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A high-performing Trust, Inspiring lives  

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Our Next Chapter 

It is time for the next chapter in the lives of our children to be written. Across our schools and Trust, we share the privilege and responsibility of shaping what that chapter becomes. Through the power, magic and hope of education we can create storylines, plots and characters that inspire the lives of all children with greater opportunity and choice. 

Yet our world is distracting, with lots of change that tempts us to chase what is not worth having. In a world of change, we should remind ourselves that what carries the greatest value is often that which is timeless and ‘forever true’. As the next chapters are written, we should ground ourselves in why we exist and what we are good at: protecting our attention on delivering the strongest and most enabling education for all children.

Inspiring every child to flourish through an inclusive, all-through education that nurtures opportunity, equity, and agency for  life. 

To meet our mission, we will prioritise higher performance, raising standards, strengthening our belief in what is possible, and shifting our underlying identity towards that of a high-performing Trust. By focusing on what children need and where our expertise lies, we will deliver an inspiring education that enables children’s personal development and delivers strong outcomes that forge keys to unlock the doors in their future.

As we approach a new academic year, the following sections set out the priorities and actions that will guide our next chapter. 

Performance-Oriented Trust  

We are a performance-oriented Trust: we seek to provide an excellent education and secure outcomes that give our children greater self-agency as they move into adulthood. Our focus on outcomes and the best possible attainment in every stage of education is a powerful lever for greater inclusion, and places every child as the hero in their story. 

We have the capacity, expertise and high performance within our Trust to enable us to secure higher attainment in every year group and every school. We are relentless in helping those who fall behind to catch up and keep up, building greater self-belief and self-confidence. High attainment also supports strong progress, demonstrating the value and dividend that we add across the Trust. 

The Art of the Possible  

Our beliefs can limit what we see as possible. Too often, they protect us from the risks associated with striving for more.  We should engage ourselves and our teams in the art of the possible. We know that higher performance is achievable because it is already evident in several of our schools and teams. 

This year, we will continue to raise standards by believing that much more is possible, overcoming context and having the highest expectations of what all children can achieve. The strongest schools unswervingly secure high-quality provision, use assessment intelligently, invest in deliberate practice, know the rules and are brave enough to apply equity to close gaps. We do this because it is why we exist, where our expertise lies and what our children need. It is easier for us to write their next chapter than to rewrite their previous ones. 

Our investment in provision  

Our work across the Trust is guided by our school improvement triangle. Our significant investment in curriculum, assessment and pedagogy over time is central to our work, overseen by effective leadership and set within strong cultures. These are the main levers for high performance and the areas in which our investments have been made over time. It is the enactment of the curriculum and the use of formative assessment that unlock higher standards and raise attainment.

Performance-oriented Trusts, teams and schools understand when decisive action is required to change trajectories beyond those achieved through normal provision. Lighting escape fires and ‘doing different’ can achieve an alternative future and improve outcomes. 

We will also continue to assess the improvement journey of schools and teams against the forming, storming, norming and performing continuum. Most of our schools and teams across the Trust are norming or performing. The strongest schools continually evaluate their performance and refine the norms that sustain high performance and support further improvement. 

Performance-Oriented Inclusion  

We recognise that some children carry more than others, have had fewer opportunities and experiences in their early childhood and so need us more. They lack neither the ambition or ability, but they have less capacity, fewer resources and face barriers that tip the odds against them. In difficult times, education has the power to transform lives to gift the outcomes required to level up. The performance and development of these children are the most important measure of our worth. They should find their voice and become the central character in their story. 

Our strongest schools increase the life chances of under-resourced children by securing excellent provision with the highest expectations, applying equity to give children what they need and building a culture that closes gaps. Taken together, these approaches tip the odds in favour of disadvantaged children and become embedded in the school’s identity: it is what they do. 

Trust Strategic Plan  

As we enter Year 2 of the Trust Strategic Plan, Building a High-Performing Trust, we recognise that it takes a whole organisation to create the platform (blue) that enables high performance (green). 

Inspiring All-Through Education | 570 Weeks 

We prioritise offering the best start in life for all children, focusing on the quality of provision in these early and formative years as a key lever in our disadvantage strategy. We seek to secure the best possible provision across the 570 weeks of education, enacting and teaching our shared curriculum and focusing on the effectiveness of our personal development curriculum for all children. 

Raising Standards | applying equity and closing gaps  

We raise attainment and secure progress in line with our ambition to be a performance-oriented Trust. We are passionate about outcomes for disadvantaged learners and need to continue to close gaps, gifting the keys to those who need us most. We exist to drive up attainment in each phase of education, seeking liberating outcomes for all children. In doing this, we will better meet the needs of all children with SEND.  

Standing Tall on our Platform  

As a Trust, we continue to build the platform with the conditions, systems and support that colleagues and schools need to focus on the quality of education. We understand that our greatest asset is our colleagues and we will continue to invest in every colleague to ensure they are empowered and able to inspire lives. We maintain our focus on leadership and strong teams across the Trust as a key lever for improving performance and raising standards. We are committed to ensuring an efficient and effective platform, recognising the need to focus on the quality of communication and connection between key teams.  

We also focus on effective growth as the Trust grows to 40 schools and on using our strong financial position to invest in our future, including digital technology and responsible use of AI to improve the quality, efficiency and reach of our work. 

Writing the next chapter | pouring ourselves a cup of ambition 

As we venture into the second year of our plan, guided by our mission and values, we should proceed with confidence and greater self-belief, based on what has been achieved by the exceptional work of our colleagues. We will focus on being performance-oriented and raising standards by investing in our core purpose and provision, closing gaps and meeting the needs of those who need us most.

So go, inspire and create the next chapter for your colleagues and our children. Much of our work already advances our mission, yet there is still much to do. The next chapter must create great experiences and establish the conditions for every child to flourish. It is on us to secure the outcomes that will open more doors, build character and inspire children with greater opportunity and choice. 

You make the difference.  

Thank you.  

Dan Nicholls | September 2026 

The Formative and Middle Years

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There are phases in a child’s education that matter more. The formative Early Years, and the first 1000 days from conception, offer the chance to give children the Best Start in Life: a life-changing influence before destinies begin to harden.

The Middle Years, or Early Secondary Years, follow the key stage transition, when school approach significantly changes and adolescence begins to influence identity, confidence and learning. It can be the confirmer of destiny.

If we are to close gaps, we need to constrain our focus so that our expertise is focused in the phases that offer us the most influence on children’s lives. The children who carry the greatest disadvantage need us most at these pivotal times, when our leadership can still change the course of their lives.

The Formative Years

The first 1000 days from conception and through Early Years fundamentally influence, but not irreversibly, the future success of all children. Whilst the attainment and developmental gaps open around birth and widen ahead of Nursery, these are not irretrievable; early years offers a one-off window to close these gaps. This is our greatest opportunity to offer all children their Best Start in Life and to achieve greater social justice.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? (Mary Oliver)

The economics also work: investing money, time, resource and focus into the Early Years significantly reduces downstream costs to society; more importantly, closing gaps and applying equity in these formative years will last into adulthood.  

It is this investment that lays the gauntlet in each of the following years to ensure that the catch up leads firmly to keep up and the best schools do that. It is who they are and they consider it inconceivable that they would fumble the gap-closing secured by colleagues in Early Years. Catching up is harder than keeping up.

The Middle Years | Early Secondary Years

The Early Secondary Years are the great confirmer of destiny, and rarely reversible. A time where gaps re-open or widen to the point of no return. We know that being under-resourced has a long-term drag on children: if schools are passive in the Early Secondary Years, children will step back, the hope built through primary education begins to fade, and an external locus of control reduces agency and opportunity.

The following brilliant extract from Mary Myatt is exactly why the Middle Years, the Early Secondary Years, are the opportunity to inspire lives, to enact a phase of education that, for too many children, acts as the great confirmer of destiny:

“…This is why ambition in these formative years matters so profoundly. Done well, we raise the intellectual pitch, we present pupils with demanding texts, with carefully sequenced ideas and genuine opportunities to think like historians, scientists and mathematicians. In doing so we don’t just prepare them for future exams, we open our whole world up to them.” (Mary Myatt, 2026)

And this considers the application of equity and the importance of the Early Secondary Years on those who rely of schools to open doors:

At the heart of this is a burning question about equity. A curriculum that lacks coherence or challenge does not fall equally on all pupils. Those who arrive at secondary school already fluent in the language of academic success and with expert support at home can compensate for what is missing in school. Those who rely on school to open doors, who need school the most, cannot. An ambitious Key Stage 3 is therefore one of the most significant moves towards true inclusion a school can make, not through rhetoric, not through more add-ons or interventions, but through the daily experience of expert teaching of a rigorous, thoughtful curriculum.” (Mary Myatt, 2026)

Much more important than that…

If your life depended on it …. you would (…achieve the required level of urgency, prioritisation and focus to close gaps)

We know that the most effective schools enable all children to catch-up and keep-up, achieving sector contrasting outcomes in Year 6 and continuing to close gaps in the Early Secondary Years. These schools typically do normal things incredibly well, seek to close any gap regardless of context, enact a curriculum deeply informed by assessment, with high expectations and with constrained and unswerving focus on high quality education. These schools struggle to talk about specific gap-closing strategies, because gap closing is what they do, it is their identity. They apply equity as normal, specifically gifting what each child needs, a deep understanding of pupil performance and an ability to not be distracted from it.

 “Some people believe football closing the disadvantage gap is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” (Bill Shankly)

Leadership of constraint and prioritisation

Closing the disadvantage gap and prioritising these pivotal phases of education requires leadership to deploy constraints and restraint; a level of prioritisation that orients attention and rewards gap closing. Schools and Trusts must resist chasing anything and everything, to dancing to all the tunes, so that they concentrate on what they are good at and directing their attention into the phases that carry the most hope for under-resourced children.

chase two rabbits, catch neither.

