We believe that education should be deep, knowledge-based and challenging. We are focused on implementing the ‘One Trust’ way across all stages in order to achieve this.

This includes ensuring that children are taught an interesting, stimulating and challenging curriculum by inspiring experts, with disadvantage not determining outcome.

We also believe that all children within our Trust should have access to a broad range of enrichment opportunities. We are continuing to develop our outstanding enrichment and acclaimed partnerships, particularly in sports.

“Sport is an essential aspect of life at our academies. The importance of sports and games in school encompasses more than just the benefit of physical activity. It increases self-esteem, highlights the importance of team work and engages and motivates young people. Our flagship sporting programmes include the Horizons Programme, which develops PE teaching, improves assessment and learning, and rewards pupils for the progress they make in learning key sporting skills. Our intra-trust tournaments which take place every year see over 1500 students take part in a celebration of competitive sport. At the annual Summer Cup, students compete in 7 sports and are able to meet a plethora of Olympians who inspire and motivate them throughout. These are experiences our students aspire to be part of and will never forget. We want to inspire all our young people to get active and participate in these opportunities while they’re part of the Trust. Ensuring they enjoy all the additional benefits from participating in sport and physical activity will prepare them to have an active lifestyle for the rest of their lives.”

The Trust is extremely proud to offer such a wide range of clubs and sports which all our pupils can access in secondary academies. Our secondary academies run an average of 1500 fixtures a year, and over 1180 extra-curricular club sessions a term with more than 135,000 student visits to these throughout the academic year.

We're proud to say this means our academies offer their pupils the opportunity to be more active, more often throughout their time with them.

These statistics highlight not just the volume of clubs and opportunities on offer, but that more students are selecting to take part in them. They are also inspired by the quality of coaching that they receive so that they keep coming back.

This is testament to the dedication of staff and the Trust's partnerships with quality local clubs, without whom the coaching opportunities would be restricted.

“At DRET, providing excellent sporting opportunities is a core part of who we are as a trust. We focus heavily on sports and enrichment opportunities because children with broad horizons enjoy improved attendance, are better equipped for the workplace, become better world citizens and perform better in their studies. This includes aligning enrichment with our curriculum to ensure the greatest impact and continuing to develop the case of enrichment to transform outcomes and drive social mobility.”