Mission 

Aurora exists to provide opportunity and create success for all our pupils. 

Vision 

• Aurora is dedicated to providing the best possible standard of education to pupils in our nursery, primary and secondary schools across the south-east of England. 

• As a trust, we are committed to doing everything we can to support our schools and pupils to achieve personal excellence. 

• We want pupils to leave our schools achieving their potential and enjoying learning with the ambition, resilience, curiosity and self-belief for success in life. 

• Our ambition is for all our schools to be excellent and inclusive schools serving their local communities with achievement levels above similar schools nationally. 

• Over the next five years Aurora plans to grow because we want to support more schools and pupils. 

How we work together as a group of schools 

Collaboration lies at the heart of the work of Aurora. Each Aurora school has its own unique identity and place in its local community. However, we have developed common approaches in key areas that contribute to our collective improvement.  

The Aurora Approach 

We asked our school leaders, staff and local academy boards what sort of trust we are and what it was like to work at Aurora, and this is what they said: 

• We are ambitious as a trust - we all share an aim to get better at what we do – this is shared by all staff working across the trust and driven from the top by trustees. 

• We have a strong track record of impact –all our schools are good or outstanding schools. We have developed and agreed key elements of our school improvement approach that have worked in supporting our schools to improve. 

• We focus on the children and communities we serve – we are a civic institution that make a strong contribution to all the communities we serve from towns and cities to rural areas and coastal communities. We strive to provide fantastic pastoral care and extra-curricular opportunities to help pupils achieve excellence in all that they do. 

• We believe in deep and purposeful collaboration – we work together and learn from each other to make things better for our pupils, communities, and staff. We learn from other schools and trusts and our schools are all part of local partnerships. 

• We support and challenge each other to improve – we share a collective responsibility for the outcomes for all our schools and pupils; what goes with that is a genuine willingness to offer help and support whenever it is needed. 

• We have developed shared and effective practice in key areas like the curriculum - this common practice is reinforced through shared professional learning and development. At the same time, we recognise and respect the unique characteristics of our schools and they have lots of freedom to decide what works best for them. 

• We are strongly committed to supporting and developing all of our staff – including growing our own teaching assistants, teachers and leaders and there are lots of professional development opportunities for staff at all levels. 

• We are part of a global partnership which gives opportunities to staff and students - our sponsor, Pansophic Learning, runs schools internationally in the US, Dubai, Switzerland and Africa. This provides opportunities for professional and cultural development for our staff and students. 

Aurora Academies Trust is proudly sponsored by Pansophic Learning, a global education organisation that supports schools around the world, both brick-and-mortar and online schools in the United States, Dubai, Switzerland and Africa. 

Being part of the Pansophic network means we can connect with schools across the globe to share ideas and best practice and learn from each other. This includes: 

• Opportunities for staff and leadership exchanges—such as our teacher exchange programme with a school in Colorado. 

• Access to international learning and development for staff and pupils. 

• Free expert support from Pansophic's global teams in areas such as IT, marketing and professional development. 

Pansophic also supports our governance, with three representatives on Aurora’s Board of Trustees, including the Chair. This strengthens our strategic thinking and brings international expertise and insights to our work — while keeping leadership rooted in our communities here in England. 

Aurora is a charitable education Trust and is fully accountable to the Department for Education. The Trust makes its own decisions and is supported by Pansophic to focus on delivering excellent education for the children in our communities. 

Academies receive funding directly from the government and are run by an academy trust. They have more control over how they do things than community schools. Academies do not charge fees.

Academies are inspected by Ofsted. They have to follow the same rules on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions as other state schools and students sit the same exams.

Academies have more control over how they do things but are held to the same standards and expectations as all state schools.

Academy trusts are not-for-profit companies. They employ the staff and have trustees who are responsible for the performance of the academies in the trust.Double Click To Change The Link