The hackneyed, yet true Hedgehog Concept (Collins) prompts us to remember why we exist as educators and to focus our energies on what we are best at – using education to transform lives, principally through the interaction of curriculum, assessment and pedagogy.

David Epstein (2026) points leaders toward the importance of seeking a greater understanding and deployment of constraints to achieve greater and sustained impact:

  • Constraints sharpen focus: when everything is possible, priorities blur. Clear constraints force people and organisations to decide what matters most.
  • The right limits improve creativity: Constraints push people beyond default solutions. They create the conditions for deeper problem-solving and more original thinking on well-defined problems and challenges.
  • Too many resources can create waste and complexity: an abundance of resource and time leads to over-engineering, distraction and weak discipline.
  • Leaders should design useful boundaries: Good leadership is not just about removing barriers; it is about setting intelligent limits: timeframes, decision rules, scope and priorities.
  • Progress often comes from subtraction, not addition: improvement may come from stopping, simplifying or narrowing work rather than adding more initiatives.

“The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self… the anguish into which an unrestricted freedom plunges… I have no use for a theoretic freedom. Let me have something finite, definite… my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles.” (Igor Stravinsky)

Inspiring lives with greater opportunity and choice

The formative and middle years of education are life changing. We must, therefore, employ greater urgency, make a deeper investment and increase our focus on the quality of provision in these phases. This requires both constraint and constraints to harness our attention and place value where we have the greatest leverage to close gaps. So that we gift the Best Start in Life to all children and increase their life chances in the Early Secondary Years. Securing greater agency for children as they journey toward adulthood.

Inspiring lives with greater opportunity and choice.

Dan Nicholls | July 2026

Igniting identity | circumstance and happenstance

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Our self-identity forms over time, shaped by our experiences and interactions, particularly in our formative years. It is not a uniform development of self, but rather one that is punctuated disproportionately by high impact moments. These sit in our backstories, having ignited our identity and shaped who we have become.

These moments are often subtle, quiet experiences of awe and wonder: a sudden realisation, both unsettling and exciting, that the world and our role in it is not what we thought. In these moments of alchemy, brief serendipitous collisions create a hiatus between our old and new self-image.

“…in moments of alchemy, brief and serendipitous collisions, the beautiful texture of interwoven lives. There are many seeds of genius in the world, we must nurture as many as we can.” Helen Lewis

Circumstance and happenstance

The development of self is determined by our context, upbringing and by the influential adults and peers that we look to through childhood: an on-going influence of circumstance through our formative years.

But much, arguably, is happenstance, serendipitous moments that build our self-image. Brief events, often remarkably small, that disproportionately shape our lives. Rather awkwardly, they are often surprisingly quiet, private moments of self-realisation that are invisible to the provider.

“The smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation.” Hannah Arendt

Yet for some children the vagaries of life’s happenstances are less frequent, less influential or much less accessible. It also depends on a child’s circumstance and their pre-disposition to act on these moments. Whilst our childhood sets the conditions and the circumstances that influence our predispositions, the brief moments, the happenstances, disproportionately explain who we become.

Predispositions

Will, Should, Might, Could, Won’t, Can’t

Our context and circumstance, whether consciously or unconsciously, determine our predispositions and the strength of our self-agency. For any given aspect of life we align to one of the following dispositions:

•I Will  …. I fully expect to do this, unswerving, predestined, locked in, self-fulfilling.

•I Should … Highly likely, people like me do things like this (reinforced by peer status).

•I Might … Entirely possible and within my gift, requires a step forward, focus and resourced adults.

•I Could … It is possible, but could be difficult to achieve – requires ignition, support and must be followed by resource.

•I Won’t … People like me don’t do this, locked out, keys hard to find, and not sought, no capacity or resource, unable to see the future or be part in it.

•I Can’t … Not possible, nobody like me does things like this, psychologically and materially forbidden.

If you are under-resourced and have experienced much less privilege, then too often your agency is limited to the bottom few dispositions. This offers a form of immunity to moments of ignition and even if ignited a lack of resource to follow your triggered passion. In a world of privilege, however, you occupy the top few dispositions: emboldened to accessible experiences and open to life-changing moments. And yet, ‘ambition’ is equally distributed, but enhanced or stifled from birth and perhaps before birth.

“If you are lucky enough to be born in a world made in your image, you probably think of a failure as an obstacle on the path to eventual success. If you are a marginalised person in any way you internalise that failure more closely.” Elizabeth Day

Moments of wow… igniting identity

Regardless of who we are there are moments we witness that change our passions, our identity and motivation for what we wish to become…

“But the moment that changed everything came on 29 July 1992 … the Barcelona Olympics. Chris Boardman was about to go in the final of the men’s individual pursuit. I sat in front of the TV and watched him … Four and a bit minutes later, Chris had overtaken his German counterpart and become Britain’s first Olympic cycling gold medallist in 72 years. I was 12 and knew straightaway I wanted to emulate his feat. Another 12 years later I did just that.” Bradley Wiggins

…or influential adults who we are desperate to emulate…

“When I’m 13, my mum gives me a load of photos that she’s found. There he is, in his cycling kit, racing. It’s a definite “Wow!” moment, like he’s been brought to life in my hands. Those photos become my greatest treasure. The closest connection I could have with my father was by following in his footsteps” Bradley Wiggins

…or experiences that ignite our identity…

“My love for cinema began at a very early age, as early as I can remember… I was just a little kid in a darkened theatre, and I remember that beam of light just cut across the room and I remember looking up, and it seemed to just explode on the screen. … and suddenly, the world was so much larger than the one that I knew … it opened my eyes. It opened my imagination to the possibility that life could expand far beyond the boundaries that I then perceived in my own life.” Tom Cruise

“Making films is not what I do, it is who I am.” Tom Cruise

Owning the future

How far are children able to focus on the future? If you exist in an under-resourced world where you seek to survive the day, the week, your effective horizon is limited, perhaps irrelevant to you: there is no bandwidth to contemplate your future. This fundamentally forces you toward the weaker predispositions, I Won’t and Can’t, and breaks the connection between recognising that the efforts of now are an investment in next. The future will act on me.

Resourced children are able to make the investments now, fill their lockers and are typically compelled to do so, supported to strong dispositions, I Will and Should. I create my future.

To be or not to be

To be or not to be, that is the question that children wrestle with as they navigate the world. We know, though, that some children have much less capacity to be, forced into a not to be mindset. Growing in a world that tips the odds against you, denies a starting disposition, or ladder to, ‘Will, Should, Could’ and restricts the under-resourced to ‘Can’t and Won’t’. Only the application of equity can offer a ladder and break the cycle.

Lockers filled with belief

In every aspect of a child’s life, a child holds a locker of self-belief. Advantaged children have bursting lockers, filled by circumstance and opportunity, narrated by resourced adults, affirmed through experience. The lockers of under resourced children are sparse, short on belief, encouragement or affirming experiences. When they look to their lockers for self-confidence and self-belief they are encouraged, perhaps compelled, to step back, to not take risks and internalise the failure. We must be better at filling the lockers of under-resourced children.

“When you are born into wealth and privilege, you inherit a plan that outlines the paths ahead, indicating the shortcuts and byways available to reach your destination … If you enter the world without such a map, you are bereft of proper guidance. You lose your way more easily.” Elif Shafak

Chasing status

What you become depends largely on who you find yourself with. We measure status on those around us, typically the 5 peers that we spend time with that we look to and derive our own sense of status. Our belief in what is possible is shaped by our peers, and our schools are the crucible for these interactions.

Our verbal quota

“…we speak about 16,000 words a day, that is a lot of chances to tease, complain and criticise, but also to encourage, inspire and comfort. I know I can do a lot more good with my verbal quota.” Matt Woodcock

In every interaction, exchange and conversation our words are a powerful force for good (or ill). We never know for certain the weight of our words on a child, but we do know that children are adult-watchers, seeking to decode the world around them. Awkwardly or helpfully, in every interaction our words always carry weight and have influence, intended or otherwise. Often just 13 words deliver a self-belief that becomes unshakable and propels a dopamine-soaked desire to follow a passion:

“…I was introduced to a club coach, Stan Knight. Immediately he took hold of my wrist. “I’ve never felt a pulse like it,” he said. He looked me in the eye – “You’re going to be the best cyclist this country has ever produced.” … I liked the fact he had belief in me… Stan didn’t tell me I was special because of who my dad was. He told me I was special. Me.” Bradley Wiggins

Inspiring lives

“I began to realise how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it full speed, Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all else become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.” Roald Dahl

As educators we chose to inspire lives – and yet we spend little time understanding how children exist in the world or how their lives unfold through their circumstance and happenstance. How do we ensure that curiosity, hope and ambition is a feature of all childhoods not just those that are privileged?

Perhaps we should maintain a greater sense of awe and wonder, of possibility and back it with the application of equity and protect the flickering flames of hope, so that more children can embrace an interest with both arms. If we are to ignite a child’s self-identity, so that they have agency into their adulthood, we must create greater opportunity and apply the equity that will give all children the choice to follow their dreams.

...inspire lives with greater opportunity and choice.

Dan Nicholls | December 2025

Toward the future | inspiring lives

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Our Mission

In the next phase we will strengthen our trust, deepen our connection and collaboration to add more value to each other and to all children. This is a venture in shared responsibility and joint endeavour to inspire lives with greater opportunity and choice. Succeeding in our mission:

Inspiring every child to flourish through an inclusive, all-through education that nurtures opportunity, equity, and agency for life.

A mission that ensures 11,000 children flourish and develop greater self-agency, becoming the masters of their fate. A worthy quest powered by 1,500 connected colleagues, empowered to do meaningful work.

