A Bridge to the Future

CST is the national organisation and sector body for academy and multi-academy trusts - advocating for, connecting and supporting executive and governance leaders in School Trusts.

We are a charitable company, registered with the Charity Commission. Our charitable purpose, as set out in our Articles of Association, is “the advancement of education for public benefit.”

We are governed by a Board of Trustees and are subject to the regulations of the Charity Commission and accountable to our members.

We are strictly apolitical. We work with the government of the day, political parties and politicians across the spectrum to advance education for public benefit.

CST’s mission is to build an excellent education system in England, with every school part of a strong and sustainable group in which every child is a powerful learner and adults learn and develop together as teachers and leaders.

Our vision is a system which holds trust on behalf of children.

Charitable Company Limited by Guarantee, Registered in England, Charity Number 1107640, Company Number 05303883VAT Registration Number 270 0880 18

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Our values:

Selflessness Integrity Objectivity Accountability

Openness Honesty Leadership

About CST – The voice of school trusts

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Published January 2021 By Leora Cruddas and Steve Rollett

Confederation of School Trusts (CST) Suite 10, Whiteley Mill Offices, 39 Nottingham Road, Nottingham NG9 8AD

cstuk.org.uk

IntroductionIt has been ten years since the 2010 Academies Act. This was the point at which the system saw the rise of groups of schools in multi-academy trusts, called School Trusts to reflect their core education purpose throughout this paper.

More than half of children and young people are now educated in School Trusts. The Confederation of School Trusts (CST), the national organisation and sector body, is uniquely placed to offer a series of insights into policymaking over the last decade, and consider implications for future policy-making.

In September 2019, before the last election CST published our White Paper setting out the future shape of the education system in England. We argued for the power in a group of schools working together in a single governance structure with clear accountability arrangements.

This is part of our new narrative for School Trusts – a narrative for a new decade. We said School Trusts create the conditions for deep collaboration among teachers and leaders to improve the quality of education. We said School Trusts are a new civic structure created with the sole purpose of advancing education for public benefit.

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In January 2020 we published a paper mapping the Systems of Meaning within which School Trusts are located. We identified three leadership narratives:

1. The first is about trust leadership: how we talk about ourselves, what we do and why we do it. School Trusts create the conditions for deep collaborations among teachers and leaders to improve the quality of education.

2. The second is about civic leadership: how we work with others to advance education as a wider common good. Civic trusts create the conditions for purposeful collaboration between and among Trusts and other civic organisations.

3. The third is about system leadership: not in the old definition of ‘working beyond the school gates’, but rather how we need to act on, rather than just acting in the system. System-building goes beyond collaboration and engages deliberate system design and system building.

Building on this work, we published a Framework Document for School Trusts as new Civic Structures . Prior to the global pandemic we made the case that it is necessary to galvanise Trusts as good civic partners working with other civic actors to advance education as a public good in their locality.

In this paper, we look back over the last ten years since the 2010 Academies Act to see what we can learn about policymaking with hindsight. It builds on the narrative of our prior publications, and in particular our overarching policy document, our White Paper.

Hindsight is important. Lessons from the past can provide insights into the present and the future. There are considerable risks with an approach to policy that seeks to tear up the present and start again. While often well-meaning, these approaches tend to ignore historical learning and scholarship. CST is attempting to create a platform for policy ideas that quite deliberately uses the concept of historical hindsight to extrapolate into the future. We hope this will avoid the trap of creating policy that is disconnected with the present and is therefore impossible – either because it has already been ruled out for good reason or because the trajectory to the proposed policy would be difficult from our current position. Hindsight allows us to bridge from then, to now, to the future.

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What are we learning about policymaking?The global pandemic has highlighted the role of public service and the value of education in society. Inevitably the spotlight on education and the challenges of Covid-19 have prompted widespread reflection on a range of education issues, including accountability, assessment, technology and pedagogy to name just a few.

These discussions are largely a positive response to the pandemic and grapple not only with the immediate fallout but also act as a catalyst for advocating broader changes over the long term. Almost without exception, the policy discourse is well-intentioned and seeks to improve education of young people. It is, therefore, welcome.

However, there can be limitations and oversights in the discourse that limit the credibility of policy proposals. In some cases, popular rhetoric gains traction over evidence-informed policy. This risks undermining much of the progress that has been made over the last decade.

