WOOLMER Hill is one of four local schools that have officially joined forces as Weydon Multi-Academy Trust (WMAT) to boost their “fire power”.

The Haslemere school and three Farnham schools – Weydon, Farnham Heath End and The Ridgeway – took the step in order to gain benefits that can be achieved by joint planning, senior staff support and sharing best practice.

Celebrating the new partnership at the launch event, WMAT chief executive officer and Weydon headteacher John Winter said: “Our ambition is clear – to make WMAT a trust that is outstanding both for the students, but also for the staff that work here within it.

“We should not, however, underestimate the core objective of our trust which is to bring a focus and harder edge to the process of improving our schools and hence the life chances of the students we educate. We also need to understand and manage the increasing pressures facing all our staff.

“Education faces significant challenges at the moment in the form of funding shortfalls, dealing with rapid change, interpreting the sometimes varying decisions of central government.

“This is in addition to understanding the sort of world in which our students must be able to succeed.

“Our trust, while maintaining the unique character of each of our schools, must be able to ensure we take a collective approach to improving performance putting the students and staff at the centre of decision making criteria.”

Woolmer Hill launched a consultation with staff, parents and other interested parties on forming a multi-academy trust with the three Farnham-based schools, last June. Following support for WMAT, governors from each of the four schools created a board of trustees.

The aim is that each school will contribute its own strengths and, together, increase investment opportunities to help raise standards and performance across all four.

They are now part of a multi-academy trust movement that is growing rapidly across the country.

As more schools join together to create MATs, local authorities look set to play a less significant role in the school system. But they will continue to be responsible for ensuring every child has a school place with funding from government to manage admissions and transport.

Local councils will also ensure the needs of vulnerable pupils are met, including providing for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

They will also continue to act as champions for all parents and families, by supporting parents and students going through the admissions process and, where necessary, discussing underperformance with the rural school commissioners.

The Government hopes MATs will be more successful than local authorities at creating and supporting high-performing schools and tackling under achieving ones.