THE organisation that runs Downend School and Mangotsfield School has merged with another educational trust.
Castle School Education Trust (CSET) and The Priory Learning Trust (TPLT) officially joined together at the start of the academic year in September to form Pathway Trust.
The new organisation is responsible for 11,000 pupils aged from four to 18, in a total of 20 schools in South Gloucestershire, North Somerset, and Somerset.
Schools that were part of CSET in the area also include Lyde Green Primary School, Cherry Garden Primary in Willsbridge and two other secondary schools, Castle in Thornbury and Marlwood in Alveston.
Former Priory Learning Trust schools include three secondaries in North Somerset and Somerset, Priory, Worle and King Alfred.
The chief executive of the merged trust is Will Roberts, who was head teacher at Downend School from 2012, before becoming chief executive of CSET in 2016.
He has also been part-time chief executive of TPLT since 2023, with responsibility for all of the schools now in Pathway Trust, during three years of “successful formal collaboration” between the two organisations.
Mr Roberts said: “Coming together as a single family of schools is central to our shared ambition of achieving a great education for every child.
“Through working together, we have significantly improved outcomes in recent years.
“Across a larger trust, we can more easily connect colleagues and direct resources where they make the biggest impact.”
The new trust says the merger will enable it to improve education through its “regional school network”, allowing greater collaboration between schools.
It also says merging its central services provision will enable it to provide “stronger operational support at a lower cost through improved purchasing power, allowing savings to be directly reinvested into schools and professional development”.
The new trust has more than 1,500 staff, and says it is expanding initiatives to “recruit, train and retain top talent” through training, development, apprenticeships and leadership pathways.
Ahead of the merger teachers and support staff at Downend School and Mangotsfield School held four days of strikes in a dispute with CSET management.
Members of the National Education Union said concerns over “excessive workload”, “inappropriate direction of staff” and “lack of consultation on important working arrangements” had not been addressed by the trust, and said more strike action could follow.
The NEU is calling for an increase in staffing capacity, and has raised concerns over a move away from South Gloucestershire term dates and a new curriculum being introduced this academic year.