This is a significant moment in the history of education in England. The policy reforms that are about to be implemented will shift the strategic picture. The old strategic picture is dissolving and a new one is forming. I know there are a wide range of opinions on the specifics of policy reforms. In this piece, I am proposing simply to make sense of those reforms and set out how Trusts may wish to take a longer term orientation and enact different forms of leadership.
Read moreThe capacity of people to look optimistically into the future, even when the present is deeply challenging, is perhaps one of the most remarkable and uplifting...
Read moreMany in the education commentariat are talking and writing about the future of schooling in England. These arguments, situated in the context of the global...
Read moreIt is wonderful to be able to write this piece as CST’s Deputy Chief Executive. My only regret is that I’m not doing so in happier times. That said,...
Read moreIn the introduction to this edition of Trust, I want to make the case for ‘robust’ policy. Robustness can be defined as "a system’s ability to maintain...
Read moreWe find ourselves in unprecedented times. Our schools have risen superbly to the occasion and are doing a remarkable job in carrying on the education of...
Read moreRecently I wrote an article in TES about the path from crisis to recovery in the COVID-19 response. In this article, I talked about the need to build resilience...
Read moreThe premise of Patrick Lencioni’s excellent book, The Advantage, is that the single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organisational health....
Read moreWelcome to the new edition of Trust. I am pleased to provide my synopsis of the range of topical subjects covered in this issue.
Read moreIn 2010, the coalition Government invited parents, teachers, businesses, charities and existing schools to establish new schools across the country, and...
Read moreReflecting on the word ‘Trust’ – the ‘T’ of our Multi Academy or Single Academy Trust designation – centres our thinking on the importance...
Read moreSo….I used to be responsible for evaluation in Ofsted. I’ll just get that out there before I say any more as it is relevant to virtually everything...
Read moreSocial Value UK defines social value as "the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives”....
Read moreWelcome to the July edition of Trust. I am pleased to provide my synopsis of the range of subjects covered in this issue.
Read moreWe 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...
Read moreThe term ‘autonomy’ is a highly contested and misunderstood concept. The whole question of the practice of autonomy needs more careful thought and...
Read moreFor Multi Academy Trusts, the matter of accountability and transparency remains a growing concern with parents calling for greater clarity on decision-making...
Read moreYou will not have missed the continuing dialogue concerning challenges in school funding. Impassioned reactions of education leaders and the concerned...
Read moreThere are growing numbers of people – teachers, parents, students, employers – who believe that our current education system and the debate around...
Read moreThe 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...
Read moreRecently we passed a major milestone in the history of English education which, given everything else going on, received relatively little attention. More...
Read moreAs I write this article, UK politics continues to be dominated by Brexit, which is crowding out everything else, and distracting attention from other key...
Read moreThroughout 2018, the threat to schools from fraudsters has compounded – not only are schools’ finance teams being targeted through malicious emails...
Read moreWithout a curriculum, a school is just a building full of teachers and pupils.
Read moreI am lucky enough that each working day, I get to drive throughout the whole of Teesside, Yorkshire, the Humber region and the East Midlands, beautiful...
Read moreI’ve been around from the beginning of the academy movement. Academies have seen a huge transformation of the system. When we started, academisation...
Read moreWelcome to the first edition of our Journal for Executive and Governance Leaders. We call it ‘Trust’. We aim for Trust to be a regular, digital, periodical...
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