Palladian Academy Trust
Enabling pupils and staff to flourish
Palladian Academy Trust has made Thrive a trust-wide commitment, creating a shared relational approach across its family of schools.
What began as a search for support in one small village primary has grown into a long-term strategy for consistency, emotional wellbeing and inclusive practice across 11 schools.
The Context
Becky Wilson, Executive Headteacher at Palladian Academy Trust, first experienced Thrive while working as a headteacher in a small village primary school.
The school had a large number of dysregulated children who were finding it difficult to cope with the day-to-day classroom environment. This had a significant impact on other children and staff, and the school sought support from the local authority.
- Location: Bath and surrounding areas
- Trust: Palladian Academy Trust
- School phases: 10 infant, junior and primary schools, and one
secondary school - Thrive introduced: 2018
Why Thrive?
Through the local authority’s behaviour support team, Becky was introduced to Thrive as a way to understand what was going on for children and how staff could support them more effectively.
For Becky, the Approach offered a different lens on behaviour. It helped staff recognise that children displaying dysregulated behaviour were not simply being “naughty”, but were often communicating an unmet need.
Supported by governors, Becky completed Thrive Licensed Practitioner training in 2018. This gave her the knowledge, language and confidence to share the Approach with her school team and embed it strategically across school life.
FROM ONE SCHOOL TO A TRUST-WIDE COMMITMENT
How Thrive was implemented
When Becky’s school joined Palladian Academy Trust in 2019, she saw that many schools were already using Thrive, but mostly in isolation.
- Becky shared the impact Thrive had made in her own school, particularly around behaviour and the management of behavioural issues.
- When Donna Tandy became CEO in September 2021, she and the wider executive team made a MAT-wide commitment to the Thrive Approach.
- The trust-wide commitment was announced at a September inset day attended by all 620 staff, including pupil-facing and non-pupil-facing colleagues.
- Thrive is now part of the trust’s expectations, with any new setting interested in joining Palladian expected to fully embrace the Approach.
- Becky leads on Thrive across the trust, supported by Licensed Practitioner Sarah Bubyer in the secondary school.
- Palladian is now working towards becoming a Thrive Multi-Academy Trust of Excellence through a two-year focus called “Thrive Together”.
Thrive is already so much part of our trust’s DNA that we expect any new settings interested in joining Palladian to fully embrace this approach.
Becky Wilson
Executive Headteacher, Palladian Academy Trust
no child left behind
Building relational routines
One simple but powerful strategy across Palladian is the daily “morning meet and greet” at the school gates and the “afternoon end and send”.
Every pupil is acknowledged at the start and end of the school day. This helps staff notice children who may otherwise be overlooked and gives them a quick sense of how pupils are feeling before the day begins.
For children arriving at school dysregulated, this early contact can make a significant difference. It allows staff to respond before difficulties gain momentum, helping children start the day calm, content and ready to learn.
Raising standards and sharing practice
A key part of the trust-wide rollout is creating consistency while still allowing each school to respond to its own community.
To support this, Becky has created a network for Palladian’s Thrive Licensed Practitioners. This gives colleagues a space to share best practice, ask questions, seek advice and build confidence.
The aim is to create a shared support system that helps raise standards across the trust.
Thrive has also influenced policy language and practice. Across Palladian, schools are revisiting what were once called “behaviour policies” and developing them into relational policies.
This change reflects a wider cultural shift: away from relying on sanctions and towards restorative conversations, relationship-building and a better understanding of what children need.
TRUST-WIDE INSIGHT THROUGH THRIVE-ONLINE
Using data to intervene earlier
All Palladian schools are creating class profiles using Thrive-Online twice a year, allowing the trust to collate and analyse data across all schools.
This helps the trust identify common themes, intervene earlier and use resources more effectively across the group.
For smaller primary schools, this shared approach is especially valuable. Where one school may struggle to access the right level of support alone, trust-wide data allows Palladian to spot patterns and put interventions in place quickly.
Thrive-Online also helps schools assess pupils against age-related expectations for social and emotional development, create action plans and evidence trends to governors, parents and Ofsted.
HELPING EVERYONE FLOURISH
Making a difference for pupils, staff and families
Whole-class profiling has helped classroom staff understand areas of need and identify practical actions they can use straight away.
For pupils, Thrive is helping them understand their own brain development and zones of regulation. This gives them a way to make sense of their struggles and use coping strategies when they need additional support.
The trust is also using Family Thrive to support parents and carers. Across Palladian, families have a wide range of needs, including communities with high levels of pupil premium, social care involvement, SEMH needs and SEND.
For Becky, Thrive is now central to the trust’s long-term vision.
Thrive is, and will continue to be, the golden thread that runs across all of the schools to support our trust vision ‘to provide excellent and equitable opportunities for everyone to flourish’.
Becky Wilson
Executive Headteacher, Palladian Academy Trust
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