For those that carry the most

We recognise that some children carry more than most, have had less opportunity and experiences in their early childhood and so need us more. They neither lack ambition or ability, but they have less capacity, fewer resources and face barriers that tip odds against them. In difficult times education has the power to transform lives, which is the business we are in. The performance and development of these children is the most important measure of our worth.

“We need equity in education, not equality. If someone can’t see straight because the world is falling in around them, we need to raise them up to clearer skies.” Poor, Katriona O’Sullivan

Anchored by our Values

Everything we do is held by our shared values:

Our stable core enables our innovative edge

We continue to build a strong trust with great schools that focuses on getting every day right and building a stable core: consistently delivering high quality provision with effective systems and shared approaches, enables our frontline obsession.

We stand on our stable core and what we choose to do the same, so that we can innovate on the edge, expertly developing approaches to improve provision and inspire lives. This is a collective, connected and developmental endeavour through collaboration.

Towards 2030 | why we exist

To build a strong trust with great schools. Offering high quality education over 570-weeks that closes gaps for those that most need us. So that the trust exists in a higher performance space and exploits our collaborative advantage that yields a trust dividend.

Our focus on partnerships and places builds better communities for children to grow up in and flourish. Colleagues create greater opportunity through deliberate local and regional collaboration,seeking to improve other trusts and the sector.

The trust is deeply connected within itself. There is a strong collective desire and shared responsibility to add value for all children in every setting. This collaboration enables a level of innovation and shared approaches that add more value. As part of a human organisation colleagues are well connected, making a greater difference to others in and beyond our trust.

The consequence of our work over five years is that the trust becomes self-improving, the systems, shared approaches, trust improvement model, collaboration, horizontal leadership and empowerment is creating more value over time and is self-sustaining.

Colleagues enjoy more opportunity and are proud to do meaningful work that is enabling all children to flourish through an inclusive, all-through education that nurtures opportunity, equity, and agency for life

Higher performance space | in search of the trust dividend

There is an unswerving, shared responsibility and desire to raise standards. To build a strong trust and great schools that exist in a higher performance space that particularly enables disadvantaged learners to thrive and attain well.

So, where next… this year

In the next phase, to summer 2026 we will prioritise these six areas:

Innovative Edge | Inspiring lives

This year we will invest in our inclusive all-through education (570-weeks) and apply greater equity to close gaps for children that need us most. A focus on place-based improvement will build strong community partnerships and support improvement beyond our trust.

Stable Core | frontline obsession

We will continue to invest in our stable core, by building a strong trust that enables great schools. Our colleague focused strategy will invest in all colleagues and create the conditions for our frontline obsession. Aiming to create a self-improving trust, investing in lateral leadership, connection, collaboration and strong systems.

570 Weeks | inspiring all-through education

To build an inspiring, inclusive, all-through education: as an entitlement for all children. Enacting excellent provision for every child throughout their 570 weeks of education. Prioritising:

  • Trust Curriculum | curating and enacting a shared curriculum across all year groups. (SDP)
  • Attendance, inclusion and transitions | to secure stronger attendance, strong inclusion and high-quality transitions, disadvantage first. (SDP)
  • Best Start in life | investing in the strongest possible start for all children through nursery and early years, enabled through a set of core commitments. (SDP)
  • Outstanding Personal Development | outstanding personal development curriculum builds character and offers greater opportunity for all children in every setting.

Closing gaps | seeking social justice

To apply equity and unswervingly commit to meeting the needs of children experiencing disadvantage and SEND, securing attainment and attendance that closes gaps and builds agency for each child. Securing greater social justice by prioritising:

  • The trust-wide development of teaching | systematic focus on the development of teaching to enact our shared curriculum. Our strongest lever for closing gaps. (SDP)
  • Disadvantage first | unswerving focus on the performance of disadvantaged pupils, through targets, data and quality assurance, as the indicator of the quality of our provision. (SDP)
  • Catch-up, Keep-up | systematic tracking all learners and applying equity, doing different and more, so that all children are caught up and kept up. (SDP)
  • All leaders, leaders of SEND | developing our SEND provision, focusing on ‘all leaders as leaders of SEND’ – securing a systematic strategy to meet SEND needs.

The importance of place | community partnerships

To build partnerships with educational and community partners to secure stronger communities and 570-week educations for all children. Using expertise in the trust to reach out and secure improvement in schools, trusts and the sector. Growing our reputation and influence by prioritising:

  • Strong recruitment built on growing reputation | securing stronger recruitment of pupils into our schools to inspire more lives and better serve our communities.
  • Trust Growth | securing appropriate and strategic growth of the trust to secure financial opportunities and grow our reputation and influence.
  • Collaboration with local trusts, local authorities and partners | seeking strong collaboration to secure improvement beyond the trust – seeking to influence all 570-weeks
  • Sector reputation and influence | playing an active role beyond the trust, including with the DfE and other partners, to influence policy, improve other trusts and the sector.

Colleague focused | developmental and collaborative

Investing in all colleagues to be connected, to collaborate, develop and grow to lead and contribute toward the mission and feel empowered to do meaningful work. Prioritising:

  • Recruitment and Retention | building a strategy to recruit well and to attract and retain strong colleagues. Considering our approach to flexible working.
  • Professional Development | creating on-going opportunities for professional development, held in a curriculum. Developing, inspiring and creating more opportunities for colleagues.
  • Induction | investing in and building strong induction to support all colleagues to have the best possible start to their career in our trust.
  • Well-being and mental health strategy | securing approaches across the trust to support all colleagues with their well-being and mental health.

Strong Trust, Great Schools | standardise, empower, sustain

Ensuring that the trust improvement model offers the foundation for colleagues to lead great schools. Complicated systems well embedded across the trust to drive effectiveness and efficiency. Prioritising:

  • Deliberate enactment of the Trust Improvement Model (SIM) | developing our standardised approaches, enabling empowered areas and sustaining the model to secure improvement.
  • Financial stability and clarity | Ensuring the trust maintains the present financial security, secures wider responsibility and enables greater investment in the trust.
  • Professional Services | developing professional services, to strengthen platform, offer capacity, expertise and secure the environment to empower all colleagues to deliver the mission.
  • IT Strategy | ensuring colleagues and pupils have the tools they need to thrive now and in the future. Developing our digital vision and cloud-first approach. Exploring the opportunities of AI.

Towards a self-improving trust | lateral trust leadership

Creating the expectation and conditions for horizontal improvement across the trust. Connectivity and collaboration that are more effective and efficient at driving the School Improvement. Prioritising:

  • Trust Leadership Curriculum | investing in and enacting a trust leadership curriculum and to extend the sense of leadership curriculum through networks and the layers of the trust.
  • Networks and Subject Communities | connecting colleagues with purpose, formally and informally, to enable the development of strategies that raise standards.
  • Lateral leadership, 20% time | creating the expectation and the structure for colleagues to work beyond setting to support lateral leadership and secure a self-improving trust.
  • Succession Planning | investing in succession planning and talent management to ensure the future leadership security for our trust.

First Steps… into Term 1

And our first steps in Term 1 will see us deepen our connection and collaboration and prioritise:

  1. Understanding performance and setting the ambition and targets for 2026.
  2. High quality Induction and line management, starting out strong.
  3. Strong start and focus on Attendance, disadvantage first.
  4. Best Start in Life, embedding our core commitments.
  5. Enacting our shared curriculum.
  6. Focus on the development of teaching through Steplab.
  7. Embedding the new Planergy software in Finance.

We choose to venture on this journey to 2030 not because it is easy, but because it is hard, and because our ambition will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because the challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win (adapted, John F. Kennedy)

So, breathe, commit … and go inspire lives with greater opportunity and choice.

Thank you, you make a difference

Dan Nicholls | August 2025

This is not about you

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You are not that important, but your influence on others and the future is.

The influence we have as leaders to trigger change in others is what matters. The proliferation of influence beyond ourselves, through a deliberate investment in other human beings, pays forward. It is through this investment that leaders influence greater numbers and further into the future. Ego-less, values-driven leadership that knows it is not about them, but about how they extend their reach and influence.

paying forward, through others, for the future

The strongest leaders invest disproportionately in relationships and interactions that very intentionally influences the leadership of others, far-sightedly. Quietly and deliberately seeking micro and macro investments in others, who are better able to make a greater difference over time. Whilst some acts of influence are seen and purposefully public, most are unseen, systematic and deliberately enacted. It is what they do: the hidden work of leadership.

 (very) Intentional acts of influence

Too often we are taken by bold, shout about acts of leadership that serve the individual. In contrast effective leaders deliberately invest over time, seeking greater value through others, to achieve a common good. This leadership is effortful, thoughtful and deliberate. It calculates expected value and acts to increase returns in the long term. The reverse is lazy, wasteful and short-termist; no friend to our ancestors.

be the ancestor that our future generations need

Leadership is the influence we have on others, those near and far, to make a difference now and next. Effective leaders seek to develop the mental models in others focused on how to lead and pay forward so that they deepen their influence. In creating these models in others we might create the quality of leadership that grows capacity and inspires more lives.

Relationships, ad infinitum

Leadership is relationships, ad infinitum. Our ability to connect, influence, enable, inspire and leave residual value in those we meet, in those we lead, permeates our influence in and through the lives of others. Leaders who give time, are present, give thought, experience, expertise and who purposefully invest through others, seed possibility beyond themselves.  As social beings we thrive on the belief others have in us.

“The relationships we build with each other provide the foundations of change. We are social beings who thrive on connections.” Sir Hamid Patel

Leaders are emotional catalysts, experts in motivation (and motivations). They energise, inspire, elevate and encourage commitment from others, unleashing our natural biases to belong and do meaningful work. This orchestration requires leaders to create the conditions, opportunities and choices for colleagues to lead with purpose and take responsibility, to make a difference.

