Local trust wins big at The National MAT Awards
Summit Learning Trust, has won the Community Impact Award at The National MAT Awards on the 7th of March.
The trust comprises of three secondary schools, five primary schools and a sixth form college educating over 8000 learners. All the schools are based in the Birmingham and Solihull area, which allows the trust to work closely together for the benefit of all local children, young people, and the community.
“The National MAT Awards 2024” hosted by the Multi Academy Trust Association (MATA), occur annually in London and they present awards for outstanding achievement and the great work multi academy trusts do. The Community Impact Award is given to a trust who have shown outstanding pro-activeness, development, and achievement in local community projects.
Summit won the award for their Base Camp initiative, which is an initiative designed to support their most vulnerable children, young people, and families through the current cost of living crisis and beyond. The Summit Base Camp initiative offers free support to ensure that every child and young person has the following basic needs met to enable them to achieve the highest levels of academic progress, whilst being provided with a rich educational experience.
Base Camp is part of Summit’s long-term commitment to support learners in beginning their ascent to successful, happy lives and make a positive impact on their communities.
The trust is providing:
- Free breakfast for all Summit Learning Trust children Monday-Friday
- A warm, supervised space for all learners to come to before and after school, where they can use Wi-Fi and charging points
- Health and Hygiene products
- Support for free school meal applications
- Free revision materials for all SATs and GCSE students
- Support with uniform and travel where required from local authorities
- Digital equipment and platforms to enhance learning
- Cultural experiences to prepare them for later life
- Free cultural capital experiences
Vince Green, CEO of Summit Learning Trust said:
“At Summit Learning Trust, our Base Camp offer was not put in place to win awards, but to ensure that every child and young person that we educate and care for has their basic needs met in order to go on and make high levels of academic progress. This achievement is testament to the very hard work of our staff member teams across all of our academies. With our Summit Base Camp initiative being honoured in this way, this will only motivate us to do even more to enrich the experience of our learners and further support our local communities.”
Matt Mcdermott, Founder & Chair of Advisory Board, Multi Academy Trust Association (MATA) said:
“A huge congratulations to this year’s winner of the ‘The Community Award’, which is all about pro-activeness and fresh initiatives to support the local community. Summit Learning Trust have demonstrated a very forward thinking programme, supporting local families through the cost of living crisis. Offering breakfast clubs, supervised warm hubs for independent learning and use of charging points, food pantries and digital inclusion programmes for the local community. Many of these initiatives are delivered with the help of some charitable partners. The list genuinely does go on! A huge congratulations to Summit Learning Trust on their success and deserved recognition with this award!”