Join our family – BDAT are welcoming conversations with schools in Bradford and the surrounding areas who may wish to consider joining our family.
BDAT was established in 2012 by the Diocese of Leeds to work with church and non-church schools who might benefit and be interested in joining an Academy Trust.
We have historically worked with Bradford based schools but following our successful growth and school improvement track record over the last decade, we are now keen to extend our reach to welcome both church and non-church schools across neighbouring areas including Leeds, Kirklees, Calderdale and North Yorkshire.
We believe that through genuine school to school collaboration and shared values, we can be stronger and more effective by working together and sharing good practice.
We believe we have the systems, the structures and the capacity to continue to help more schools within our Trust.
If you think you are a school which would fit in our family of schools and help strengthen our family further we are very keen to hear from you.
Simply email Emma.Williamson@bdat-academies.org and we can start our conversation today.
If you are undecided and want to find out a bit more first we hope that this page provides helpful information:
Finally a couple of FAQs:
Q. Are you only looking to work with schools in Bradford?
A. Well we are “Bradford” Diocesan Academies Trust and we are committed to making a difference to children in Bradford, but we also believe we have the skills, track record and capacity to benefit children beyond Bradford borders. However we don’t want to get too big or geographically diverse as we believe one of the strengths in our model is schools and staff being able to work across and support schools. We are therefore limiting conversations to schools in neighbouring authorities including North Yorkshire, Calderdale, Kirklees and Leeds.
Q. What about non-church schools?
A. BDAT is a mixed MAT. We currently have both church and non-church schools in our family. What we think is more important is that, regardless of designation, all our schools share the same vision and ethos to provide great education and be a good employer for our staff team.
Q. How big are you going to get?
A. The BDAT board have committed to slow and steady growth – probably only one or two schools per year. We don’t want to grow so fast we can’t offer the same level of support for our current family. The Board will review growth annually and we are not worried about stopping growing if we feel we need to pause.
Q. What happens if we meet and decide BDAT is not right for my school?
A. This is just an invitation to an initial conversation. If we are to work together long term you need to be sure you are making the right decision and we need to do the same – we want a long term partnership based on mutual respect, shared values and vision and trust. Academy conversion is a long process, usually taking a good 12 months from initial conversation through to conversion and it includes consultation and numerous conversations with the Department for Education, Diocese of Leeds (for church schools) your governors and BDAT Trustees along the way.