King's Group Academies Newsletter

King’s Group Academies Newsletter Winter 2021 A message from Nick Cross, CEO Dear Colleagues I would like to begin by thanking you all for your hard work this term. It has been challenging dealing with COVID cases which have affected staff, children and young people in equal measure. Your resilience is inspiring! As I write, we have just completed our King ’ s Group Academies Leadership Conference. It was great to bring the senior leadership teams from all our academies together to think about how we take our Trust forward. One particular area of focus was the theme of Wellbeing. It is an extremely important area for us, as well as providing an outstanding education for our children and young people, we also want you to work in an exciting environment and to know and feel that that your well - being is of the utmost importance. I would like to wish everyone a restful and safe Christmas break. Very best wishes Nick Cross KING ’ S GROUP ACADEMY CENTRAL TEAM Dear Colleagues, The Christmas break is traditionally a time to relax, spending time with family and friends. This year I am sure many of you are looking forward to this more than ever. I think also, we are all keeping our fingers crossed that the new COVID variant will not impact on this. Since I arrived at King ’ s Group Academies at the end of August, I have been continually struck by the high level of committed and professionalism of our people. Each and every one of our employees has an important job to do and I know how very hard you have all been working during 2021 to put the needs of children across the Trust first. The pandemic has gone on for so much longer than we thought. Putting others ’ needs first at home and at work can be incredibly draining over a long period of time. I have spoken with many colleagues about the things we can do here at KGA to support staff to build back their resilience and where possible, remove things that can trigger stress. I want to assure you that this will continue to be one of my big- gest priorities in the New Year. Please look out for more opportunities to take part in discussions in 2022 about safety, health and wellbeing. We will also be sharing information about staff benefits, talking to staff representatives and running a confidential all staff survey that will give us insights about how our people are feeling and where we can improve on wellbeing. To give you a taster of what to expect I have been chatting to the other two new colleagues in the Central Team; Paul and Klaudya, asking them what they have been up to and their plans for the new year. Take a look at page 2 to hear more from them. For now, I wanted to finish with a personal thank you to you all for the wonderful work you do. It is very much recognised and appreciated. I hope that your Christmas break goes to plan and that you are able to rest and renew for the year ahead. Stay safe and well, Lorraine Walsh HR Director I have been talking to the two newest members of the KGA Central Team to discuss the work they are planning in support of safety, health and wellbeing, please see overleaf.