Our Vision for Our Federation
Learn, Grow & Shine Together
We hope that the following text exemplifies the vision for our federation and helps to explain the background to our tagline, ‘learn, grow and shine together’.
Learn
At our federation, everyone is a learner from the child who walks into pre-school for the first time to the senior leader who continues to develop their knowledge and understanding of pedagogy, leadership and themselves as a human-being.
The federation and the organisations within the federation provide wonderful opportunities for everyone to learn, develop their own interests and flourish. Our leadership model works across the federation, with senior and curriculum leaders taking responsibility as system leaders.
At the Synergy Schools Federation, we pride ourselves on creating and developing good teachers. We have developed strong partnerships with initial teacher training organisations and these have born fruit over nearly 2 decades, whereby teachers have been trained, employed, developed further and in many cases, turned into leaders.
Grow
“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
Matthew Chapter 13 verses 31-33
The Parable of the Mustard Seed is the root of our Federation vision. The federation has grown like a small seed from September 2018 when Brompton-on-Swale CE Primary School first offered some school to school support to Crakehall CE Primary School to the large organisation that it is now, providing education to 450 pupils across 4 schools and a pre-school with more than 70 staff and 23 governors. Due to our professionally generous ethos, a wide variety of stakeholders come to rest in our branches to work collaboratively and improve the quality of education for our pupils.
We feel that the federation and its schools provide a safe place for others, be they families, pupils or even staff so they are able to develop professionally and spiritually and then move on to achieve more.
Shine
The continuing professional development offer for staff who work across the federation is central to our vision. It allows staff to shine and in turn improves our pupil outcomes and the experiences that our pupils receive, for example:
Maths Mastery – A mastery specialist leads maths across the federation. She ensures that maths is taught very well, consistently and by teachers who have strong subject knowledge.
Leadership Development – A strategy for leadership development ensures that all National Curriculum subjects are led by subject specialists and their knowledge is imparted regularly to the rest of the staff, developing others’ subject knowledge.
SENDCO – A dedicated and very knowledgeable Federation SENDCO works across all schools to provide expert advice.
Pedagogical Development - for all teachers/ and teaching assistants is planned carefully by senior leaders to ensure that all teaching staff receive high-quality inputs and are able to take risks with their teaching in a secure and supportive environment.
The federation provides more comprehensive opportunities for pupils’ personal development which would be difficult to achieve working as an individual school, for example:
Synergy Sports Day – All Key Stage 2 pupils compete in an athletics stadium, making use of all-weather track and field equipment.
Residential Visits – All pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 are offered combined residential visits which develop in challenge and opportunity.
Joint Collective Worship – High quality joint collective worship provides regular opportunities for pupils to feel a strong sense of belonging.
The federation encourages schools to provide an inspirational, dynamic and exciting vision for the curriculum. An example of this can be seen at Brompton-on-Swale CE Primary School, where the whole school community believes in the courage to shine, providing children with the courage to:
- face new challenges,
- be the best version of themselves and,
- have an inquisitive mind.
Please visit our school vision pages to see how each one individually flourishes.
Aiskew, Leeming Bar CE Primary
Brompton-on-Swale CE Primary School
Leeming and Londonderry Community Primary School
Together
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of the word synergy is:
"the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects."
When considering a name for our federation back in 2018, the governors felt that this encapsulated our work and so the name 'Synergy Schools' was born. Our federation is all about schools working together. We believe that we are stronger together. Just as the Bible describes how a body is stronger when its different parts work together, our individual schools benefit greatly from being an active part of the team. Our federation serves different schools, who in turn serve different communities with different strengths and priorities.
Brompton-on-Swale CE Primary School is an ex-Teaching School. Since March 2012, it has collaborated with numerous schools (currently 51) in the north of North Yorkshire, creating the Swaledale Alliance. Partnerships are built on trust and professional generosity. Schools buy into the Alliance through a service level agreement based on a small per-pupil charge. The Alliance provides a wide range of services centred around initial teacher training, school to school support and continuing professional development for leaders, teachers, teaching assistants, support staff and governors. For further information about the Swaledale Alliance, please follow the link.
Our federation is ambitious and forward-thinking. We are always interested in speaking to like-minded organisations who feel that they could contribute to and strengthen our work.
