Reflections on the last year as an APSEND MAT CEO

The first half of the autumn term has been both extremely busy and incredibly rewarding at Ethos Academy Trust. During the last academic year, we not only welcomed a new AP Academy into the trust, but we also opened a brand new large SEMH Special Free School in Rotherham,  Elements Academy. As a result, the size of the trust I lead almost doubled in a year, presenting a myriad of new challenges and opportunities. Our three existing Kirklees academies are also undertaking an exciting transition to a new delivery model this year, streamlining the provision delivered to the young people of Kirklees whilst also establishing partnerships with neighbouring local authorities for the first time. This will enable us to offer specialist placements for pupils with EHCPs, a type of provision that is becoming ever more important if we are to meet increasing local demand.

 

As a result of these huge changes, we have planned that this academic year will be one of consolidation. As CEO, this means that I am spending most of my time focused on:

• the further development of systems and processes that facilitate the smooth running of the Trust and academies
• ensuring that we allocate sufficient capacity to realign our offer effectively 
• committing to the process of fully onboarding our new schools and giving them all the support that they need for their staff and pupils to thrive as part of the Ethos Academy Trust.

 

As a MAT CEO, and especially as a CEO working in the specialist sector, I believe a key leadership trait is being able to remain flexible and to be able to respond to the changing needs of the communities we serve. I therefore feel privileged to work with a very committed and proactive group of Trustees and Executive Leaders who, although we are only two years into our five-year strategic development plan, recognised that we were at a key inflection point as a result of our rapid growth and that we needed to realign and refocus our strategic priorities. By reviewing the impact that the last year has had on the overarching aims of the trust, we have been able to revisit our plans and ensure that we have the time and space to learn valuable lessons about the impact of growth on the trust. In partnership with our Trustees, our school leaders both new and old are collaborating on a new strategy that will support us to achieve our ambitions whilst also keeping Ethos’ values and culture at the heart of everything that we do.

 

We also see this process as an opportunity to respond to the DfE’s work on ‘Commissioning High Quality Trusts’ and to align our reporting and assurance processes at all tiers of the Trust to further enhance transparency and efficiency of systems, embedding the new strategic priorities within a Trust-wide assurance framework.

 

I recognise that these things don’t happen by accident, or without a considerable investment of time and resources. I see my role in this process as a facilitator, ensuring that the leaders of my trust have time and space ringfenced for these activities. Not only does this demonstrate how seriously we take achieving strong stakeholder buy-in, but also that through securing stakeholder involvement from across the trust we know that we increase the diversity of knowledge and experience in our leadership teams. At Ethos we believe this makes us stronger, and allows us to reflect and plan in ways that are both meaningful and effective.