About us

Our vision

LETTA Trust schools are committed to working in partnership and learning from each other. Together we strive to give children the best chance of happiness and success at school and beyond; to growing active citizens with a strong moral compass who want to make a positive difference in the world. Our vision is a promise to our pupils; our values determine how we work together.

Our vision is that every child in every school in our trust:

  • Loves learning, achieves their very best, has fun at school and feels excited about the future
  • Knows how to make friends and get along well with people; to treat them with fairness, compassion and respect
  • Grows healthy and strong, believes in themselves and has the confidence and resilience to follow their dreams
  • Feels part of their community, proud of their school and inspired to make a positive difference in the world

Our values

Our values determine how we work together:

Aspiration

Innovation

Equality

Generosity

Ubuntu

Our guiding principle is the philosophy of Ubuntu; a southern African philosophy that speaks of our interconnectedness, of the importance of relationships, of openness and generosity to one another.

“Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?”

“I am who I am because of who we all are.”

History of the partnership

The LETTA Trust is born of a history of collaborative working between schools and community partners. Bygrove is a founder member of the Poplar Partnership group of schools. Set up by headteachers in 2001, these schools worked effectively together and steadily improved the quality of education for young people in Poplar.

 In 2013 Bygrove received a teaching school designation, expanded its partnership working and established the London East Teacher Training Alliance or LETTA. Working with around 20 East London school partners, LETTA trains approximately 50 new teachers annually and oversees a varied professional learning and school improvement offer.

Stebon began working with Bygrove in 2012 at a point when pupil outcomes had been below national floor targets for 10 years. Teachers and leaders worked and learned together and the partnership went from strength to strength. The impact on both schools was powerful, so much so that in 2017 they entered into a formal partnership and The LETTA Trust was born.

Our strategic plan

The Trust’s strategic plan reflects our achievements so far, the current priorities of the Trust and our openness to future growth. It confirms our commitment to social equality for the children and families in our school communities. It sets out the route-map to fulfilling our vision so that the children in our schools achieve excellent educational outcomes and are well-prepared for a happy and fulfilling life.

Several key themes run throughout the plan:

  • Looking forward, we wish to continue to reflect the LETTA values in our curriculum and offer a rich learning experience in which creativity and personal development thrive.
  • We aim to strengthen the relationship between schools and enable staff to work together to ensure the best possible learning for our young people; supporting each other by sharing educational practice.
  • We remain committed to giving the highest priority to professional development and bespoke school improvement support. We intend to build further on the excellent foundations laid down in recent years by the LETTA Teaching School Alliance.
  • Being part of a collaboration offers a range of leadership opportunities. We wish to nurture inspirational leadership at all levels across the Trust and encourage the development of those in governance, executive leadership, school leadership and aspiring future leaders also.
  • Our intention is to free up school leaders to focus on the children and families in their community and the quality of education in their schools. As such, we will continue to develop our central operations team so that each school benefits from highly professional business services.
 
 

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Trust partners

Click each partner below to find out more information.

Connecting communities partnership project

Connecting Communities is a digital inclusion partnership project. The project aims to give eligible families a great internet connection, a device and IT training to use these things safely and effectively.

When lockdown started, we realised the importance to families of having a really good internet connection in their homes and access to the right devices, both for their children’s education and also to access other services online. Where children cannot access online learning, already existing attainment gaps widen rapidly. Families with access to really good IT are at a significant advantage.

The project was jointly initiated by us at the LETTA Trust and Poplar HARCA, a local housing association partner. It is now jointly funded by partners including the Eastend Community Foundation and the Tower Hamlets Local Authority. The Lehman Brothers Foundation, Morgan Stanley volunteers and Citi have also donated funding to the project.

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