It is helpful to be aware of how these can manifest:

• Lack of policy robustness – proposals that do not build capacity to weather future challenges.

• Lack of systems thinking – piecemeal proposals can be incoherent.

• Unintended consequences – proposals may have a deleterious impact elsewhere.

• ‘Self-evident’ arguments – proposals can lack a clear evidence base.

It is our intention, therefore, to contribute positively to the post-Covid policy discourse by exploring how the education landscape might be shaped in the longer term, while trying to navigate the four common limitations outlined above.

To that end, our approach is to test policy proposals to ensure that they are:

• Designed to create robustness by developing the capacity to cope with future perturbations.

• Located within systems-thinking so that interactions within parts of the system are brought into view.

• Considering the possible unintended consequences in order that they can be mitigated, or the proposal abandoned if it is not intentionally building coherence.

• Designed to draw on best evidence we have while also having a clear ambition for the system and a sense of urgency.

We will argue that policymaking in education should meet four tests and, in this paper, we apply these tests to the policy of groups of schools working together in a Trust:

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Robustness Systemness

Coherence Ambition

RobustnessRobustness can be defined as "a system’s ability to maintain its functions or characteristics in a relatively controlled and reliable manner in the face of external shocks or perturbations” (Campano and Woo, 2018).

If we look back over the last ten years (and before that), very little education policy has met the test of robustness. For example, Ofsted, in its January 2020 evaluation report Fight or flight? How ‘stuck’ schools are overcoming isolation , lists the sheer number of school improvement initiatives over the last twenty years. It concludes that there was too much advice and that this advice was ‘thrown’ at schools without enough thought. They found that the quality of those providing advice and support was too variable. Ofsted found two circumstances which were perceived to work well and one of those is where designated leaders from staff within a Trust rather than outside of it, worked in a sustained way to improve a school.

Perhaps the biggest external shock to the education system within the last decade has been the shock of the global pandemic. It has been remarkable how groups of schools working together in School Trusts have been able to withstand the perturbations of the pandemic.

In its Autumn term ‘interim visits’ to schools, CST asked Ofsted to open an additional evidence card to find out whether and how schools in Trusts had been supported by the Trust. The evidence is overwhelming. Professor Daniel Muijs and Karl Sampson have set out their findings in an article on the role of Trusts in the pandemic.

Muijs and Sampson state: “For the school leaders we spoke to, the support of their trust was crucial. They told us about support with safeguarding, interpreting COVID-19 guidelines, developing remote learning and integrating this with the curriculum.”

They conclude: “One of the aims of bringing schools together in Trusts is to provide them with levels of support and collective learning that would not be achievable for any school on its own. These findings show how important this can be to schools’ resilience in the most challenging of circumstances, and how being part of a greater whole builds that resilience. Trusts have supported the work of school leaders throughout the pandemic and seem to have done so quite successfully.”

While other policy initiatives have failed or faded, the policy of schools working together in a single governance structure has proved robust over time, but particularly during Covid-19. School Trusts are designed to create robustness by developing the capacity to cope with current and future perturbations.

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“Systemness“

Michael Fullan and Joanne Quinn in their book Coherence talk about ‘systemness’ as a key driver of effective policymaking. What they mean by this is focusing direction and the need to integrate what the system is doing.

It is important that when policy decisions are considered, they are seen in the context of their impact on the system as a whole. In other words, that they are located within systems-thinking so that interactions within different parts of the system are brought into view.

Right now, in England, we have a divided school system. Nicky Morgan (Secretary of State for Education between July 2014 and July 2016) attempted to complete the reform journey with her 2016 White Paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere . Although her attempt to focus direction was laudable, the blunt instrument of compulsory ‘academisation’ through legislation and the proposed very constrained timetable proved un-doable and led to huge political resistance.

The 2016 White Paper failed on the test of ‘systemness’ because it could not integrate what the system was doing. Systems theory teaches us that society is a complex arrangement of elements, including individuals and their beliefs, as they relate to a whole. ‘Systemness’ cannot be brought about by coercion. Changes in the structure of a system relate to the processes (including the human processes) of the system.

We need to begin to integrate what the system is doing and right now, in England, the system is building groups of schools. We need to take people with us as we continue our journey to bring about further changes in the structure of our education system.

