We now have a schools White Paper that proposes the school system must be rooted in partnership and collaboration if it is to achieve higher standards, strengthen professional practice and deliver better outcomes for children.
We are pleased that the White Paper uses the language and narrative of the Confederation of School Trusts. It speaks of an ambition that all schools should be “anchors” in their communities, collaborating with each other and across public services.
This White Paper aims to put collaboration at the heart of the system by moving to all schools being part of school trusts. So it seems timely to make the case for why a trust-based system is our best bet for a system that is designed for children.
1. A system built for all our children
We need to think hard about how we create school environments where all children can flourish, ensuring both the optimal continuing development of their intellectual potential and their ability to live as well-rounded human beings.
This is particularly urgent for children with special educational needs and disabilities and those from the most disadvantaged communities. If we are to build a school system in England that works for all our children, then groups of schools working together in deep and purposeful collaboration is an essential building block.
We need the strength, resilience and scale to be able to perform the functions that a reformed system requires, particularly for children with SEND.
2. Powerful models of improvement
The school trust sector is positioned at the vanguard of school improvement in England. The first trusts were established primarily to improve schools where there had been long-term underperformance.
Since then, as the trust sector has grown, it has been interwoven with the notion of school improvement. This is central to a trust-led system, and it is premised on the specialist nature of the school trust as an organisation that is set up to do one thing - advance education.
At CST, we have begun the work of codifying how we do school improvement at scale in a conceptual model: the DNA of trust-led improvement.
3. Strength and resilience
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. In organisational resilience theory, it also means the ability of an organisation to shape itself to respond to long-term challenges.
Given the long-term impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, along with global economic uncertainty and shifting macro global trends, we think it is difficult to argue against the idea that we need to build the resilience of England’s school system.
The single governance structure is what binds schools together in an enduring partnership with an obligation to work through challenges together, rather than to separate at times of difficulty.
4. Deep and purposeful collaboration
There are undoubtedly other forms of inter-school collaboration but none of them - not even the hard federation - can create quite the depth and tightness of a school trust. We believe that this comes primarily from the power of purpose - the capacity to link people through a shared belief about the identity, meaning and mission of an organisation.
In the strongest trusts, there is a deep sense of collective purpose. The trust creates a unique collaborative framework, along with the culture and conditions that allow pupils and staff to benefit from it.
5. Professional growth and development
We believe that school trusts can overcome some of the challenges associated with the design and implementation of high-quality professional development, through leveraging their capacity (in terms of both scale and expertise) alongside their ability to systematically control the conditions and culture in which all staff work and professional development takes place.
6. Solidarity and interconnectedness
As professionals, we should share a sense of obligation and accountability for the education of the nation’s children. The inherently collaborative structure of a school trust makes it more possible for teachers and leaders to put their expertise to best use at multiple schools to help improve the quality of education where their colleagues may be struggling.
7. Civic duty and community anchoring
CST has long argued that school trusts are civic institutions, like universities or NHS trusts. In building a trust-based system, we do not want to create a system of isolated trusts focused only on schools in their own organisation. This is because schools are located in places, and a sense of place and context is powerful and important. We believe that school trusts can and should be “anchor institutions” in their localities, anchoring schools in place and community.
8. Radical collaboration
School trusts do not operate in isolation, however, and there are a host of systemic challenges beyond the reach of individual organisations. So we require unprecedented collaboration not just between schools but among school trusts.
We need trust leaders to foster collective leadership to build local systems, particularly in areas where the quality of education has been poor for years and decades. As the American systems scientist Peter Senge points out, the deep changes necessary to accelerate progress require leaders who catalyse collective leadership. We need leaders who act collectively and strategically on - not just in - the system.
Building a resilient school system
Not all the conditions described here are the norm now, and much of this is difficult to achieve. However, we believe it is the structure of the trust that has the best potential to enable and protect all that is good in education.
In these difficult and uncertain times, it is up to us now to build a resilient school system that has the capacity to create the conditions to keep getting better. We believe that this is the potential of a trust-based system.
Leora Cruddas is chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts
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