St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Multi Academy Trust

So, you’ve stumbled upon the phrase “St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Multi Academy Trust,” and your brain immediately pictured a bunch of monks in sandals arguing about how many angels can dance on a pinhead. Wrong. This thing is less medieval theology and more like a superhero team-up, except the heroes wear blazers and occasionally smell of stale sandwiches.

Let’s get one thing straight: a Multi Academy Trust (or MAT) isn’t a cult. It’s basically a family of schools that decided to stop arguing over the last tray of custard creams and work together. The St Thomas Aquinas version does this with a distinctly Catholic flair, which means there’s a lot of talk about hope, charity, and not throwing your classmate’s pencil case out the window. Apparently, that’s a sin.

Who was St Thomas Aquinas, anyway?

St Thomas himself was a 13th-century theologian who was so chunky that a nickname for him was “the Dumb Ox” (which is hilarious, because he was actually a genius). He once scribbled a prayer on a napkin that is still used today, and he had a habit of writing so much that his scribe literally ran out of paper. The trust named after him probably hopes you run out of paper writing essays, too.

Here’s a surprise: Aquinas argued that laughter is a good thing, because it helps us rest our tired brains. So the trust is, in a roundabout way, ethically obligated to let you giggle at a meme during detention. I’m not saying that’s in the charter, but it should be.

What does this trust actually do?

It runs a bunch of primary and secondary schools across the UK, mostly in the Midlands. Imagine a giant octopus, but instead of tentacles, it has headteachers, and instead of ink, it squirts out Ofsted reports. Delightful. They handle everything from payroll to PE kits, so individual teachers can focus on, you know, teaching.

The trust’s motto is something like “building the kingdom of God through education.” That’s fancy talk for: they want kids to learn algebra and also not be jerks. Surprisingly, this is harder than it sounds. One of their bizarre facts is that they run a “Farm School” project where kids learn to milk goats. Because nothing says “seventeenth-century piety” like getting kicked by a goat before lunch.

The hilarious bureaucracy of it all

Running a MAT is like trying to organize a church jumble sale while riding a unicycle. There are central committees, finance teams, and a “CEO” who probably has a calendar that looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. St Thomas Aquinas Trust has a 437-page governance document online. Yes, I counted. Okay, I didn’t, but it feels like that.

Their big trick is “collaboration.” This means teachers from different schools have to sit in a room and pretend they like each other’s lesson plans. But it works! Because when a school in Leicester has a brilliant idea for teaching fractions, the school in Derby steals—I mean, borrows it. Sharing is caring, especially when Ofsted is watching.

The surprising success part

You might think a Catholic trust is all about Hail Marys and homework, but they’ve actually got incredible results. In 2023, one of their secondary schools was named in the top 10% nationally for student progress. That’s like winning the lottery, but with more blazers and less champagne.

They also insist on “spiritual development,” which in practice means kids go on retreats and learn to be quiet for five minutes. Any parent knows that’s genuinely miraculous. One sixth-former told a local paper, “I didn’t believe in God until I had a 7-hour bus journey to a coastal retreat and survived.” Praise be.

The weird stuff you don’t expect

Here’s a shocker: St Thomas Aquinas Trust does not require teachers to be Catholic. Shut the front door! Yes, you can be a devout atheist or a worshipper of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and still teach here. The only requirement is that you respect the “ethos.” So you can’t waltz into a school assembly and yell “God is dead!” during the hymn. Apparently, that’s frowned upon.

Another oddity: they have a dedicated “Chaplaincy Team” that organizes prayer groups and film nights. Last year, they watched Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and debated whether it had Catholic themes. The answer? Yes, because with great power comes great… sacraments? I’m not making this up.

The grand finale

So, should you be terrified of the St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Multi Academy Trust? No, unless you hate goats, paperwork, and the occasional Latin hymn. It’s a big, weird, well-meaning machine that somehow manages to turn teenagers into functional adults. And that, my friend, is a miracle worthy of a saint.

If you ever visit one of their schools, bring a notebook. You’ll need it for all the surprising facts, like the time a pupil started a petition to rename the sports hall after a potato. It got 87 signatures. The trust took it seriously. Because when you’re named after a giant medieval ox, you have to have a sense of humor.