The Journal for Executive and Governance Leaders
The Journal for Executive and Governance Leaders
July 2019 edition
Welcome to the July edition of Trust. I am pleased to provide my synopsis of the range of subjects covered in this issue. As we approach the end of the first academic year in which CST has been operating as the Sector Body for School Trusts, in her lead article,…
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We launched the Confederation of School Trusts on 11 October 2018. By this edition of Trust, we are thirty-eight weeks old and I thought it would be a good time to take stock of what we have achieved over this period. Let’s start with our mission – to support our…
In June 2019, I was delighted to lead alongside Leora Cruddas, the CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, (CST) a short series of roadshows with CEOs of Multi Academy Trusts that focused upon the ‘white paper’ that CST have published called the “Future Shape of the School System in…
It’s good timing to be writing for Trust as new teachers are very much on my mind right now. I have recently started chairing the DfE expert group that has been asked to help develop guidance for ITE providers as to how to amend their curricula so that they align…
Since multi-academy trusts were created, or school trusts as we would now know them, there has been much discussion about what it is that great MATs do that transform standards and the quality of teaching and learning in schools. In 2017 a group of trust CEOs in the South West…
How do people react when you tell them you work in teaching? Do they look at you with respect and admiration, celebrating your work to benefit the future of young people and society? Or do they offer a look of sympathy for the endless pressures that are associated with being…
At the Spring CST conference on Effective, Accountable and Ethical Governance I was asked for the one piece of advice I would give to a new trustee. My answer was to invest in effective induction. I went on to say that I meant not just effective induction of trustees but…
Academy trusts’ financial circumstances are becoming more challenging and increasing numbers are now seen to be at risk of insolvency. With the fall in free reserves, and an increase of the reported number of academies running at a deficit, it is important that trustees are aware of the tipping points…
Social Value UK defines social value as “the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives”. Social value is a concept that addresses the benefits to the wider community, as well as the non-financial impact of businesses, such as the wellbeing of…
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…
Also featured
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…