Our sphere of influence | through who and how far?

How far does your influence extend, to…

  • …self, a few, some, others, many?
    • …now, tomorrow, next, beyond your tenure, beyond your time?

    It is a choice. The emphasis of your priorities and how you use time, with who, will determine the impact and the reach of your leadership. It is both proximal and longitudinal. How far your leadership travels and how contagious it becomes determines legacy: in the trails you leave and open for others.

    We do not just leave trails we create new trails, tread lightly.

    Some leaders are fixated on now, today, tomorrow, getting through (and sometimes that is ok), others lift horizons and seek future returns, seeding the ground and deeply investing in others to change more and into the future. Your leadership is the sum of the actions taken by others, because of your leadership. Most of the impact of which will never be seen or known by you, paying forward.

    “Become the ancestor you’d like to thank.” Seth Godin

    Eco-systems and overstory I the theatre of leadership

    Effective leadership is hyper-aware of the peer and cultural codes that influence the motivation of humans within their ecosystem. Deliberate leadership is sensitive to these codes and acts to trigger ripple effects that take hold and add value.

    “…as tribal animals, we are bound to our peers, heroes, and ancestors … understanding ourselves as tribal helps us see the ripple effects of our actions.” Micheal Morris

    Effective leaders know that in this theatre their role is to enable the ecosystem to thrive, enhancing symbiotic relationships and connections that see beyond survival, toward something worthy. Knowing that their worth is measured in the health of all parts of the ecosystem and after their time.

    Each ecosystem has an overstory, a canopy that guides and shapes norms, decisions, actions, language that create or subtract value. People like us (here) do things like this. The stories we tell, the destinations we describe influences the ecosystem, and the effectiveness of leadership. Leaders…

    “…tend to forget about the overstory because we’re so focused on the life going on in front of and around us. But overstories turn out to be really, really powerful. The overstory is specific. It is tied to a place. It is powerful. It shapes behaviour. And it does not emerge out of nowhere. It happens for a reason…” Malcolm Gladwell.

    To pay forward, with intent, through others, requires leaders to calculate the expected value of their influence through others into the future. To do so requires an understanding of the ecosystem, motivation, peer codes, the overstory… a study of how social costs and cultural codes shape the decisions and actions of others overtime.

    Our landscape | Far-sighted leaders required

    “Our challenge is to ‘build’ the future society we (they) wish to see. This has implications for the curriculum, partnerships and school communities we develop.” Sir Hamid Patel

    The petri dish that is our sector is growing and maturing, the cultures are separate and largely in survival or winning mode. The future, however, is not about successful individuals or individual organisations. It is in the collective leadership and the networks we grow, that influences the sector, through others, that just might generate the capacity to reach all children.

    “…humankind gains enormous power by building large networks of co-operation, but the way these networks are built predisposes us to use the power unwisely. Our problem, then, is a network problem.” Yuval Noah Harari

    It is leadership that builds capacity through networks and deeper collaboration that will determine our stewardship of the future. The future starts with us, in our understanding of why we exist, how far we wish to lift and enable others, close to us, far from us, now and way into the future.

    What if the challenges we face as a sector are, in large part, a leadership challenge, and we are coming up short?

    Catch-up mode

    Our worth is seen in our influence on the lives of others. Our choices and priorities determine the difference that we make not just now, but next. We need to influence others in a way that will travel into the future, beyond our time. Leadership that propagates and adds value, ever-onward. Paying forward, through others, into the future.

    And yet our leadership is in catch-up mode, a feature reflected in the immaturity of our sector. There is much to do, but we have what we need and importantly the permission and obligation to lead more effectively. This weighty responsibility requires us to use our power well and to transfer and pass it through others to multiply and maximise our influence.

    In catch-up mode we must re-imagine what educational leadership is, their future depends on it. Our leadership must be more potent, generative and farsighted so that we do better than now, much better. Or else, we will not reach those children scrabbling for a foot hold on the fringes of education. Our present leadership paradigm does not generate enough capacity to do so.

    It is time to elevate the conversation, align our actions with our rhetoric and deliver far stronger leadership across the sector. We have far more influence than we are willing to admit. But there is hope, leadership that pays forward, through others, for the future just might generatively add the value, tip the balance for those who need us most, the ones we know and the ones we will not know.

    For the sun is shining on us now.

    …it is about your leadership

    Dan Nicholls | December 2024

    Our Future | building culture

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    The next stage of our Trust will seek to connect and empower all colleagues as one organisation. Colleagues trusted to transform lives, so that children thrive and flourish now and into adulthood. We will use the power of education to unlock and inspire young lives, particularly for those children who carry more than others, in these difficult times.

    “There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children.” (Kofi Annan)

    Building on strong foundations

    Your expertise and commitment have built the platform on which our Trust now stands. Because of this work, over time, you have developed provision and approaches that are making a difference to the lives of children and is the foundation for our next stage. On this maturity we will seek greater influence on the lives of colleagues and children, strategically plotting and shaping our path, together.

    In the next stage there are key approaches and principles that will establish a cultural model that will inform our relationships, interactions and underpin the strategy. This will build the conditions, culture, and climate for colleagues to do meaningful work. We will prioritise psychological safety for colleagues, so that they feel greater belonging and to be given permission to do work that transforms lives. Offering the opportunities for more children to flourish, to have a sense of wonder and be wonder-smitten: I am here, that I may wonder.

    “To live wonder-smitten with reality is the gladdest way to live.” (Maria Popova)

    One organisation

    We are one organisation, serving children, aged 2 to 19, responsible for all children, with every school and colleague woven into a collective cultural fabric: school is trust, trust is school. A collection of great schools, meeting need, held in a strong trust.

    Our culture matters to us. It is built and shaped, in every interaction, everywhere, all the time and ever onward. Our cultural landscape is carved over time towards our shared purpose and is guided by deeply held lived values and shared rituals and routines. It is shaped and measured by how far colleagues feel they belong, have status, and build esteem. How we choose to spend time, the constellations we form and how colleagues connect will create our culture.

    “The stars we are given. The constellations we make.” (Rebecca Solnit)

    Making good decisions together

    We make good decisions together. We seek and value expertise across our schools and the Trust as a whole. We are open and transparent as an organisation, making the best decisions we can, with the information we have, whilst seeking to do the right thing. We act without fear or favour.

    First say yes. If a colleague feels the need to ask for support or resource, we should say yes, first, and work out how, later. Paying forward as an exercise in collective endeavour and shared responsibility.

    The second mistake. It is rarely the case that the first mistake matters, it is often the second or third that turns mistake into problem. Because we make good decisions together, are open and transparent we share and resolve challenges at the first opportunity. Almost everything becomes easier when things are shared, it builds trust, and importantly avoids the second and third mistake.

    A Human organisation, valuing relationships

    We make time to listen, learn and build relationships. Being present. This is about ensuring colleagues are known as individuals, individuals with a unique story, a story that is heard. Understanding an individual’s story allows us to weave collective stories into the future; generating a greater sense of belonging. How we treat anyone, is how we treat everyone.

    Humans are beautifully contagious

    Use time well, seek simplicity

    We will seek to use time well. Deliberately prioritising time towards the Main Thing(s). Logically sequencing our routines and networks and creating simple approaches that focus on making the greatest difference. We will work to reduce unnecessary burdens on individuals, to be as agile and nimble as is appropriate to our scale. As simple as possible, but not more so.

    We will seek clarity because it is kind. Humans like rules, it is clarity that creates safety. We will share all data and information transparently to understand performance and drive improvement, part of our joint endeavour and collective responsibility for all children.

    Primacy of Headteachers, the drivers of change

    We understand the importance and primacy of Headteachers. The strongest Heads are great with people, understand provision and lead with purpose, prioritising and implementing key strategies and approaches, over time, to enable colleagues to change lives. They are open and able to utilise the capacity of the Trust, and to add into the strength of the Trust; a mutually beneficial symbiosis that adds value.

    We are the sum of our decisions

    Our effectiveness could be simplified as the sum of all decisions, by all colleagues, all the time, everywhere across our Trust that either accumulates value, or not. Our role as Trust Leaders is to influence, nudge, direct, enable better decisions to be made more often, to deliver a dividend. We will continue to dance between what we decide to do together and where we choose to empower colleagues to act.

    Deliberately choosing where to standardise and where to empower colleagues

    We will continue to standardise aspects of provision, to become more than the sum of our parts. Standardising, building things together, has tremendous power to liberate, support and give permission (and opportunity) for colleagues to focus on the Main Thing(s); creating a platform for colleagues. Our shared, common curriculum exemplifies the power of this collective endeavour.

    “Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” (Seth Godin)

    We will standardise and empower deliberately and strategically. Holding ideas in tension, informed by context, because context matters; it is not a compromise. Whilst recognising the importance of standardisation and of empowering colleagues on platforms, we will not seek to over dictate the complex areas of provision where experts and professionals make decisions, informed in the moment, in context, for their community.

    “…under the conditions of true complexity – where unpredictability reigns – efforts to dictate every step from the centre will fail. People … require a seemingly contradictory mix of freedom and expectation.” (Atul Gawande)

    We understand the influence we have on others

    Back to the Future. Whilst Marty McFly travelled back in time and understood the future consequences of his actions, we are much less conscious of our influence on the future. Whilst we cannot foresee the future we can, together, create the conditions, sow the seeds, prepare the ground for humans to flourish and for more good than bad to happen. We, collectively create a crucible of serendipity where colleagues shape what is possible. Lives are shaped by opportunity. Our collective capacity can and will transform lives, evidenced in the smallest acts, every day.

