St Matthew's CofE Primary SchoolCDAT
St Matthew's is a Church of England school in the Diocese of Chester.
The Church of England is the national church of this country and has always been involved in education. St Matthew's is part of the Chester Diocesan Academies' Trust (CDAT).
The Diocese takes its role very seriously and those responsible for CDAT all have much experience of the education sector. It is chaired by Cannon Elizabeth Renshaw who also chairs the body responsible for the 117 church schools in the Diocese and is herself the chair of an academy.
With changes in the law, the Diocese, proud of its historical involvement in its church schools and determined to support them effectively in the future, decided to establish a trust that was available for church schools to join if they became academies. This is Chester Diocesan Academies' Trust (CDAT)
Academies are publicly-funded schools that operate outside of local authority control. The government describes them as independent, state-funded schools. They are funded directly by central government, instead of receiving their funds via a local authority. They receive the same funding per pupil as other schools but receive additional money which would previously have been held back by the local authority to provide extra services across all schools. Essentially, academies have more freedom over their finances and the services they buy, the school year, teachers' pay and conditions, admissions and the curriculum. Children still have to sit national tests and academies are inspected by Ofsted.
In a multi-academy trust, such as CDAT, the trust has overall responsibility for the education of the children and a local governing body is then established to manage the school on a 'day to day' basis. Some members of the governing body are appointed by CDAT and others will be elected by parents.
For further information please contact CDAT using the details below or follow the link to the CDAT website.
Chester Diocesan Academies' Trust
Room 518
The Heath Business and Technical Park
Runcorn
WA7 4QX
Tel. 01928 245500
Website www.cdat.co.uk
Please click here to visit the CDAT website.