Case Study: Scaling Resilience Education Across Outwood Grange Academies Trust
Building Mental Strength at Scale
The High Performance Foundation has partnered with Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) to embed resilience, mental strength, and personal development across one of the UK's largest Multi-Academy Trusts.
Together, the High Performance Foundation and OGAT have integrated Game Plan into the Trust's Personal Development Framework, ensuring that every young person has access to the skills, mindsets, and behaviours needed to thrive in education, employment, and life.
Today, Game Plan is being rolled out across all 27 secondary schools within the Trust, reaching more than 26,000 secondary-aged students.
Lee Wilson, CEO of Outwood Grange Academies Trust, Presenting at the OGAT Out There Conference 2025
About Outwood Grange Academies Trust
41 schools across England
27 Secondary Schools
13 Primary Schools
1 Alternative Provision School
29,229 pupils
35% of secondary students classified as disadvantaged
68% of schools serve communities within the two most deprived national quintiles
41% of schools serve communities within the most deprived quintile
These figures highlight the importance of providing young people with access to high-quality personal development opportunities alongside academic education.
The Challenge
Like many schools across the country, OGAT recognised that young people need more than academic success to thrive.
Increasing levels of anxiety, low confidence, poor wellbeing, and uncertainty about the future have created a growing need for structured support around resilience, self-belief, leadership, and mental strength.
As Lee Wilson, CEO of Outwood Grange Academies Trust, explains:
"More and more, with the challenges that young people are facing in the modern world, what we have to do as a Trust is so much more than an academic curriculum. We need to provide leadership, resilience, and mental strength — those wider skills young people are going to need in further education and the world of work."
The Solution
Working closely with Trust leaders, the High Performance Foundatio helped embed the Game Plan Mindsets Curriculum as a core part of OGAT's personal development offer.
The programme is delivered through a spiral curriculum focused on six key mindsets:
Know Yourself
Stay Positive
Solve Problems
Be Collaborative
Handle Pressure
Take Responsibility
Students engage with the content through assemblies, form-time activities, reflection exercises, videos, and practical challenges throughout the academic year.
OGAT has also developed a broader curriculum pathway from Nursery to Year 13, defining the knowledge, skills, and characteristics young people should develop at each stage of their education.
Jake Humphrey presenting to all OGAT staff at Leeds Arena
Impact
Independent evaluation found that Game Plan had a positive impact on students' wellbeing, confidence, aspirations, and resilience.
Staff reported:
"Feedback from staff was highly positive and indicated that Game Plan was implemented as part of a broader effort to enhance pupils' personal development, aspirations and resilience."
"Staff also suggested that Game Plan better equipped them to facilitate meaningful discussions with pupils, particularly those without subject-specific knowledge."
"I think it's helped the students to be more self-reflective and is giving them the right messages to help them take ownership of their own path in life."
Students shared:
"Determination is the key to fulfilling your goal."
"Hard work pays off."
"How to learn from my mistakes and how errors can make me a better person."
"To not give up and carry on no matter what others think."
A Model for Scale
A key success factor has been the ability to work at Trust level rather than school by school.
This strategic partnership has enabled HPF and OGAT to create a bespoke approach that can be implemented consistently across thousands of young people while maintaining alignment with the Trust's vision and priorities.
As Lee Wilson explains:
"Because of the size of the Trust, we have been able to create something really bespoke to us that is able to work across the Trust and work with the High Performance Foundation."
The partnership demonstrates how working directly with Multi-Academy Trusts can accelerate impact, creating sustainable change for tens of thousands of young people.
As the High Performance Foundation continues to grow, partnerships like this provide a blueprint for scaling resilience education across the country and ensuring more young people have access to the skills, confidence, and mental strength they need to thrive.