    “The smallest act in the most limited circumstances bears the seed of boundlessness, because one deed, and sometimes one word, suffices to change every constellation.” (Hannah Arendt)

    We are collaborative by nature

    We will build on our existing collaborative architecture, our co-operative system, to connect colleagues with purpose and to each other, seeking collaborative advantage. Connecting colleagues within professional networks and subject/year communities, where hard and soft-wired collaboration secures collaborative intelligence and wisdom that becomes self-improving and irreversible. The biggest influence on colleagues is colleagues.

    Getting today right and building for the future

    Two speed. As we forge forward, we will build our future, based on where we have been, where we are, and toward what we seek. We will seek to get today right and the future right. We will seek change and improvement in months and years, concurrently.

    What do we seek? We decide, next, together.

    Into our future

    So, based on the platform that you have built, we will work with humanity, humility and openness, to shape the future, together. So, at this time, as I join you as CEO, my optimism, hope and determination for what we will achieve is galvanised by the brilliant people in our Trust.

    “When we build a culture of people who eagerly seek out and take responsibility, we build a culture that enables a special kind of resilient freedom.” (Seth Godin)

    We have an opportunity to enable all colleagues across our Trust to collaborate, connect and feel empowered to make a difference. To work as one organisation, sharing responsibility, engaged in collective endeavour to secure greater social justice, particularly for our most vulnerable children, those that carry the most through life, and particularly at this time. A worthy cause.

    “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.” (Howard Zinn)

    Postscript

    There is no way to build high-performing organisations without a cultural model that drives the strategy. Or to put it differently, strategy without culture is just wishful thinking.

    Dan Nicholls | July 2024

    Privileging disadvantage | Excellence, Equity, Culture

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    Securing provision that privileges disadvantaged children requires a deliberate balance of Excellence, Equity and Culture. A system in 3 dimensions. An excellent education made accessible by the application of equity held within a culture of high expectation closes gaps into adulthood for under-resourced children.  Shifting the identity of schools and organisations to systemically privilege those that need us most, because it is who they are and what they do.

    Privileging disadvantage and closing gaps is futile without excellent provision. Effective enactment of a progressive, sequenced curriculum, every lesson, every day, as a universal entitlement, offers far greater opportunity for all. Whilst our strongest lever is an excellent education, this alone, is not enough. Schools also need to apply far greater equity, to be braver and fiercer to do different for under-resourced children, so that they are empowered and able to exploit the excellent education. An alchemy of excellence and equity.

    “One measure of poverty is how little you have. Another is how difficult you find it to take advantage of what others try to give you.” (Michael Lewis)

    When schools secure an excellent education, allied with the deliberate application of equity, children are enabled to, supported to, and expected to take the opportunity. This creates the conditions that disproportionately advantage disadvantaged learners. A potent mix of excellence and opportunity.

    “…schools remain one of the few remaining trusted institutions equipped to help create a fairer society. -explicitly thinking about how teaching can be genuinely inclusive to benefit all pupils, while relentlessly identifying, understanding and overcoming barriers to learning outside (and inside) school – are the interlocking foundations of equity-based education.” (Lee Elliot Major)

    Privileging disadvantage in three dimensions.

    Sustaining this potent combination of excellence and equity requires a strong culture, where colleagues take responsibility for enacting the very best provision and to unlock it for all children (psychologically and structurally). Cultures of high expectation, never give up on individuals, let them down or off, they meet them there, step (push) them forward, in an ‘advantaged-like’ environment, upheld by all. Creating a culture that changes the life chances of those that have had the least, because childhoods last a lifetime, and we may be their only second chance.

    “4.3 million children, 30% are growing up in poverty in the UK.” (Department of Work and Pensions)

    Closing gaps and privileging disadvantage requires Excellence, Equity and Culture:

    Excellence | Securing an excellent education for all learners – our strongest lever.

    An excellent curriculum, sequenced, progressive and enacted to secure powerful knowledge and understanding, with eye-wateringly high expectations of all children, is our strongest lever. It requires our full attention to be uncompromising in pursuing social justice, confer power and an entitlement to the strongest possible provision. 

    “Curriculum is all about power. Decisions about what knowledge to teach are an exercise of power and therefore a weighty ethical responsibility. What we choose to teach confers or denies power.” (Christine Counsell)

    To disproportionately support disadvantage learners, we need all teachers and leaders to really understand the architecture of each subject, the most fundamental substantive core concepts, the most powerful knowledge and the key disciplinary concepts. We need to not stray far from this spine of the curriculum so that we weave baskets and schema that fundamentally support children to make links and learn more in the future. Arbitrary subject wanderings is kryptonite for disadvantage learners, confirming it is not for them and too abstract to connect and engage with.

    Seeking to bounce up and down through a spiral curriculum, often, reinforces the spine, increases the proximity of the presently known to new knowledge and reinforces over time what is the most important and fundamental for learning. Do seek to inspire, expect much, and be geeky about the subject spine.

    Excellent teaching must invest in strong explanation and direct instruction that assumes less about previous knowledge and experiences, tethered closely to the spine of the curriculum. Don’t hide explanation in slides or complicated context. Exposition is teaching and learning. Prioritise human explanation, modelling and analogy, enacted in real time, in plain sight, in simple language, visually accumulates advantage. High quality teaching triggers attainment mobility and realises potential.

    Enabling disadvantaged learners to find their voice requires an effective school-wide systematic development of oracy. When there is strong oracy we privilege disadvantaged learners, because…

    “… it is utterly transformative. It changes the way we feel about ourselves. It changes the way in which other people see us. It changes the way in which we relate to friends and family members. It changes our ideas about what we might go on to do in the future.” (James Mannion)

    Seek to prioritise the building of vocabulary, particularly tier 2 vocabulary. This is key for joining thoughts and ideas together, deepens oracy and enables deeper thinking. Also actively lift the quality of all conversations, in all interactions, all the time, in the school. All colleagues have influence and skin in this game.

    Reading and the development of reading is fundamental for accumulating advantage. It is hard to over-state the importance of reading: it develops cultural capital, comprehension, vocabulary, thinking, empathy, inference, confidence, concentration, oracy, writing, esteem, unlocks the world, quality of life, belonging…

    “I didn’t know words could hold so much.” (Kya Clark)

    Nudging, narrating, and coaching is a feature of an advantaged upbringing. From formative years advantaged children receive constant feedback and commentary that supports growth and is the driver for accumulating advantage. Formative assessment needs to be an intentional and deliberate part of an excellent education, it is a strong expression of care. I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you. The strongest teaching seeks to hunt, not fish, being precise about where individual children are and offering specific feedback. Follow learning to meet need.

    Creating a strong culture of professional learning, with colleagues engaged in incremental coaching, often and specifically on aspects of teaching creates classrooms of opportunity for disadvantaged learners.

    Children taught by the most effective teacher in that group of 50 teachers, learn in six months what those taught by the average teacher learn in a year. (Hanushek & Rivkin)

    Equity | to enable all children to take advantage of an outstanding education.

    “Fair doesn’t mean giving every child the same thing, it means giving every child what they need.” (Rick Lavoie)

    We tend to under-use equity, in favour of equality, which often stops us giving what individual children really need. Applying equity, fiercely, bravely and deliberately, enables children to access and take advantage of excellent provision, but it requires us to understanding children as individuals. To do so requires us to genuinely walk in their shoes and see the world through their eyes and then to remove barriers and create an optimal environment. Applying the disadvantaged lens.

    “90% of my time is spent thinking about and watching people … (to) genuinely get inside their shoes and see the world through their eyes … (to) create an optimal environment where a human being is going to have the best chance of being the best they could possibly be.” (David Brailsford)

    To grow up advantaged is to exist in a world of opportunity and high expectation, it is demanding. We need to have the highest of expectations for disadvantaged learners, if we let them off, we will let them down. Each time we lower the bar we are complicit in widening the gap. Disadvantaged learners are not less able, it is an economic label only… and labels are dangerous.

    To grow up advantaged is to be held to high expectations and encouraged to participate in supported opportunities over time. A childhood that encourages risk taking, a low safety bar (with safety net), offers commentary of the journey through life and reaffirms a child’s internal locus of control. We need a system where all children have someone who believes in them, someone (maybe many) to meet them there.

    “The biggest benefit in being the child of a scientist? Low safety bar. As soon as Mad could walk, Elizabeth (Zott) encourages her to touch, taste, toss, bounce, burn, rip, spill, shake, mix, splatter, sniff, and lick nearly everything she encountered… Nevertheless, she lived.” (Bonnie Garmus)

    Focus on Attendance first, compelling and engaging all colleagues to drive up attendance of disadvantaged children, as the priority. If children aren’t in, our influence is zero, they need us to reach out and pull them in.

    Mentoring and tutoring, in addition, is an overt expression of equity and a typical feature of an advantaged upbringing.  Schools must focus on careers and future planning, so that disadvantaged learners see and know what is possible, because disadvantaged children are not less ambitious.

    We need to apply equity to every transition point, to step in, hold disadvantaged learners and build a secure sense of psychological safety. It is within transitions that advantaged parents step in, navigate, and support children over the multiple transitions of childhood. It is not just between schools, or years, or terms, or days, it is all the time; our lives are punctuated by transitions. We need to be the bridge, to be the ladder.

    Beware of being complicit in creating schools within schools. Too often schools inadvertently create pathways, perfectly designed to widen gaps and exacerbate disadvantage. Alternate realities do not exist in schools that privilege disadvantage. We measure ourselves and our status against those we spend time with. We should seek to create conditions for attainment mobility and wide social connection.

    Culture | Privileging into the long term is about culture change, seeking irreversibility.

    “Your goal is your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will get you there… you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” (James Clear)

    In schools where under-resourced children thrive the strength of culture and shared responsibility is evident and tangible, you feel it. These schools have systems that entirely privilege all children, subconsciously carved into the expected norms, habits, routines, language and behaviour as an irreversible commitment to educate and apply equity to all children. Disadvantage even over

    Schools that privilege disadvantage have exothermic systems that generate their own energy and subconsciously (but by design) close gaps, rather than endothermic systems that require external energy, conscious focus, initiative, strategy and tables on websites. The first is a permanent shift in identity and values, the latter is ill-equipped to close gaps. Schools becoming what they repeatedly do.