Our social, political, economic and ecological processes are becoming more complex. With greater complexity, theory teaches us that change is initiated when ‘agents’ start producing behaviours that lie one scale above them in a movement from low-level rules to higher level sophistication (Johnson, 2002: 18). Therefore, the task is not simply of legislating for groups of schools but building a shared and more sophisticated understanding of why these are necessary.

Another example of a failure of ‘systemness’ is the calls to reform particular parts of the system without considering the impacts on other parts of the system. The calls to reform Ofsted and make it into an improvement agency, for example, fail to understand that Ofsted cannot inspect the thing that it has set out to improve. Likewise calls to reform assessment which are disconnected from the scholarship and research on assessment, may lack robustness and have a deleterious impact elsewhere by running the risk of unintended consequences. To be clear, we are not saying these parts of the system should not be reformed, but rather that policy reforms need to avoid unintended consequences.

There are reasons to be optimistic. In England, we are better placed than many countries and jurisdictions in the world because of our focus on research and evidence. The Education Endowment Foundation (an independent charity dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement), the ground-up ResearchEd movement, the Chartered College of Teaching’s Impact Journal and Ofsted’s recent focus on robust research, all point in the direction of more effective policymaking. CST is making a small contribution to this through our focus on building knowledge through our interactive ‘Discourse Series.’

CoherenceCoherence in the policy narrative signals a clear relationship between the constituent parts. The problem with a lack of policy coherence is that piecemeal policies may have a deleterious impact elsewhere. An example of a lack of policy coherence is the 2006 Act which gave local authorities powers of intervention. While seemingly a good idea in terms of intervening early in schools causing concern, in fact the Act simply intensified conflicting roles. Local authorities already employers and improvers of schools, were now responsible for intervening in those schools where their own improvement activity had failed. Because maintained schools are only quasi-separate organisations, local authorities would be essentially exercising powers of intervention over their own functions and duties.

Another example of a lack of policy coherence is Justine Greening’s (Secretary of State for Education between July 2016 and January 2018) 2016 Green Paper, Schools that work for everyone. This was in fact a series of piecemeal proposals that did not add up to a coherent whole. The tension at the heart of this Green Paper was the proposal to increase selective education which was not supported by the evidence and contradicted the aims of the paper.

This was exacerbated by Greening’s ambivalence about completing the reform journey and her seeming acceptance of a two-tier system with increasingly muddled roles for local government.

For the avoidance of doubt, we believe there is a very important role for local government but not as a ‘provider’ of schools. Local government does not maintain GP surgeries and it is doubtful that the public would consider this a good idea. This is because GP surgeries are specialist organisations involving clinical knowledge. A parallel can be drawn with the school sector.

However, equally no-one would suggest that local government should have no role in the local health economy. The exercise of democratic oversight is fundamentally important, but it is not synonymous with being a provider. We have seen during the pandemic some compelling examples of the local government as a convenor, protector and supporter. We have seen how Trusts have worked with local authorities to enact civic leadership – addressing issues of public concern and place and the protection and promotion of public values.

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AmbitionIn their excellent book, The Founder’s Mentality, Zook and Allen (2018) talk about the insurgent mission as one of the key features of the founders of successful organisations. In the last ten years, Trusts have waged war on endemic failure in certain schools and areas of the country – and they have done this with a relentless focus on putting children first.

Zook and Allen propose that the most powerful organisations have several mutually reinforcing attributes: bold mission, spikiness and the idea of a limitless horizon.

Bold mission

The most successful School Trusts have clarity of focus and purpose, both inside and outside the organisation. At its most powerful, the mission is found embedded in all parts of the organisation from systems and processes to staff development and decision-making. The mission comes first. It jumps out at you.

School Trusts can do this because they are set up to do one thing – to run and improve schools. They do not have lots of other duties and functions as local authorities do. They can focus relentlessly on their core purpose to advance education for public benefit. Trusts have a key role in the system as centres of professional knowledge, with the capability and capacity to facilitate knowledge-building through connecting the scholarship and research through professional development. This is a powerful thing.

“Spikiness”

Zook and Allen cite the story of a young volleyball player who helped win the medal in the 1984 Olympics. She was called the Iron Hammer. She was known for her spike – if you could set her up well, she would win the point. They apply this “spikiness” to organisations. Set up the organisation well, and you spike it for success.

