The Journal for Executive and Governance Leaders
The Journal for Executive and Governance Leaders
May 2019 edition
Welcome to the May edition of Trust. I am pleased to provide my synopsis of the topics covered in this issue. In her lead article, Leora Cruddas, CEO of CST, shares her reflections on autonomy. She considers what we understand by autonomy, where autonomy should sit and whose interests’ autonomy…
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The term ‘autonomy’ is a highly contested and misunderstood concept. The whole question of the practice of autonomy needs more careful thought and analysis. What do we understand by autonomy? Where should autonomy sit? Whose interests does autonomy serve? A loss of freedom or interdependence? Recently, there has been a…
Every trust executive needs to prioritise taking care of their teachers and leaders. The evidence on exit rates shows that we cannot afford not to do so. Earlier this year, the Department for Education’s Recruitment and Retention Strategy articulated the complex challenges we face to attract and keep talented educators…
There are growing numbers of people – teachers, parents, students, employers – who believe that our current education system and the debate around it is too narrow, too small, too introspective and ultimately not living up to the vision needed for the challenges the country faces. It is clear what…
You will not have missed the continuing dialogue concerning challenges in school funding. Impassioned reactions of education leaders and the concerned public into the state of school funding have maintained prominence for some time. Education conferences would have you believing that the education world is in melt-down! £87.2bn is not…
Chairs of multi academy trusts (MATs) are spending an average of fifty days per year – or approximately one day a week – carrying out the role, recent new research from the National Governance Association (NGA) revealed. This is well above the twenty days per year which practice from the charity sector…
There is so much that has been written on the subject of clarity of purpose and vision and how that should shape and drive everything done in an organisation to optimise organisational results. Without a clear vision and purpose how are the people in an organisation able to see the…
For Multi Academy Trusts, the matter of accountability and transparency remains a growing concern with parents calling for greater clarity on decision-making processes and lines of responsibility. In 2018, Parentkind research found that nearly nine out of 10 parents want to play an active role in their child’s education, with…
Once upon a time, schools were schools. Some of them were good, some of them less so. But they were all schools – and they were all called schools, whether they were grant maintained, comprehensive or foundation. Then the Labour Government of Tony Blair conjured up academies, failing schools taken…
April 2019 edition
Welcome to the April edition of Trust. I am pleased to provide my taster of the range of topics we address in this issue. In her lead article, Leora Cruddas, CEO of CST, highlights the seemingly ever present negative media coverage relating to academies and MATS and urges the sector…
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At the legal and ethical heart of what we do as academy trusts lies something bold and aspirational – our core charitable purpose is to advance education for the public benefit, to make children and young people’s lives better. To change lives. This is why we exist. And this has…
As I write this article, UK politics continues to be dominated by Brexit, which is crowding out everything else, and distracting attention from other key domestic policy challenges such as Education. This seems unlikely to change soon – even a resolution of the debates about how the UK exits the…
Recently we passed a major milestone in the history of English education which, given everything else going on, received relatively little attention. More than 50% of pupils in England now attend an academy: schools regulated by the state but not run by the state. We’re not the first state where…
The poet John Donne famously wrote that ‘no man is an island’. In education we can extend that metaphor to say that no school or education system is an island. Whether we realise it or not, part of our moral duty as leaders is to foster connection and learning across…
The placement of students with the most extensive Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) in mainstream schools continues to be a significant challenge as schools’ resources reduce. Mainstream schools have limited legal grounds for declining to be named by a Local Authority (LA) in a pupil’s Education, Health and Care…
Learn-AT launched in September 2016 – a mixed Church of England and Community multi-academy trust of seven primary schools, all aligned around a vision of a thriving, collaborative and research-informed professional learning community, serving local children and families. The Trust’s core purpose is learning, and its core value is fellowship.…
Governance in MATs is an evolving beast – rightfully so, because if it continued to function only as it did before, we’d be doing our schools a disservice. As with anything however, people are resistant to change. We should do something because it’s the right thing to do, not because…
With the economic crash in 2008 and the government’s subsequent commitment to reduce the national budget deficit, the country has suffered ten years of reductions in spending on its public services, local education authorities (LEAs) have experienced unprecedented cuts and education directorates have not been immune. The growth of the…
One of the primary roles of MATs is to create a culture of collaboration across the organisation that transcends all levels from the Executive to the frontline teaching staff and between learners. Effective collaboration has been identified by successive National Schools Commissioners as a characteristic of high performing Trusts and…
February 2019 edition
Welcome to the third edition of Trust the digital professional journal for executive and governance leaders. This publication is one of the many outcomes of the close collaborative partnership between the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) and its wholly owned subsidiary National Teacher Accreditation (NTA). CST is the national organisation…
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Last month, the Department for Education launched the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy, and the Early Career Framework (ECF). There was an astonishing amount of support from the sector for both. I think this reflects the way the DfE worked with the sector to develop this policy, but particularly the…
What gives us character? What makes us resilient? These are two of the questions I look forward to grappling with as I chair the group announced by the Secretary of State Damian Hinds in his recent speech focussing on this topic. The discussions and consultations which lie ahead for our…
I won’t pretend to be a governance expert, but I’ve served on the body of an independent school, as the chair of a single Academy trust, now as a chair of an LGB, as a trustee and member of a large MAT, and also on the board of a national…
It’s that time of year again when schools are beginning to consider what their curriculum and staffing structures might look like in September. The process of making the head’s educational vision a reality is not easy, and we know that School Business Professionals (SBPs) are a key link in the…
As part of a huge swathe of policy on teacher recruitment, retention and development, the government has announced a new suite of National Professional Qualifications (NPQs). These new qualifications will offer specialist routes for teachers to complement the existing and well-established management and leadership pathway. In this article I lay…
Without a curriculum, a school is just a building full of teachers and pupils. Curriculum matters and is key to defining the knowledge and experiences that pupils receive beyond their home environment. There are many extant definitions of curriculum, but at Ofsted our working definition is: ‘a framework for setting…
Not a day goes by when there isn’t something in the press about executive pay. Whether it’s a piece urging ethical governance or a piece challenging value for money, the emphasis placed on getting the process and decision making right is what trustees are now focused on and rightly so.…
Strong governance is vital to the success of any organisation and it is essential that those people employed to implement good governance practices in schools and multi-academy trusts have the skills and knowledge to make a positive difference. ICSA: The Governance Institute has, therefore, unveiled a new competency framework that…
Throughout 2018, the threat to schools from fraudsters has compounded – not only are schools’ finance teams being targeted through malicious emails or vishing (telephone) scams but their pupils also face an increasing threat. They too are vulnerable to scams, but equally worryingly fraudsters also look to vulnerable young people…