    Our interactions, language, and the attention we give to others defines our attitude towards themand influences the way children see themselves. Language really matters, it warrants deep consideration and development over time, it is the artefact of any culture.You belong here. Systems that privilege disadvantage call out behaviours, attitudes, actions, language and intent that widen gaps.

    Schools that close gaps measure what matters, because and what we measure, we care about. The true measure of the effectiveness of an education is revealed in the attainment, progress, and attendance of disadvantaged learners. The best schools prime the conditions, reward gap closers and gap closing as part of the values, even over other metrics.

    Closing gaps in 3D | In brief

    Step one: Seek to secure an excellent education, where great teaching of a well sequenced, progressive, conceptually driven curriculum, disproportionately supports learning of disadvantaged children, every lesson, every day to close gaps.

    Step two: Really understand all children, remove barriers, maintain very high expectations, and apply equity to secure full access for all children to an excellent education (over privileging and applying equity as necessary).

    Step three: Build a culture that ensures the excellent education is accessible and unavoidable for all children by applying equity. Shift the identity, to one that privileges disadvantage in everything.

    Then: stop talking about disadvantage, disadvantage strategies, PP Plans and initiatives, instead talk about high quality provision, accessed by all, because it is who we are and it is what we do for all.

    If we do so, we just might create the conditions that disproportionately support disadvantaged learners to accumulate advantage and close the gaps that we currently perpetuate. An education, where all children belong and feel success because it privileges disadvantage.

    Seek Excellence, Equity, Culture | close gaps in 3D.

    Dan Nicholls | May 2024

    Unwarranted Optimism

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      For there is always light,

      If only we’re brave enough to see it.

      If only we’re brave enough to be it.

      (Amanda Gorman)

      When everything around appears dark and it is hard to see the light, we need to be brave enough to have unwarranted optimism. It is unwarranted because of the number of challenges faced by colleagues working in education that push us into hopelessness and toward helplessness. And, perhaps worse, there is a real danger that this helplessness is increasingly learnt, mutually reinforced and influencing the stories we tell each other about our profession.

      “Do you have the resilience to show unwarranted optimism, and to regard crisis as the norm and complexity as fun, while maintaining a bottomless well of intellectual curiosity?” (Tim Brighouse)

      To work in our profession requires unwarranted optimism. It always has, but it feels harder than ever to view the future with hope. Optimism (particularly unwarranted) is the life blood of our sector, the fuel that drives good people to do good and change lives. We must not sink our profession by peddling pessimism, even if it is warranted.

      “The problem is that people mistake optimism for ‘blind optimism’.” (Hannah Ritchie)

      However, this is no time for ‘blind optimism’, a naive faith or passive hope that things will turn out well. We need a ‘conditional’, ‘urgent’ optimism that empowers us to act, to step forward and build together a future for all children. Even if optimism, at this time, is unwarranted, it is a far better basis for offering colleagues and children a sense of possibility.

      Warranted Optimism | Everyday acts of heroism.

      “Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it’s having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference. We can shape the future, and we can build a great one if we want to.” (Hannah Ritchie)

      Our schools may well be performing better than ever, providing provision that is meeting the steepest of challenges, post pandemic, and in the face of the fracturing social contract. In all schools, heroic acts are changing lives, exemplifying the power of human connection, offering real hope and optimism for the future; a powerful force for good.

      Warranted Pessimism | poor choice for children and colleagues.

      Warranted pessimism is not an option. Despite the oppressive background music and the darkening light, if we choose to be pessimistic, we may well extinguish the fading light. Too much pessimism, warranted or unwarranted disturbs us deeply, encourages retreat and pushes us to become victims of circumstance. And whilst we can individually decide to retreat, it comes at a cost for all and our profession, as well as the children who need optimism, not pessimism, from the adults they trust.

      “There is no trust more sacred than the one the world holds with children.” (Kofi Annan)

      Skin in the game | our influence lives beyond us

      We all have an opportunity to be and bring the light to others. We cannot choose to sit outside the lives of others or be silent in the narratives that we tell each other; we have skin in other people’s lives. How we choose to move through life, reinforces or erodes the narrative and norms that set the stage far beyond ourselves, in schools, classrooms, and more broadly in life.  How we choose to live in this world, matters.

      “How to live in a world where profound uncertainty is not a bug, but a feature?” (Yuval Noah Harari)

      We are also hugely influenced by the need to fit in. It is coded deep in us that to be outside of a group hurts, is unsafe and a danger. So, we often take opportunities to align ourselves with the beliefs, attitudes, norms and behaviours of those closest to us. Often choosing against our independent beliefs to follow trend and fit in; a trend that is too often pessimistic. It matters, therefore, whether we choose unwarranted optimism or not, it radiates and infects beyond ourselves to other beings and happenings, all of the time.

      “Your response has to be to reject cynicism and reject pessimism and push forward, with a certain infectious and relentless optimism. Not blind optimism, not one that ignores the scale and scope of our challenges, but that hard-earned optimism, that’s rooted in the stories of very real progress.” (Barack Obama)

      Fairy Lights over Spotlights | a marvellous victory

      “What we choose to emphasise … will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something… and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. …to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.” (Howard Zinn)

      To live with unwarranted optimism is to seek the joy of fairy lights over spotlights. A focus on fairy lights enables us to see the joy woven through life, to value the happenings and humans around us. Shifting our focus to the normal, everyday, magic that happens in schools, reveals the power of human relationships and places value on what really matters.

      “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.” (Howard Zinn)

      The future then is built on an accumulation of small acts, a bottom-up movement, where change becomes possible and we have the chance to send this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

      meaningful movements start bottom-up.

      Seeking spotlights on the other hand is like waiting for big things or changes, often viewing them as a salvation that will save the day. It is the hope that kills, the waiting for the next station that stops us from living now and enjoying the journey.

      “I’ve very deliberately chosen to notice the smaller things, the joys I might have otherwise missed had I looked too broad, too big. The thousands of joys that lattice and join and thread into and around our daily school life.” (Claire Stoneman)

      Uncommon Opportunity | striving for what is worth having.

      There might just be an uncommon opportunity to re-evaluate what really matters in education. Some of the most courageous and heroic work is happening in unfavoured areas of our sector; areas where the challenge is steepest and recognition the lowest.

      “This is Vanity Fair a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having.” (William Thackeray)

      The narrowness of what is valued in education belies the vibrance and range of opportunity that exists in our world and the eclectic abilities of human beings. It is this narrowness that disenfranchises the many. We must throw more light on what is worth having, what children need for their future; a system more geared towards those it serves.

      “I deal my own deck, sometimes the ace, sometimes the deuces.” (Gloria Gaynor)

      When we are pushed by powers beyond our control we should strive to go in the opposite direction and enable others to take more control, to step forward and make a difference to their part of the world. We should continue to deal our own cards, and empower others, to deal from their decks, optimistically, regardless of what is dealt; because we have collective power and we are the system.

      Too many feel unremarkable | in a remarkable world.

      In a darkening world children, particularly under-resourced children, need us to have unwarranted optimism, to offer more light and a greater sense of possibility. Creating the conditions for children to adventure down rabbit holes of curiosity and to feel the wonder of our remarkable world. We seek this wonder, so that children have the chance to walk a step or two with genius and because childhoods last a lifetime.

      “Do you believe with a passion that brooks no denial that all pupils, whatever their background, can walk a step or two with genius and that your staff will embrace the aim that all students will grow up to think for themselves and act for others?” (Tim Brighouse)

      We must not allow a pervading pessimism to extinguish the light for children and create a self-fulfilling narrative that damages our profession. We must encourage more to serve in education to reveal the magic that exist in ordinary lives and to bring more light.

      “…treading the intriguing line between the everyday and the otherworldly, revealing the magic that exists in our ordinary lives.” (The Lost Bookshop)

      Not our story to finish | true but useless.

      We should not pretend to know the future or how this story plays out. We must tread carefully on the dreams of children and seek to create provision that is more born out of optimism than pessimism. It is the difference between setting the stage for children to stumble forward in the dark, steeped in pessimism, and stepping with confidence into a future that is full of optimism and possibility. Children need to grow up in a world where they feel remarkable, opportunity is unbound, and where children do not feel separate from the world.

      “…although her childhood, had left her feeling separate from the world.” (Steven Rogers)

      Lest we forget that children are vulnerable to the beliefs and narratives of the adults in their lives. The challenges we face are true but useless for the children we educate. They do not choose the conditions, location, or time that they inhabit, and they are largely unaware of pressures, turmoil, and upset of colleagues in our sector. They profit nothing from a sector that fights, argues, gives-up, or fails to work optimistically with the hand that they are dealt.

      Unwarranted optimism | An invitation to dance

      We choose our approach to life and to work. It is too easy to see the challenges that surround us and retreat into the security of pessimism, into narratives that reduce agency and reinforce helplessness. But, when we do, it is not an individual choice, the impact of this stance reverberates through other beings and happenings. It denies a sense of possibility.

      Conversely, to bravely choose optimism, conditional optimism, we offer a greater sense of possibility, to reassess what is valued and to see the magic and the light in the everyday. This is a stronger basis for the future, more generous and a greater investment in colleagues and children.

      “Ignore those who say that we are doomed. We are not doomed. We can build a better future for everyone.” (Hannah Ritchie)

      So, to choose individually, collectively, and organisationally to pursue unwarranted optimism is to contribute to a growing narrative that encourages us not just to see the light, but to be the light. To step forward rather than shy away from the future and collectively build it.

