Dixons Academies Trust
Pioneers Partnership SCITT is part of Dixons Academies Trust, a school trust serving communities in Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool and Greater Manchester.
At Dixons Academies Trust, we live our mission every day: to challenge educational and social disadvantage in the North. We are driven by a belief that every child, regardless of background, deserves an excellent education and the opportunity to go on to a successful and fulfilling life. Our work focuses on improving outcomes for thousands of young people in communities where the need is greatest.
Founded by Dixons City Academy, our trust has a proven track record of transforming education through high-performing academies. We now serve students and families across Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool and Greater Manchester, providing exceptional education from primary through to college.
We are proud of what we have achieved as a trust: our model combines clear alignment to our mission, values and core practices with the professional autonomy for schools to innovate. Our schools and college are anchor institutions in their communities: we don’t just educate children, we power places, anchor communities, and shape the future of our regions.
Today, Dixons educates more than 20,000 students and continues to grow responsibly, strengthening our impact and ensuring that even more young people benefit from a rigorous, joyful and transformational education.
Our Mission
Our mission is to challenge educational and social disadvantage in the North
By the age of 18, we want every student to have the choice of university or a high quality apprenticeship.
How do we behave?
Although our academies have the autonomy to choose their own vocabulary and nuance, all of them are built around the same three values that we all share:
- We work hard on the things that matter, with humility.
- We are good and kind.
- We are motivated by mastery, autonomy and purpose.
What do we do?
Within our communities, we work together to establish joyful, rigorous, high performing schools which maximise attainment, value diversity, develop character and build cultural capital.
How will we succeed?
Talent first
Our talent is our most valuable resource, where nearly 80% of our budget is invested. We deploy our most vital people in roles where they can create significant value; we free our people from bureaucratic structures; and we afford our people the training and opportunities to expand their skills.
We see talent not as innate, but as unleashed, grown and developed. People have ‘inherent growth tendencies’, the drive to be better tomorrow than today. We believe that kind, helpful and honest feedback is a gift. As leaders we want our staff to be intrinsically motivated, cultivating self-determination through our three drivers: Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose.
Academic rigour
All children are entitled to a curriculum and to the powerful knowledge which maximises life chances. Children need powerful knowledge to understand and interpret the world: without it they remain dependent upon those who have it. Our curriculum is designed to be remembered in detail, and is led by, collaborated on, and delivered by high-quality subject specialists. The curriculum is the entitlement of all and we resist parental opt-outs
Aligned autonomy
Our trust seeks the optimal balance between consistency and self-determination. We are aligned because we share the same mission and values, and because all Dixons students and staff should benefit from our best collective practice. But autonomy is also important because leadership and personal accountability are founded on ownership and self-direction, and because standardisation fails to respond to changing needs and fails to adapt to a changing environment.