From dread to pure excitement: How one Trust looks forward to "Robin Day”
We spoke to the team at Athena Learning Trust, one of the first MATs to subscribe to Robin last September, who are hoping to reach 100% compliance this year.
Georgina, Head of Governance & Compliance, tells us how Robin’s helped with Ofsted preparation, reporting to Trustees and has been the best investment she’s made; whilst Jess, Marketing Officer, explains how she uses Robin day-to-day, what the impact is and why she feels a lot less stressed.
Athena Learning Trust and Robin
Tell us about your Trust
Georgina: Our Trust has nine schools - six secondary and three primary schools across Devon and Cornwall. Our Shared Service offices are based in Launceston, right in the middle.
Our motto is that, “we provide world-class education so that we all lead great lives.”
How has Robin made an impact?
Before Robin
Jess: I would set aside 2 days in my calendar to work on compliance, which involved manually checking websites, speaking to schools and getting them to make changes. It was time consuming and just generally quite stressful - I felt like I was always chasing my tail and would wonder if I’d correctly understood all of the requirements.
Now
I look forward to “Robin Day” when I get the report. I’ll immediately check the stats and the progress. [Photos below] I’ll spend maybe a morning checking the results and then send what needs updating to our schools.
The Impact
We’ve gone from our schools being around 75% compliant to most of our schools now at 80-90%, with 4 schools at 99% and 100% compliant!
Georgina: The goal for the end of the academic year is for every school to be at 100% compliant, and Robin is really helping us with that.
[Photo 1: Athena Learning Trust compliance check history (after each half-termly review run)]
How else has Robin supported you?
Georgina: In preparation for Ofsted.
We’ve had a couple of Ofsted inspections since Robin. Previously I would have been all over the school websites the day before checking that everything is in place that should be.
When we had an inspection recently, I quickly looked at Robin’s section on Ofsted. The school had one thing missing, we could give an answer for why that was, and then, I just carried on with the rest of my work for the day. So it’s a lot less stressful!
Jess: For me, it’s peace of mind. If anyone asked me, “Are your websites compliant?” I’d be comfortable saying, “Yes, we are here, but not here, because of this.”
I’m not worried about it anymore. It just ticks over nicely in the background.
Georgina: We have the review run day in our diaries as “Robin Day”. We all get so excited about it - we love it!
How would you describe Robin to another Trust?
It’s a time saver, it’s robust and good value for money - it just gives us that complete assurance.
Using Robin day-to-day
How are you supporting your schools to get to 100% compliant?
Jess: After every Robin review run I check the data and then share it with our schools.
School staff are all very busy, so I’ve found communication is key and making sure that the information is being cascaded down to the right person to make the change.
When schools have made the changes, I update the result in Robin, meaning the school’s website compliance % improves. It’s great seeing that progress instead of waiting for the next review run.
[Photo 2: Screenshot of how you can manually change Robin’s judgement to reflect real-time website status.]
Currently you don’t share Robin access with your schools. Why is that?
Georgina: I feel that my role, with my team’s support, is to lead on compliance at our Trust.
So it’s my responsibility to let schools know: how they can improve, where the gaps are and what they need to do - so our headteachers can just get on with running their schools.
We don’t want them sat behind computer screens chasing someone on publishing results data, for example. We want them on the ground, in corridors, in classrooms, engaging with staff, pupils and families.
[Note: Robin has different access levels giving you the flexibility for all staff to see Trust-wide information, or the ability to restrict data, so just Headteachers can see their school’s Robin results.]
You get your Robin review run at the start of every half-termly - does that work for you?
Georgina: Definitely! It’s usually the first day back after half time and gets the term off really nicely. It means we can spend the tail end of the term tidying up anything that’s missing, to make sure that we get it in time for that deadline.
It also works well with reporting to trustees, which happens each half term. It means I have a few weeks to prepare the report and give some commentary.
What’s next?
How are you going to use Robin over the next few terms?
Georgina: Because of the work Robin does for us, we’ve now got capacity to proactively look ahead to future compliance deadlines.
We can work backwards and start reminding schools in September that their Pupil Premium statements need to be published before Christmas, for example. And then support schools to make those updates ahead of time.
We also want to keep sharing the school comparison data, which is in a nice format, to increase healthy competition between our schools. As we want all our schools to be 100% compliant.
[Photo 3: Athena Learning Trusts school-level website check results]
What would you like to see Robin do in the future?
Georgina: Definitely the Trust website check! That will really help me, because I’ve just written my strategic plan for next year and I’ve said I want to be 100% compliant on our Trust’s website and policies.
Possibly some sort of Robin certification would be quite cool. We use Robin and are confident with it, but would Ofsted be satisfied? Maybe we could have some sort of badge that we could put on our websites, so you could say, “This website is supported by Robin and x% compliant”, that would be great further validation.
[Note: Trust website check is currently in testing mode but is available to our customers with a subscription.]
Do you use AI in other ways at work?
Yes, we use AI in a number of ways to save time and be more efficient. As a Trust we’re encouraged to try it and test its boundaries.
Anything else to add?
Georgina: Robin is the best investment we’ve made. It’s really, really good.
Jess: I used to dread website compliance, and the days of work I’d have booked out, and now I actually look forward to the day we get the results, with the stats.
Georgina: It’s a complete mindset shift! It’s no longer dread, it’s pure excitement! We’re excited for the data, and on Robin Day it’s a morning to celebrate!
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Find out more about Athena Learning Trust and you can follow Georgina on LinkedIn.