      And in this optimistic light perhaps all children and colleagues will accept an invitation to dance.

      Dan Nicholls | February 2024

      Collaborative Advantage | seeking a trust dividend

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      Strong Trusts seek collaborative advantage by building an organisational structure and curating a culture that connects colleagues in shared endeavour. In these Trusts colleagues are empowered, on standardised platforms, to take collective responsibility for approaches and artefacts that enable connected schools to add value and secure a Trust dividend that sustains beyond their time. Trusts seek school improvement by making deliberate bets, laid as investments, that improve the life chances of all children, particularly those who are under-resourced. And in these dark times, it has never been more important for Trusts to seek greater equity through education, to be long-sighted and to invest in the future by planting trees, deeply rooted in their communities; the shade from which they may never benefit.

      “…leaders doing less but understanding more… can free themselves to focus on the future – which is, after all, the proper territory of leadership.” (Tracey Camilleri, et al.)

      Where Trusts choose to play and how they focus on the future, matters…

      Defined by the decisions we make | Choosing where to play

      Whilst we might assume that there are many ways to run a Trust, there are surprisingly few. And it is ‘few’ because all Trusts are in the business of school improvement, held in a highly regulated system and seeking to improve the life chances of all children. There is a reassuring alignment between the challenges and opportunities that Trusts engage with to add value, moderated, a little, by maturity, scale and capacity. Where Trusts choose to play and how well this is enacted largely determines the success of a Trust.

      As Trusts grow, merge, mature and forge identities, their effectiveness could be simplified as the sum of all decisions made, by all colleagues, every second, of everyday, everywhere in a Trust that accumulates a dividend, or not. The role of Trust leaders is to influence, nudge, (direct), enable better decisions to be made more often, over time, the sum of which delivers the dividend. How Trusts influence this decision making, is a dance between what it decides to do together and where it decides to empower colleagues to act. An intelligent dance, that balances standardised and empowered approaches, and connects colleagues together seeking a collaborative advantage.

      Seeking collaborative advantage | Who’s on first base?

      Trust (and school) leaders “…are all playing Moneyball, all the time” (Seth Godin). Seeking the organisational design and strategy that will make a discernible difference and hold schools in a higher and more consistent performance space. For Bill James and the Oakland As it was: “…putting players on base at a higher rate, leads to more runs, which therefore, translates to more wins.” For Trusts, perhaps it is:

      “…putting colleagues together (with purpose) at a higher rate, leads to more value, which therefore, translates to a greater dividend.”

      Creating the architecture for colleagues to deliberately collaborate creates the conditions for a collaborative advantage. Connecting colleagues within professional networks and subject communities, empowers peers to co-construct and co-design beliefs, attitudes, approaches and artefacts that drive the dividend, for the long term. Strong Trusts understand the need to build antifragile organisations where the hard-wired (and soft wired) collaborative architecture strengthens under stress, secures wide ownership for improvement, is self-improving and irreversible. Effective collaboration is hard to create, what it is and what it isn’t and how it is designed, entirely determines the benefit felt. The biggest influence on teachers is teachers.

      “System leaders focus on creating the conditions that can produce change and that can eventually cause change to be self-sustaining.” (Senge et al.)

      The cultural landscape and fabric of the Trust

      It is hard to under-state the importance of culture in organisations. The deliberate design of the cultural landscape and the strength of the cultural fabric are necessary pre-requisites for the sustained success of any organisation; built ever onward.

      Colleagues need a contradictory mix of being part of something bigger (the cultural landscape), and to see themselves in the organisation (part of the cultural fabric), to have what they need and to be a unique part of the pattern.

      The cultural landscape of a Trust is shaped and carved over time towards the shared purpose, the mission of the Trust and is guided by deeply held (lived) values and enacted in shared rituals and routines. Walking and working in the cultural landscape reveal the values and character of the Trust; it determines and secures belonging, status, and esteem of colleagues, or not. How Trusts choose to spend time and how colleagues connect is a window into the soul of the organisation.

      “The stars we are given. The constellations we make.” (Rebecca Solnit)

      The strongest cultural landscapes are organised around the reason for existence. These Trusts clearly articulate the mission and the purpose of the Trust, which is held across the landscape by the North Star, guiding and moulding the norms and behaviours. Lit by this star the cultural fabric weaves colleagues together towards the mission, to do good and make a difference.

       “If everything is important, then nothing is… When you know your reason for existence, it should affect the decisions you make.” (Lencioni)

      The strongest cultural fabrics are held together by a shared language, vocabulary, norms, behaviours, attitudes, artefacts, standards, conversations, ideas… it holds colleagues, offering the psychological safety to bring their best selves. The fabric is deliberately, consciously and systematically woven in every action and conversation. It is the cultural landscape and fabric of a Trust, that sets the stage and the conditions for colleagues to do important work.

      “When we build a culture of people who eagerly seek out and take responsibility, we build a culture that enables a special kind of resilient freedom.” (Seth Godin)

      In strong Trusts, culture is deeply linked to where it has been (true to founding) and where it is going (ambition for all) and its journey (the everyday culture). It is (un)surprisingly well designed and felt everywhere, from all colleagues; how we treat anyone, is how we treat everyone. One of those things that takes years to build and seconds to destroy. The culture and colleagues drive the dividend.

      Trust Mindedness | school is trust, trust is school. Priming the landscape.

      Strong Trusts seed and cultivate the landscape, to reward Trust mindedness, intrinsically so. A priming of culture that is conducive to collaboration, to understanding that all leaders, all colleagues are responsible for all children in the Trust. It is about creating an internal market where the stock price of schools, leaders and colleagues rises with altruism, collaboration, professional generosity, contributing to the shared artefacts, routines and rituals that live out the Trust values, towards the mission and secures the dividend.

      This is a Trust-wide mindset, within the cultural landscape and fabric that primes, promotes and rewards relationships and behaviours that fuel and sustain the School Improvement Model. It is the deep collaborative motivation that lives in the Trust, to depth, that encourages better decisions more often, so that the Trust is more than the sum of the parts. Under these conditions Trust leadership is increasingly about guardianship and stewardship.

      The primacy of Principals | The lead actors in mature (and immature Trusts)

      Strong Trusts recognise the primacy of Principals. Schools are significantly influenced by the quality of the headteacher (and teams they lead). If the culture and choices made by a Trust largely determines the potency and effectiveness, then the Headteachers are the key actors in school improvement. The effectiveness of the Headteacher is largely the determining factor in the quality of provision, influenced by the Trust, of course, but perhaps not as much as we would like to think.

      The strongest Principals are great with people, understand provision and lead with purpose, prioritising and implementing key strategies and approaches, over time to drive the effectiveness (and efficiency) of the school. Importantly they are open and able to utilise the resource and strength of the Trust; a symbiosis that adds value, and increasingly so. Strong Trusts invest deeply in Headteachers, designing curriculum, professional learning, opportunities, connectivity, collaboration and the conditions for Heads to lead well.

      Exploit the complicated | Standardised Provision

      Perhaps the biggest advantage afforded to Trusts is the ability to standardise aspects of provision to secure school improvement and greater consistency in provision. Despite some negative connotations or overly simplistic views of “standardisation,” it has tremendous power to liberate, support and give permission (and opportunity) for colleagues to focus on the Main Thing(s). The creation of standardised approaches, strategies and artefacts builds a platform for colleagues, to focus on meeting need, without the distraction of re-designing areas of provision that just need to happen reliably and consistently.

      “Leadership is the art of giving people a platform for spreading ideas that work.” (Seth Godin)

      Strong Trusts intentionally and deliberately standardise ‘complicated’ areas of provision:  Complicated areas act largely the same way each time. These areas can often helpfully be reduced to a checklist; if this, then do that. Trusts should play in these areas and standardise as there is limited need for local decision making or creativity and, importantly, this offers the opportunity for a Trust to improve provision for all learners (and colleagues). Co-creating and co-designing shared curriculum and assessment are particularly potent areas for the dividend.  

      Empower and guide the complex | Empowered Provision

      Areas that are largely complex should be empowered to schools and colleagues. Complex areas respond differently each time and are typically influenced by the unpredictability of human action and interaction, requiring in the moment decision making. In complex areas of provision, we need to push decisions closer to the action where quality and outcomes are linked to the situation as it emerges, contextually influenced. 

      There are areas of provision in each academy that is better owned and empowered locally, they are largely complex, influenced by context and improved by local decision making. Of course, it is desirable to standardise aspects of these largely complex areas in academies to (fractally) create the standardised platform for colleagues in academies.

      Don’t overcook | Just because you could, does not mean you should.

      Standardise too far, and you remove the local decision making, professionalism and agency of colleagues to make good decisions, commensurate and appropriate to a profession, and being a professional.  This is the crux of effective Trust leadership, the dance between the complicated and complex, to standardise and to empower deliberately and purposefully. Held in tension, strong Trusts create routines, standardise areas of provision to support colleagues, but do not seek to over dictate the complex areas of provision where local decision making, near to the action, informed in the moment, adds the value and creates the sustainable behaviours that secures a self-improving organisation, beyond our time.

      Holding ideas in tension is not a compromise

      Trusts should not use their power to standardise without bound, there are limits to the effectiveness of standardisation when it steps over and on individual agency and professionalism.

      “…under the conditions of true complexity – where unpredictability reigns – efforts to dictate every step from the centre will fail. People … require a seemingly contradictory mix of freedom and expectation.” (Atul Gawande)

      Measure what matters, transparently and in the interest of school improvement

      Strong Trusts measure what matters and by doing so indicate what they care about. This is the transparent democratisation of data to all colleagues to enable a focus on learning and evaluation of provision, to depth. This reveals standards, informs school improvement and highlights high (and low) performance as well as expertise across the Trust.

