Knavesmire Primary School is a much‑loved community school with a long history of strong leadership, excellent teaching, and a warm, inclusive ethos. Parents choose Knavesmire because it feels like a place where children are known as individuals, not numbers, and where staff have the freedom to do what’s right for each child.
Over the past year, however, families and staff have become increasingly concerned about decisions made by Excel Learning Trust, the multi‑academy trust (MAT) that oversees the school. These decisions have changed how Knavesmire is run, reduced support for children, and shifted power away from the people who know our children best.
This page explains the issues clearly and factually so that parents can understand what is happening and why so many families are speaking up.
Major Cuts to Teaching Assistant Support
Knavesmire Primary School’s Teaching Assistants (TAs) are essential to the school’s success. They support children with additional needs, help teachers manage classrooms effectively, and are often the trusted adult a child turns to when they’re struggling. The TA provision can set the mood for a classroom, with insufficient support resulting in overwhelmed teachers who can’t support children effectively.
Despite this, TA provision at Knavesmire Primary School has been cut to one TA shared across every two year groups, meaning a single TA is now responsible for supporting more than 120 children.
Parents are concerned because:
- Children with additional needs will receive less support
- Higher-performing children will not be challenged academically
- Teachers will have less capacity to teach effectively
- Vulnerable children may lose the trusted adults they rely on
- Every child in the school will feel the impact of reduced classroom support
This is not an isolated decision. In 2023, TAs across the trust were moved to term‑time‑only contracts, reducing their pay despite significant parent opposition. Families worry that this pattern of cuts is becoming the norm.
Publicly available financial information shows that spending on central services at the trust—which includes executive salaries—has increased, while reducing frontline support at Knavesmire Primary and other schools.
Centrally-Dictated Behaviour Policy
Knavesmire Primary School has long been recognised, including by Ofsted, for its exceptional behaviour culture, strong relationships, and emotionally safe learning environment. The most recent Ofsted report praised pupils for being polite, articulate, deeply engaged in learning, and consistently demonstrating wonderful self‑control. Staff were commended for their high expectations and the school’s ethos of “know more, be positive, care for each other, and all succeed together.”
In short, Knavesmire already had a behaviour culture that worked.
Despite this, Excel Learning Trust has introduced a new, centrally controlled behaviour system that replaces the school’s long‑established relational approach with a more rigid, compliance‑focused model. A key feature of this system is a public, colour‑coded behaviour chart displayed in classrooms.
Parents have reported significant changes in children’s emotional responses since the system was introduced, including:
- Children monitoring each other’s behaviour status rather than focusing on learning
- Well‑behaved children feeling anxious or disappointed if they don’t “move up” the chart
- Children who struggle with regulation feeling shame when “moved down,” often hiding it from parents
- Gentle check‑ins (such as a quiet word at lunchtime) being interpreted as punishment
- Increased comparison, exclusion, and low self‑esteem among pupils
These concerns are especially serious for younger children, pupils with SEND, and children who have experienced trauma, all of whom rely on emotionally safe, relationship‑based approaches to thrive.
How Does This Affect Children?
Current evidence in child development and behaviour learning consistently warns against public sanction systems such as colour charts, “name on the cloud” boards, or visible demerits. Research shows that these approaches:
- Increase anxiety and shame
- Reduce intrinsic motivation
- Damage relationships between children and adults
- Disproportionately affect pupils with SEND or trauma histories
- Widen inequalities rather than closing them
What Parents Are Asking For
Parents are asking for decisions to be grounded in evidence, shaped by the school’s expertise, and aligned with Knavesmire Primary School’s values. We want teachers to have autonomy to manage their classrooms and be supported by well-paid teaching assistants.
Specifically, families are calling for:
- Provision of at least one TA per year group
- A clear explanation of the evidence behind the new behaviour system and curriculum changes
- A review of public behaviour charts, especially for younger children
- Separation of behaviour management from reward systems
- Genuine collaboration between the trust, school staff, and parents when major changes are proposed
Parents want to work with the school to protect the joyful, emotionally safe, academically rich environment that has always defined Knavesmire.