Message from our Headteacher

Welcome to Elms Bank! We are a diverse, happy community with a shared vision of "Excellence for All". We strive to ensure all our students achieve their potential regardless of their starting points, using innovative and aspirational strategies to increase their resilience and confidence. We are ambitious for our students and totally committed to supporting them to overcome their barriers to learning and develop into young adults who are able to live fulfilling and happy lives in modern Britain. Our students join one of our highly personalised Pathways when they come to us and receive expert teaching and pastoral care to meet their diverse needs. We are incredibly proud of them and celebrate their achievements widely.

I am privileged and very proud to lead a highly skilled and dedicated staff team who are completely committed to ensuring that our students access the very best educational experiences, and who also foster their wider interests and talents beyond the classroom. We invest heavily in the professional development of our staff to ensure that they have the skills and knowledge they need to give our wonderful students outstanding education and pastoral care. Our students flourish in the classroom and beyond, with diverse opportunities such as Supported Internships, joining our wonderful school choir or by playing their part in our annual whole-school Stage Show.

We are delighted to be part of a family of schools within the Oak Learning Partnership. Oak Learning Partnership is passionate about inclusion and improving the life chances of all children within the Trust. As a school in the Trust, we pride ourselves on being a welcoming school with a strong emphasis on pastoral care, alongside a rigorous academic education tailored to the needs of the individual.

We pride ourselves on our overwhelming sense of family and community, where every staff member leads with integrity and compassion to achieve ‘Excellence for All’. I hope you find our website useful and informative, and please contact us if we can provide any further guidance or support.

Gemma Parkes

Headteacher

Oak Learning Partnership

Oak Learning Partnership Trust is the overseeing charitable organisation of a family of schools in the Bury area of Greater Manchester. By working together each school gets significant support to be the best they can be for their learners and communities. Our Trust is committed to improving the life chances of children and young people through the delivery of an excellent, well-rounded education. At Oak we are passionate about inclusion; this is at the heart of our ethos and is a consistent focus in all our schools. We understand that high-quality teaching and support can transform lives and communities. The business and operational support provided by the central team of Oak Learning Partnership allows leaders in schools to focus their attention on ensuring teaching is consistently excellent.

Our schools work closely with one another: they collaborate, support each other and share collective systems across both educational and business provisions. But it’s also important to us that each school has individuality. The CEO and Trustees set highly-ambitious targets, not putting a ceiling on what our staff and young people can achieve. We understand that leaders need autonomy to be accountable for performance and to create schools which serve their communities’ specific needs.

As a Trust we are keen not to over-complicate our approach and we recognize that more often than not, doing the simple things extremely well, consistently, makes the biggest difference to our young people and ensures there is a clarity in what we do.

We are committed to developing partnerships which will contribute to strengthening our current schools. Oak LP and all its partners will always be underpinned by our driving priority: our strong moral purpose which enables us to provide a truly inclusive education.

If you would like to know more about our Trust please visit our website at oaklp.co.uk.