      Trust leaders are guardians of standards, creating an insurance policy that holds and secures improvement for all children and schools in the Trust. A risk-led approach enables an agile and timely distortion of resource, school improvement capacity and expertise to ensure that all children, areas of provision and academies are supported to improve and level-up in a timescale that is quicker than the local resource capability. School is Trust, Trust is school; all colleagues responsible for all children.

      Whether Trusts become more than the sum of their parts and add a dividend for all children, families and communities is determined by the choices that they make and where they choose to play. Strong Trusts craft cultural landscapes and empower colleagues within a cultural fabric, on a standardised platform, to connect across the Trust to realise a collaborative advantage.

      “The role of the leader is to enable, facilitate, and cause peers to interact in a focused manner…but still only a minority of systems employ the power of collective capacity.” (Fullan)

      Strong Trusts build the conditions where the collective capacity is focused on addressing the steep challenges of our time and where the collaborative advantage drives a dividend that secures greater equity through education.

      …But, Trusts are not alone in the landscape, despite pressures that promote isolationism and competition, all parts of the sector are joined in a quest to build a better system. A system that will only meet the growing needs of all children when there is greater collaboration, stewardship, generosity and collective responsibility. We should seek together a sector that exploits a collective collaborative advantage for the good of all children.

      All Trusts working together for all children

      Dan Nicholls | February 2024

      The thinking presented here is based on the work, experience and thinking of colleagues across Cabot Learning Federation.

      Towards Social Justice

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      “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

      Our education system is perfectly designed to secure and maintain the conditions that accumulate disadvantage over time. A system so ingrained and accepted that we unwittingly perpetuate it and see the results as inevitable. Against the backdrop of the fracturing social contract, the aftermath of the pandemic and in darkening times, the cogs of the system continue unabated, galvanised and renewed to further widen gaps and disenfranchise an ever-larger number of children.

      “To not feel belonging is to experience the precarious and insecure sense of an outsider.” (Owen Eastwood, 2021)

      The system is strengthening, forging greater division in society precisely at a time when individual agency and mobility is decreasing. A system that has powerful ways of telling children that they do not belong, playing out asymmetrically to make life precarious and insecure for far too many. A national crisis rages, children are becoming more invisible, opting out of education and they are being pushed to the edges. Those who most need school are not there, absent and missing from the very place that could offer social justice and opportunity.

      We need to create a system that is for all children, a system of opportunity that is on their side, a place to belong, where equity gives them what they need. A system where we go beyond just caring about closing gaps. Recognising that the system and our accepted norms often exclude children whose experience of multi micro-exclusions, accumulate disadvantage and erode self-agency.

      Using our architecture to tilt the system towards social justice

      What if we have more power in this system than we think, than we have come to accept? What if we were to use the architecture of our system, the maturation of groups of schools connected within Trusts to tilt the system, to re-align and re-engineer the system? Taking braver, more courageous decisions that unswervingly seek social justice and challenge the status quo. We choose to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard; a loonshot.

      “Never tell me the odds.” (Han Solo)

      What if Trusts, engage in deep(er) connection and collaboration, offering the security and permission to go after something that really matters? Trusts working together for all children transforming and re-aligning the system to secure greater social justice for disadvantaged learners.

      It is not that we don’t care, it is that we do not care enough

      … because if we did we would seek to influence, adapt, re-orientate the very system that we are part of, that we are responsible for; understanding the we are the system. What we presently do as educationalists is not working, gaps are growing, we are getting no closer to social justice.

      Ubuntu – a quality that includes the essential human virtues; compassion and humanity: I am what I am because of who we all are

      We need greater expressions of compassion and humanity to overcome the forces in our society and schools that insidiously widen gaps. We need to be more ferocious, more tenacious in creating the conditions that enable our disadvantaged learners to flourish. This requires educators to be more honest, to ask uncomfortable questions and make braver decisions to enact greater equity: a deeper expression of care.

      Social justice as the aim, social mobility as an outcome.

      “Social mobility” is about escaping disadvantage, whereas social justice is about eradicating that disadvantage in the first place. Education as a tool for social justice ought to be the goal of any civic-minded (society) university, and indeed our collective goal as a sector for our widening participation efforts to be capable of actually producing meaningful change.” (Claire Sosienski Smith)

      Seeking social justice and how our system increases participation, connection, opportunity and experience is better placed than initiatives focused on mobility, which seek to enable relatively few individuals to escape the system, to defy the odds. We need a bottom-up investment in all individuals; we need to change the rules of the game with social justice as the goal and social mobility as an outcome.

      Social justice: Access, Equity, Diversity, Participation, Human Rights

      Seeking social justice requires us to work in the system at an individual-level to integrate and engineer connection between all attainment bands and groups, and through this deliberate act of inclusion, create supported opportunity, participation and experiences that close gaps.  Reaching in and applying equity to lift lives; counterintuitively, one by one. A redistribution of esteem to increase the number of those that see they are able to live lives of decency and dignity.

      “…we need a redistribution of esteem… to live lives of decency and dignity, winning social esteem. …(to) travel the road to 2045 with purpose, dignity and accomplishment.” (Peter Hennessy)

      We need educators and leaders to act within the system, as agents of change, tilting our system to achieve greater social justice. Leadership from the inside to enact the equity required to create paths that have heart and secure social justice; heroes wanted.

      “Look at every path closely. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, the question: does this path have a HEART?” (Carlos Castenada)

      Equity over Equality | giving what individuals actually need

      We are baffled and compelled by equality, but equality is a brilliant way to maintain our perfect system. Equity in contrast is not offering the same to all, but securing what individuals actually need. This means that we need to be more comfortable with doing different, doing more and meeting the ‘actual’ needs of individuals so we give ourselves a chance at closing gaps and match fixing the system. Turning, where we can the system on itself.

      The system is so ingrained, accepted and normalised that we are often blind to the influence of the system, and complicit in it. We do have a choice and the agency to actively disrupt the system, to apply equity and redirect the power of the system to level the playing field.

      The multiplying effect of small acts | the power of the crowd

      “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” (Margret Mead)

      The power of the crowds and the accumulation of small acts, of heroes who are alive to the system, call it out and tilt it with small and large actions towards those that need it most. Seeking to privilege disadvantaged learners in all that we do, redesigning our system for social justice.

      “It is a matter of shared purpose and sustained application.”(Peter Hennessy)

      Every child needs at least one person who believes in them | advantaging the disadvantaged

      We need a system where all children have someone who believes in them. To grow up advantaged is to have adults who deeply believe in you, hold you to high expectations, encouraging (demanding) participation in supported opportunities over time. A childhood that encourages risk taking, whilst holding a safety net and offering commentary, narrating the journey through life, reaffirming and strengthening a child’s internal locus of control incrementally, day by day.

      And in this we see what must be done, to re-design the system to enable disadvantaged to participate, to have supported opportunity and wider social connectivity, with a back stop of someone who believes in them, who creates a safety net and support them as they interpret life. Get up, go again, you have agency, you are always invited to dance.

      Help me, Obi Wan, you’re my only hope

      Educationalists need to work together to propagate a movement that re-engineers and re-aligns our system, increasing our impact on the everyday experience of every child, bottom up; great schools in strong Trusts, meeting need. So that together we realise and enhance a collective Trust Dividend that offers hope and achieves greater social justice for all children and particularly those presently or previously experiencing disadvantage.

      “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.” (Howard Zinn)

      We need to seek greater collective endeavour that goes upstream in search of social justice for the many, demonstrating through our actions our deeply held desire to do more than just care, to be braver and to join in a quest that accumulates advantage. A quest that enacts equity through education to lift up disadvantaged children and make a difference, one life at a time, knowing that this collective sector wide effort might just tilt the system to something that befits our personal values and the collective desires for our sector.

      What if we decided to seek greater social justice and re-engineer our system to…  

      • Privilege disadvantage everywhere and in everything? Prioritising disadvantage learners in all decision making, in provision, in opportunity, a culture of ambition for all children, going beyond just caring. A system, Trusts and schools that firmly privilege disadvantage in all that they do, such that it becomes the norm; a system perfectly designed to close gaps.
      • Measure what we really care about, what really matters? Securing the attainment and attendance of disadvantaged learners. Measure it, target it, expect it, publish it, reward it, make it the accepted and expected currency of our sector. Securing high attainment because grades really matter and attendance because there is no point in any other actions if they are not there; disadvantage even over, attendance first.
      • Apply Equity through education? Shaking the shackles of equality to give children what they specifically need. Doing differently by individuals, securing this as the normal; using the advantaged upbringing as a measure for the amount of equity required to tilt the system.
      • Seek deep and sustained participation for all children? Measure it, prioritise it, demand it and invest in it. Using the sharp elbows that create the supported opportunity for advantaged children and over-match for disadvantaged learners. Beyond enrichment, this is about entitlement for those who presently feel the opposite of entitled.
      • Mix all attainment bands and create a strong system of inclusion for all children? Actively addressing the school within a school phenomenon, that creates alternate realities and routes. Individuals measure status and standards against those that we are closest to. We must create the connections and influences that close gaps.
      • Deeply understand individual lives?  Working to understand each child so that they connect, belong, participate, feel success, thrive. Every child needs to have at least one adult who believes in them. Magic happens when all colleagues believe in all children.
      • Seek bottom-up mobilisation, a movement? Focus at the level of individual and mobilise the many in this shared endeavour to lift lives, one by one. Creating the conditions for a movement to lift up a generation. A counterintuitive focus on individuals and schools, in Trusts, to re-engineer our system toward social justice, seeking irreversible change in our society.

      To do so is to be a bit more pirate and seek good trouble, rather than conform to the system and remain in the Navy. If not now, when, if not you, who?

      “I’d rather be a pirate than join the Navy.” (Steve Jobs)

      Dan Nicholls | October 2023