Prior to scaling new heights, we need to ensure that our children and young people are fully equipped at Base Camp prior to beginning their ascent.
As with any expedition which involves scaling heights, we will work to provide a minimum level of support for any learner that requires it to ensure that they are able to begin their ascent, and ensure that as a Trust we can fulfil all elements of our Mission:
Our Mission
Deliver exceptional education to children and young people in the West Midlands, enabling them all to have successful, happy lives and make a positive impact on their communities.
We do this by:
- Providing all our children and young people with the highest levels of expectation, educational provision and care
- Achieving the highest levels of academic progress for all our learners
- Nurturing our children and young people in academies where safety and wellbeing are of paramount importance
- Providing a rich educational experience for all our learners
- Adopting a consistently high level of inclusivity and equity for all learners, colleagues and stakeholders across our trust
- Contributing positively to the communities which our academies serve
- Valuing all our people and developing them as professionals and lifelong learners
- Working intelligently to maximise the effective and efficient use of our resources
- Working ethically and with integrity, civility and respect
Summit Base Camp Aims
To ensure that every learner has the following basic needs met to enable them to achieve the highest levels of academic progress whilst being provided with a rich educational experience:
- Food to eat
- Perfect uniform to wear
- Hygiene and health care products and services available
- A bed to sleep in
- Equipment, and all revision materials for public examinations
- Books to read for pleasure and to support their curriculum work
- Digital equipment and platforms to enhance learning
- A warm and safe environment during the academy day
- Transport to be able to safely travel to their academy and to travel home where needed
- Cultural experiences that will prepare them for later life
The Base Camp work will target our learners who need it most. We will mindfully ensure that some initiatives explicitly and sensitively support our colleagues, notably those most affected by rising costs, and price inflation.
Food
- We provide free, supervised breakfast to any learner (or colleague) who requires it.
- Academy pastoral, administrative and leadership teams work to identify any learner who would benefit from a Free School Meal and support their families with applying for these
- Academies will develop our relationship with FareShare and other food bank charities to be able to offer families food packages for evening and weekend meals
- All academy colleagues will be offered free hot drinks every morning
Our Trust and our partner Trusts will campaign for a broadening of Free School Meal offer in England with the minimum aim of achieving:
- Free meals for children from any family that receives Universal Credit
- Free meals for all children of primary school age
- Our Trust and catering providers will develop a strategy around our use of waste food from all break and lunch servings in line with Too Good To Go approaches
Sleep
- Academies will sensitively identify any learner who does not currently sleep in a bed
- Links will be developed with Bed Poverty Charities and furniture providers in the local area to source beds and beddings to provide for our most needy learners
Warmth
Our heated (where necessary) academies will be available to learners before and after hours every school or college day for them to benefit from:
- Warm environments.
- Free hot drinks
- Academy wi-fi provision
- Charging points for electronic devices to allow our learners to continue their hard work beyond the academy day
Resources
- All school-age learners can access support with uniform, PE kit or school bags where required.
- Every school-age learner will have free access to the full stationery set in the Autumn term of every academic year.
- Scientific calculators provided by academies to learners during Mathematic lessons
- Every Year 6 and Year 11 learner provided with a full suite of free high-quality revision materials as they work towards these public examinations.
- Year 13 learners will receive bursary funding where required to support them with their revision materials.
- Collect second-hand uniform from families to make available to families who require it through the school.
- Each school collects second-hand uniform to provide to local charities who will distribute this for us.
Health and Hygiene
- Academies provide basic toiletries where needed which will be provided by our corporate partners.
- All academies freely provide sanitary products to learners (and colleagues where required) through the free government scheme.
Transport
- School-age learners and their families have local authority school travel support explicitly shared with them through a variety of means.
- Learners in exceptional circumstances who struggle to travel to our academies or alternative provision that we have in place for them, will be supported with this travel.
- In cases, where deemed appropriate in the short-term, academies will arrange to transport learners to and from our academies.
Digital
- Every academy audits learners to determine who cannot access homework platforms and Microsoft Teams from home due to hardware and/or wi-fi access.
- Existing laptops will be proportionately distributed to those learners who require them.
- All our homework and revision platforms are available for free to every learner.
Our academy wi-fi and energy will be available for learners to use for learning prior to and after every academy day.
- We will develop links with local companies and charities to access additional hardware and home wi-fi solutions to support those learners identified by our audit as requiring support.
Cultural Capital
- Our phases of education will develop and cost packages of cultural capital experiences, appropriate and beneficial for the age of learners
- All Summit learners will support and fundraise for our Trust chosen charity for the year, which for 2022-2023 will be the University Hospitals Birmingham Charity
- Every Summit secondary and Sixth Form learner will be supported into work experience provision during Key Stages 4 and 5