We apply the same collective approach to Finance and Operations as we do to education. This approach has led to significant efficiencies, service quality improvements and risk reduction for all our schools.

A combination of successful grant applications and the benefits of working collectively have contributed to significant savings. These savings have helped our schools weather a challenging financial climate and have ensured a relentless focus on teaching and learning.

Much is said about Trust finances. Words like top-slice strike fear into the hearts of school leaders and governors who can be forgiven for imagining pictures of severed budgets and escalating costs of trust membership. The reality is very different. Learn-AT has made every pooled pound work hard on behalf of the whole organisation.

Working collectively means Learn-AT schools have benefitted from joint procurement, improved and streamlined systems, better IT, specialist, high-quality services and reduced risk. This is a classic example of the whole being better than the sum of its parts. The core function of finance and operations in Learn-AT is to ensure school leaders and teachers can maintain their attention and energy for teaching and learning. Pooling a small percentage of each school’s budget and sharing as many costs as possible allows us to align key aspects of provision, create efficiencies, provide high quality services and, crucially, it safeguards maximum funding for the main thing: learning.