Our vision and values

Our vision

Our young people and communities are at the heart of everything we do.

Our core mission has always been to close the educational gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. Our ambition is one where every child in London, no matter their background, has equal access to high quality education, giving them the same opportunities and potential to succeed. 

We know there are many challenges facing our young people and the communities we serve, and that’s why we need determined people like you to help us tackle those inequalities. 

Our values

Whilst each of our academies is encouraged to develop their own unique cultures; as a whole Federation, we have four core values which are central to successfully achieving our vision:

  • We are agents for social mobility and equality
  • We work at pace and are creative and decisive in achieving rapid change
  • We collaborate purposefully for continuous improvement
  • We provide high challenge and high support for excellence

 

Vision-and-Values.pdf

We established our first academy over 30 years ago, and now have 55 schools, educating over 40,000 young people across London and Essex. We employ 5,000 staff across our academies and head office, all committed to making a difference for our young people and communities.

What sets us apart

We are the leading large multi-academy trust in the country. 

Our focus is on rapid school improvement and transforming education for some of the most disadvantaged young people across London. 

We have 55 academies, educating over 44,000 students. We are a Federation rather than a chain, and the autonomy of our Principals, and their individual schools is at the heart of our success. 

Learn more about what makes Harris different

With the majority of our academies located in areas of high socioeconomic disadvantage, a high-quality education is key to the futures of the pupils we serve.

Career development and progression

Teachers and leaders

Whether you have aspirations to become a middle or senior leader, or the ambition to become an outstanding practitioner in your area of expertise, we provide a range of bespoke courses and qualifications. 

Career development for teachers and leaders

Support staff

Our support staff are crucial to being able to deliver an outstanding education to our young people. We offer development opportunities to our support staff at head office and in academies.

Career development for support staff

Our benefits

We recognise that our success is the direct result of the hard work and dedication of our staff. 

As well as a rewarding career and nationally agreed terms and conditions, by working at Harris, you will also have access to a variety of benefits, support programmes and initiatives.

  • Wellbeing cash plan
  • A Harris Allowance for teaching staff in addition to your salary
  • Annual performance and loyalty bonus
  • Teachers Pension Scheme (TPS) for teaching and leadership staff
  • Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for support staff with very generous employer contribution, average 20% contribution.

Find out more about the benefits we offer

Centralised support

From the start, our aim has been to provide the structure and services needed for our schools to amount to more than the sum of their parts. We want our teachers and leaders to focus on the most important thing: the outstanding education of all our students. 

Having a central team takes away much of the administrative burden from our academy colleagues, and thanks to economies of scale, saves academies money, all of which goes back into the education of our young people.

We also have 70+ subject specialist, highly-skilled teachers, known as our 'Consultant Team'. Their job is to create curriculum excellence in every subject. Our schools are able to access their full support to ensure the most effective curriculum intent, implementation, and impact. 

Diversity and inclusion

We want the Harris Federation to be a great place to work and an organisation that we all have pride in, where every member of our community feels valued, safe, and included.

Our work will impact many generations to come, and our staff come from all backgrounds and walks of life, coming together to inspire young minds. We promote an inclusive culture that embraces the valuable and enriching contribution that all of our community make. We continue to be proactive in uplifting and supporting all voices at Harris.

View our equality and diversity notice

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