School Trusts, as organisations set up purely for the purpose of running and improving schools, are spiked for success.

The best are highly specialist education charities and their expertise is improving the quality of education. Many have shown that it is possible to turn around schools that have failed children and communities for generations. These Trusts take on ‘stuck schools’ and make them into good schools. At their heart, is a social justice mission, a civic mission, to contribute to the wider social good by creating schools that focus on the substance of education.

The ‘spike’ is the relentless focus on quality – on the front-line. In fact, the most successful Trusts are obsessed with the front-line – the quality of teachers, teaching and the curriculum. McKinsey was right – the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. Nor can the quality of a school or group of schools.

Over the last decade, we have learned that these leaders live and breathe the front-line. They are driven by a passion about every detail of a child or young person’s experience.

Limitless horizons

The best Trusts do not play the blame game – they do not account for the lack of success by pointing to the disadvantage in the community or any other limiting factor. Although of course these factors do make a difference. The mental models they bring to the task of improving schools is about how you solve or overcome persistent problems. They are not complacent – they are restless in their desire to improve the quality of education. They are driven. They have limitless horizons about what can be achieved by all children – but particularly the most disadvantaged.

Setting up organisations – specialist education charities – to run and improve schools to create a better future for children is not marketisation. Nor is it privatisation. It is sensible, robust education policy, driven by a sense of urgency to bring about greater social justice. Proof of this is evidenced through what Trusts have been able to achieve through the pandemic.

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What does this mean for the future?It is likely that the effects of Covid-19 will be felt for a long while yet. Beyond the educational impacts, there are also social and economic impacts which will affect the children and young people in our schools. If we are to address the negative legacies of Covid-19, we will need robust policies – those with the capacity to continue to cope with current and future perturbations.

We cannot limp on with a lack of coherence and a refusal to take a close look at the education system. We must be ambitious in our goal to build a strong and sustainable system with all schools part of a group. So, CST is calling on Parliament (not just the Government) to work together to outline an ambitious vision for the education system.

As we said in our White Paper, completing the reform journey is likely to take the next decade. This should not be done through the blunt instruments of compulsion and legislation, but rather by integrating what the system is doing now – building groups of schools. As we said above, changes in the structure of a system relate to the processes (including the human processes) of the system. The ambition must be built with and by the whole sector.

Structures are important because they create robustness and are the vehicle for improving the quality of education. We should not make the mistake of believing that structures themselves will inevitably bring about improvements in the quality of education. We need to be pay as much attention

to the way that we develop robustness in curriculum, assessment and pedagogy.

Our proposals for the next decade will be located within systems-thinking so that interactions within parts of the system are brought into view. We will not develop or promote piecemeal or ‘thin’ policies that do not build capacity to weather future challenges, may have a deleterious impact elsewhere or are based on ‘self-evident’ arguments which lack a clear evidence base.

There is an urgency to this. Existing inequalities in society have opened up further during the pandemic. We need robust policies that seek not to throw out everything that has gone before, but to elevate the best of our current system. There are some positives on which to build – not just in the structures of schooling in England - but also in the recent work on the Early Career Framework, curriculum and assessment.

In the coming months, we will be inviting specialists to contribute to a series of papers on robust policy making. We want to convene a constructive debate about the next decade of policy making. We are doing this because we believe that there is no greater trust than the one the world holds with children.

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

Kofi Annan, The State of the World’s Children, 2000

ReferencesCapano, G. and Woo, J. (2018) Designing policy robustness: outputs and processes, Policy and Society , 37:4, 422-440.

Department for Education (2016) White paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere . Crown Publishing Service.

Department for Education (2016) Green paper, Schools that Work for Everyone. Crown Publishing Service.

Fullan, M. and Quinn, J. (2016) Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts and Systems. California: Corwin.

Ofsted (2020) Fight or flight? How ‘stuck’ schools are overcoming isolation .

Johnson, S. (2002). Emergence. London: Penguin

Muijs, D. and Sampson, K. (2021) The trust in testing times: The role of multi-academy trusts during the pandemic . Ofsted

Zook, C. and Allen, J. (2016) The Founder's Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth. Harvard Business Review Press

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