Carlton Academy Trust is a Bradford-based Trust established in 2019, which has developed out of the successes of its’ founding school Carlton Bolling.  In 2014 Carlton Bolling was a Special Measures school with a daunting reputation which led it to being dubbed as ‘The Most Broken School in the Country’. It then underwent rapid improvement, which led to it being rated ‘Outstanding’ by OFSTED’ in 2017, just less than two years since being in Special Measures. Further successes soon followed, being awarded World Class Schools Quality Mark status in 2018 and the being named ‘Secondary School of the Year’ in the 2019 BBC/Pearson National teaching awards.

This remarkable turnaround led to the establishment of the Trust, so that more schools could be supported and benefit from the expertise acquired over this period.  Since then, the Trust has grown rapidly and now contains two secondary and three primary schools and has recently been invited to become one of the country’s first ‘World Class Trusts’ by the World Class Schools Quality Mark.

The Trust mission statement is ‘Excellence For All’. Although a powerful statement of intent, more important are the actions taken to achieve these aims, with the Trust genuinely aiming for the very highest standards and all schools to be rated ‘Outstanding’. To achieve these high quality levels, future Trust growth will be restricted to around 15 schools, avoiding the temptation to become a ‘mass market’ MAT. This limited scale will enable it to more effectively concentrate its resources and offer the support its schools to achieve the lofty ambitions of the Trust.