Welcome from the Chair

Welcome to the Brunel Academies Trust – The Brunel Family.  We are a group of provisions which having originally been established to support children and young people who have significant special education needs, has now expanded in the mainstream of education.  That expansion has been undertaken deliberatively as a part of our integration strategy.  To be able to work with the mainstream provisions with any credibility, we realised we needed to be doing so directly within our trust.  A core belief of ours is that no child of school age should be excluded from education.  That means that there needs to be a means of supporting young people who for a wide range of reasons, often circumstantial, are struggling to engage within mainstream settings and for those with lower level special needs who are in mainstream. To do that means playing our part based on extensive experience equipping classroom teachers with the necessary skills; sharing our knowledge and expertise as widely as possible.  We are therefore delighted that Westlea Primary School in Swindon has now joined us. 

Teaching is a highly skilled profession.  As a Trust we value the professionalism and dedication of our teachers and classroom assistants, together with all our wonderful support teams.  We believe in and support career development and training and take special delight when one of our teaching assistants progresses to qualify as a classroom teacher.  When we talk about “No barriers, only potential”, that applies to all in our Brunel family, pupils and staff.

The Profession has been tested during the past three years in a way that has not happened before in living memory.  Managing through the Pandemic crisis was very difficult for all concerned, coping with work, home and all forms of demands that were unprecedented.  Now we have the cost of living crisis to face combined with severe funding issues in all forms of public service.  May I say thank you from the bottom of my heart to every adult involved with our family, whether in school or at home, for all the resilience and dedication you have shown as we have gone through this last period together.  I can but ask you to continue and stay with us as we get through this next testing time.  Brunel will provide the very best education, training and development for all its pupils that it is able to do within the funding constraints that we have.  We will also continue with our outreach support to our neighbouring schools and colleagues.

With my very best wishes to all involved with this Brunel family.

William Wyldbore-Smith
Chair of Brunel Academies Trust