Difficulties accessing appropriate alternative provision (AP) have been a barrier to reducing suspensions, a multi-academy trust has said.
Astrea Academy Trust, which has 26 schools across Yorkshire and the East of England, faced “legacy challenges” last year with “lower-than-average attendance and persistently high exclusion rates”, it says in its
“Both fixed-term suspensions and permanent exclusion rates in the trust remained high in the reporting year, showing that students were disrupting learning and too often missing out on their own education as a result,” Astrea’s accounts state.
“Difficulties in accessing appropriate alternative provision remain a barrier to reducing suspensions,” the trust adds.
Astrea’s efforts to reduce suspensions
However, despite suspensions remaining high in the trust, particularly in Astrea’s South Yorkshire schools, it saw suspensions fall by 14 per cent compared with 2022-23.
Astrea says that focusing on “building a culture of belonging”, reducing suspensions and investing in alternative pathways for students have helped the trust start 2024-25 strongly.
Tomas Thurogood-Hyde, the trust’s director of corporate services, said it had set up an internal provision in Doncaster to allow it to reduce suspensions. The “Step Out” provision has 30 places and gives students placements for between six and 12 weeks.
So far the trust’s efforts have contributed to suspensions falling by a third across its secondary schools during 2024-25, he added.
Schools across the country have been dealing with higher absence and exclusion rates since the Covid pandemic.
The number of suspensions and permanent exclusions across the country rose by a third in autumn term 2023-24. However, analysis by FFT Education Datalab suggests the rate of increase is beginning to slow.
A 2024 Tes investigation found that AP was dealing with a crisis caused by rising exclusions, a soaring demand for places and an increasing struggle to return pupils to mainstream schools. In a survey in January 2024 by the National Organisation of Pupil Referral Units and Alternative Provision, often known as PRUsAP, 62 per cent of AP leaders said their setting was full by 6 December 2023.
Astrea’s accounts highlight a failure to “secure rapid improvement in attendance, including through reduced exclusions” as one of the risks it has been facing.
To mitigate this, the trust says it has developed child-level exclusion plans in primaries and whole-school approaches under its behaviour and culture framework at secondary level.
Recruitment challenges
Another key risk that Astrea says it faces is labour market pressure driven by falling teacher trainee numbers, inflation and pay competitiveness.
To address this, the trust says it will continue funding a 1 per cent pay advantage over national rates for teachers.
Rowena Hackwood, CEO at Astrea, earned £190,001-£200,000 in 2023-24, up from £180,001-£190,000 in 2022-23. The trust gave support staff a pay rise of the higher of £1,920 or 6.5 per cent in 2023-24, it says, adding that the CEO was included as a member of support staff for this purpose.
Also in its accounts, Astrea says that, typically, new schools joining the trust need “bridge funding” for one or two years. This averages at around £50,000 for a primary school and £500,000 for a secondary transition school, the trust says.
At the moment the trust has “no specific plans for changes to its academy portfolio”.
Astrea moved to a “GAG pooling” (pooling of its schools’ general annual grant funding) model from 2022-23, which it has used to set school budgets since 2023-24.
It has also centralised costs for areas such as ICT staff, energy procurement and HR in order “to achieve efficiencies and create professional development pathways”.
‘Strong financial position’
Mr Thurogood-Hyde said that GAG pooling had allowed the trust to make strategic spending decisions, such as funding growing schools by estimating what they need.
He added that the trust is in a “strong financial position”, saying that “smaller trusts haven’t had the advantage of these economies of scale, though we only achieve them by targeting a highly efficient model.
“That said, we prioritise school improvement and those areas of spending which will make the biggest difference to children,” he said. “As such, we target a ‘break-even plus’ position and only add modestly to our reserves.”
One of Astrea’s schools, Ernulf Academy in Cambridgeshire, had previously been “requires improvement” before Ofsted headline grades were removed; it has now received “good” across all areas, the trust adds.
Ernulf was Astrea’s remaining school that had not received a “good” or better judgement from Ofsted before headline grades were removed. Atlas Academy, in Doncaster, was judged “good” across all areas in October 2024.
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