Trinity School/Quest Academy CEP Partnership
Upon their formation and emagalmation in the Coloma-Quest trust there was a need for Outdoor and Leadership style educational provision for Quest students. The Trinity School contingent welcomes staff and students from Quest Academy to participate in CCF weekly at Trinity. Students benefit from the use of our resources as well as from the camps and expeditions that Trinity's own students enjoy as part of the CCF.
Aims
The Quest Academy-Coloma Trust is much smaller than most secondary schools, but is growing rapidly. Quest became a sponsored academy as part of the Coloma Trust in September 2010. The proportion of EAL, disabled, SEND and pupil premium pupils in the academy is above the national average.
Opportunities for learning skills and attributes in a range of new environments and working with Trinity students is aimed at enabling students from Quest to develop in a number of ways. For some, this has meant raising aspirations and academic performance and for others their confidence and their social skills. Quest is not currently in a position to maintain it's own CCF and so it's continued partnmership with Trinity is essential for our students.
Background
Trinity was approached by staff from Quest-Academy Coloma Trust in a bid for support from Trinity School under Cadet Expansion Progamme; an initiative aimed at getting contingents started in state-maintained schools. Trinity was originally approached to take on a CEP for a 2 year support partnership. The partnership is now in its seventh year.
Resources
The partnership is staffed by one member of staff from Quest Academy and the remaining staff come from the MoD and from the teaching staff of Trinity School; including the heads of each section and the SSI who occupies a non-teaching role at Trinity School.
The partnership utilises Trinity School's shooting sange; swimming pool and climbing wall. All of the costs for these resources are funded by Trinity School. However, a contribution is made by Quest Academy to support the places of their cadets.
Impact
The CCF syllabus qualification and Rank system both fulfil the role of more quantitative assessment however, the broader value lies in the qualitative benefit to many students:
Without the support of Trinity School CCF, it would not have been possible to introduce and develop a CCF at The Quest Academy.
Cadets from The Quest benefitted from the specialist provision available at Trinity School in a wide range of activities: these included horse riding, archery, field craft, and scuba diving as well as traditional army cadet activities.
Over the last academic year, our cadets have experienced significant changes to the way in which they learn outside the classroom.
Our first female cadet to attend New Recruits Camp was one of our students who benefitted from first aid training at Trinity school: initially she aspired to become a paramedic. She has returned to our sixth form having excelled academically in all subjects and has now raised her aspirations to become a doctor. The experiences provided by Trinity school staff have been very significant for her.
One of our cadets attended the NCO training during the Autumn Term and has progressed to the role of Lance Corporal. This has been hugely beneficial for our junior cadets: he takes an active role in leading them and is an excellent role model for them.
Pupil Involvement
All of the students involved are aged between 13 and 18. In broad terms, the composition of the cadet body is 75% Trinity School students to 25% Quest Academy students. Cadets are drawn from both genders althought the all boys nature of Trinity School, until Sixth Form, means that there is a heavier weighting to male cadets.
Frequency
CCF runs runs every Monday evening, during term time for approximately two hours.
In addition there are two week long camps offered a year and 3 'Field Days' which involve a day and sometimes more on exercise. The section also holds more occasional 'Nitex' exercises.
As things currently stand, there is no defined period to the duration of the partnership.