Welcome from the CEO

The Mercian Trust is an education charity that runs 9 schools for around 10,000 students in and around Walsall and Sandwell in the West Midlands. Queen Mary's High School is proudly a founding member of The Mercian Trust.

Our Trust is a family of schools with a common moral purpose of increasing opportunities and improving outcomes for students – but we are not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ MAT.   The uniqueness of each school is as important as the uniqueness of each student in our schools.  We cherish the distinctiveness of Aldridge School and our Trust is the custodian of the school’s heritage and culture. We are proud of Aldridge’s commitment to providing a broad range of high-quality academic subjects and to its rich history in learning beyond the classroom (whether students join as music scholars or budding cricketers).

Staff and students at Queen Mary's High School (together with our other schools in Walsall and Sandwell) benefit from being part of our Trust through the sharing of ideas and expertise with each other.   Our schools are protected and supported through effective governance, people development and strong financial management – each provided by our Trust.

Being part of The Mercian Trust helps teachers and school leaders spend more of their time focussed on the one thing that counts the most – the education of children in their school. In addition to the executive leadership and school improvement partnership input our Trust provides to Queen Mary's High School, our professional services teams provide expertise in a range of areas including staff professional development, HR, finance, IT, facilities and site and more.

The name of our Trust is significant.  It is both rooted in royal history and expresses a geographical identity.  Mercia was an ancient kingdom comprising of many counties throughout central England including what we now recognise as the West Midlands conurbation.  In the seventh century it was in Mercia that St Chad established learning communities which fostered a sense of common purpose with bonds of kinship.  Today, we adopt the same spirit in our approach to relationships within our Trust.  

Currently the schools in The Mercian Trust are:

• Aldridge School
• Q3 Academy Great Barr
• Queen Mary’s Grammar School
• Queen Mary’s High School
• Q3 Academy Langley
• Shire Oak Academy
• The Ladder School
• Q3 Academy Tipton
• Walsall Studio School and Sixth

Mr D Parkes

CEO, The Mercian Trust