On Friday 1st December 2023, St. Mary's joined the Romero Catholic Academy Trust as a voluntary convertor.

Romero Catholic Academy Trust is one of three Multi Academy Trusts established by the Catholic Diocese of Salford to serve the schools in the north of the Diocese. Our geographical area includes Diocesan schools within the local authorities of Lancashire, Blackburn with Darwen and Calderdale.

The Trust includes some schools with directive academy orders but most are voluntary convertors who have taken the decision to become an academy to work more closely within a family of school to achieve the best outcomes for our pupils and to support each other. There are currently no schools judged inadequate by Ofsted within Romero Catholic Academy Trust.

The purpose of the Trust is for a family of schools to work together to improve the outcomes and experiences and future life chances of our children and young people.

Effective governance is essential for the function of the Trust’s schools. The professional group of directors, with a wide and relevant skill set and who are approved by the bishop, support our schools. In addition, local governing bodies play a very important role providing scrutiny and decision-making at an individual school level. However, fundamental to the success of our schools are the headteachers and their staff. We believe that headteachers are central to thriving and successful schools and that they need the autonomy to fulfil their role. Indeed, our headteachers say they now have more autonomy and support within the Trusts than they did within their local authorities.

School improvement is at the heart of all schools. Fundamentally, Headteachers and their staff are responsible for school improvement and they are supported in this by the Trust’s core school improvement provision which is based on support and quality assurance of the school’s own self-evaluation and priorities. The Trust’s school improvement team (known as Challenge Partners) will also work with the headteachers and CEO to commission any additional support a school requires and ensure that this support has impact.

The Trust must ensure that schools are run in a financially secure manner, therefore we provide a finance team to support heads and school business managers to deliver value for money, to make savings thought economies of scale and explore new funding streams so that more money can be used for the education of our children and young people

Please click the link to access the Romero Catholic Academy website https://www.romerocat.com/