Our Mission

The South West Academic Trust is a partnership of leading grammar schools in the South West and the University of Exeter. Our vision is to work together to raise achievement and aspiration within our schools and across the region. Each school will seek to continue and extend existing partnerships with community schools, sharing and embedding good practice and innovation in order to contribute to raising standards and achievement.

The involvement of the University of Exeter as a research intensive university creates opportunities for research and practice to come together to inform further developments in teaching and learning. The University will also support the Trust schools and the partner community schools in their efforts to prepare students for transition to higher education. The Trust will seek to build upon and extend links with partners from business and the wider community in the South West.

In particular, the Trust is collaborating in several areas that we hope will have a direct impact on the way our schools work:

  • Subject Department links: our Heads of Department have been meeting together to explore links within their subjects, to share good practice and plan further collaborative work. Other departmental staff will become involved as the networks develop.
  • Gifted and Talented Research: one of the themes for the Trust is ‘How to challenge the exceptionally able student’. Gifted & Talented Co-ordinators meet together to compare G&T policies and practices and to plan further collaboration to best support this group of students.
  • Continuing Professional Development of our staff: to investigate ways in which the Trust schools can work together to support, develop and retain talented staff.
  • Activities with pupils: projects and events that support and engage pupils across the partnership.
  • Links with community schools: we are also working collaboratively with our local community schools and are sharing our expertise and learning from them in equal measure. Links are being made between teachers and with the students both at primary and secondary levels.

SWAT Collaboration website

Check out the new SWAT Collaboration website. The website features blog posts from the latest SWAT meetings, news and information on the SWAT annual conference.

www.swat.education.