy for a Trust IT Technician. If you know anyone that maybe interested, please forward the link below:  

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/it-technician-blackburn-with-darwen-base-1394053?preview=1

The closing date for the post will be Monday 8^th February.

ICT have been working hard and managed to distribute over 70 Google Chromebooks to Thames Primary Academy. Students and staff having access to Chromebooks has been a massive benefit in helping the education of the students.  Also the team have been looking at a rolling programme of replacing classroom screens at Roseacre Primary Academy.

Finally, congratulations to John Tarbox, Deputy CEO.  John returned to AtC full time in January following his secondment as Executive Headteacher at Rhyddings High School.  At Easter John joins The Pennine Trust based in Nelson, Lancashire as CEO.  We look forward to working in partnership with John and Pennine Trust schools in the future.

Although it has been ‘Blue Monday’ this week, we are keeping our spirits up across the Trust. To help promote staff wellbeing and a healthy lifestyle throughout lockdown, some of our staff members are participating in an ATC walking challenge. The challenge is for staff to achieve various walking distances throughout the lockdown period. The challenge levels are: 

Good luck to everyone that participates! 

We have successfully appointed two Operation Managers: one to join Thames Primary Academy and the other to join Roseacre Primary Academy. We would like to welcome Roger and Julie to our team, they will start their new roles with us in the next few weeks. 

We also have an IT Technician vacancy in the central team. The link to the vacancy is below: 

https://www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/it-technician-blackburn-with-darwen-base-1394053?preview=1

If you know anyone that may be interested in the role, please forward the link. 

Support and counselling sessions have been set up for staff members. If staff do need to talk about anything please contact the HR department. 

Happy New Year, we hope you all have had a well rested Christmas break. It has been the first week back this Year for all of our schools throughout the Trust and has been an interesting one. After a quiet and snowy start to the year, the country entered a new Lockdown. Due to the new lockdown restrictions students will be working remotely except for key worker and vulnerable students. For further information about this check with the individual school.

In addition to all students being taught remotely, the ATC team will be working from home. This will be reviewed after the February half term. You can still contact us is you need or want to discuss anything.

In wider news, it is great to hear about the BBC are offering educational programmes to support home learning this week. This will help students with their remote learning and during the new lockdown.

The ICT team are continuing to develop the ICT infrastructure across the Trust to help create a reliable network for both staff and students.   We also say Goodbye to one of our ICT member Liam this week. Liam previously work for the Trust and was then based in Bowland. We wish him all the best in his future career.

The job vacancies for operations managers and Roseacre and Thames has now closed. We are now in the process of shortlisting the successful applicants. Interviews will take place week commencing 11th January 2021. There is still an open vacancy at Witton Park Academy for Data and Assistant Examinations Officer. The closing date for this is 13^th January 2021. Please pass this on to anyone that may be interested.

This is the second week of lockdown, the snow has begun to clear and our staff have been working hard to support all our students, remotely and face to face. Our ICT team have continued to work on the internet connection across the Trust so it is reliable and secure for both students and staff. They have also been in school, providing on site support across the trust.

We have been busy interviewing for two Operation Managers to join our team over at Thames Primary Academy and Roseacre Primary Academy. We were overwhelmed by the number of applications we received and we can’t wait to share news of our new appointments with you. Thank you to everyone that applied.

Our annual accounts are now available on the trust website and have been submitted to the ESFA.

By the end of this week lateral flow testing will have been rolled out in all four schools. Thank you to the staff who have organised and implemented this across our trust. Special thanks to:

• Helen Dakin – Operations Manager at Bowland High
• Rukshana Rafique – Operations Manager at Witton Park Academy
• Angela Hilton – Deputy Head at Thames Primary Academy
• Julie Logan – Deputy Head at Roseacre Primary Academy

All our schools have been busy making sure that our free school meal children have access to a healthy lunch, whether they are being taught on site or virtually. This is proving challenging due to the daily updates to the guidance issued to schools. If you have any queries please contact your school in the first instance.

This week our Human Resources and Marketing team have started to develop a staff Intranet. The aim will be to have a place where staff and the public can access ATC documents, policies and various other documentation in one place.

We also have a message from our Human Resource team that if you need us or want to talk about anything we are always here for you, please do not suffer in silence and together we will get through this.