School and trust leaders are no strangers to challenge. Speak with most and they will give you a long list of tough situations they have faced and dug deep to overcome.

But, after years of relentless crisis leadership, the cost pressures the sector is facing are of another magnitude and, for most leaders, feel farther out of their control than anything before.

Indeed, recent research with members of Forum Strategy and The Key, to be released next week, showed the vast majority of respondents (94 per cent) said the cost-of-living increase is impacting their trust’s work.

Much like the pandemic, this is yet another crisis brought about through no fault of their own, and yet, all are currently left with the responsibility for facing the impact head-on.

Another tough situation

Many are now having to reconcile the deep sense of service and commitment they have to their communities and staff, with having to make some unimaginably hard decisions.

This is deeply tough for leaders. All the accountability with very little control. What’s more, to find oneself in perpetual crisis mode without the necessary cognitive room to be strategic and address the long-term challenges and opportunities for children and young people.

Many are miraculously managing to do it all, but for how long? And how long until this constant crisis mode leads to its own national leadership crisis, when our leaders choose to vote with their feet and leave the profession?

We are already seeing this trend elsewhere. Recent research from Korn Ferry looked at the sectors in the US with the highest leaving rates for CEOs. It found that 174 non-profit and government sector CEOs - including the CEOs of food banks, hospitals and schools - left their posts in the first six months of 2022, a 39 per cent jump from the same period in 2021. Crisis and “politics” being the most cited reasons for doing so.

Last year, a report found that two-fifths of school leaders (40 per cent) plan to leave the profession - for reasons other than full retirement - within five years. The vast majority (nine in 10) stated the pandemic had been either the main or a contributing factor in their career decision.

Meanwhile, a report from NAHT earlier this year, found that, following the pandemic, fewer school leaders aspire to headship than ever before. Indeed, more than half of assistant and deputy heads (53 per cent) say they do not aspire to headship.

Finding solutions together

To keep placing our leaders in a position of constant crisis management, without the necessary tools or levers from which to respond, is doing nothing to ensure leadership stability or enthuse and encourage the next generation of talented leaders, upon which the long-term success of our system depends.

Last week, trust leaders came together at Forum Strategy’s roundtable on the cost pressures facing trusts and schools and started to explore what measures are needed to help alleviate the impact.

There was a determination to mitigate the challenges as far as possible, but also calls for the government to provide essential support, too.

These included the need for a sensible and fair price cap on the ever-rising costs of energy for schools and trusts that provides a sufficient period of certainty for budget planning.

There needs to be longer-term, “once in a generation” funding to achieve a sustainable education estate and the right level of funding to provide meals and essential learning resources to children in most need, not least as we see the disadvantage gap widen again.

And a new government needs to herald a new era of respect with the profession, ensuring better communication and dialogue around key issues, such as ensuring the School Teachers’ Review Body announcement in 2023 comes in good time before budgets are set.

This is basic stuff, even before we discuss the impact of the crisis on the quality of pupils’ learning and wellbeing. In what other sector or business model would you expect to see continued survival and success without investing the necessary resources to secure it?

Education cannot and should not be seen as a cost to this country, but as a vital investment in its future. 

For leaders, it’s important they are able to stay within their realm of control, even though most are now cognisant of the need to lead through continually volatile times.

The importance of hope

One other message that has come through our national networks is the importance of hopeful leadership, born out of collaboration. And professional support networks are important to that.

And so, as trust leaders from across the country come together for the National CEO Conference next week, to focus on hopeful leadership, we must not relent in generating, through networks such as ours at Forum Strategy, a strong culture of support and optimism among CEOs, so they can do so for others and help their communities find a way through these profoundly troubling times, too.

That said, the current crisis cannot be their burden alone to bear. This government has an undeniable responsibility here to do what is necessary and provide a level of funding that our schools and trusts so desperately need, in the medium and long term, as well as the short term.

And not only that, but to show recognition and appreciation for the incredible jobs people in schools are doing every day.

It needs to support and enable our leaders to move beyond crisis mode, and give them the certainty and space to shape and maintain an education system of excellence for the future.

Our school and trust leaders are doing more than their fair share and it’s time for the government to do theirs. The beginning of a new government offers some hope here.

But for the here and now, let us focus on and recognise the incredible power and determination that communities and networks of dedicated education leaders continue to show under the most testing of circumstances.

While we push those with the ultimate accountability for the state of our country to do more, we must continue to keep hope and faith in those who show up every day to keep delivering.

Our education leaders will do what they do best and come together to support and encourage each other, supported by organisations like Forum Strategy, to do this with focus and intent.

They continue to invest in their abilities and in the education system. Let us hope others follow suit.

Alice Gregson is the executive director at Forum Strategy. Forum Strategy’s fifth annual National #TrustLeaders CEO Conference takes place on Thursday 22 September