This week, I’ve been working with schools and trusts in Manchester, a city I love. Partly because of the energy, the friendly people, and a really great Chinese restaurant, but mostly because it’s given my eldest son a place to call home. Helen Burge and I were together for a day as well (unlike Bruce Wayne and Batman, we can be in the same room together!) which always makes me happy.
Of course, at our Risky Business event, you’d expect the conversation to be about… risk. It was. But it was also a major topic of conversation at my other events and meetings this week. Someone even said to me, “Risk, that’s what everyone is talking about at the moment.”
I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s at the forefront of my thinking, whether I am subconsciously steering the conversation, or whether something more fundamental is shifting. But it does feel like schools have a problem, and it is one we need to solve. If there is one thing that School Business Leaders (SBLs) are wired to do, it’s solve problems. That is the mindset the role gives you. We’ll figure this out, we’ll make it work, we’ll find a way.
And that’s where my thinking has taken me. Not just recognising the problem but starting to work out how we solve it.
Strategic leadership is currently moving at lightning speed. More demands and expectations are being laid at our school front gates, and we need to do it all for less. Less funding, less staff, less resources, less pupils, and less space. It feels like the risks involved in achieving school improvement, and the best pupil experience and outcomes, are rising to a level where coherence in how activity is structured, monitored and developed is no longer optional, but essential.
The responsibilities laid at the doors of our senior leaders have often been likened to plate spinning. But it’s not just that the plates are spinning. There are more of them, they’re spinning faster, and the margin for error is shrinking.
From a positive angle, there’s a growing sense that we already have everything we need to reduce the “plate vs speed vs error” variables, just no coherent way of bringing it all together so that various levels of leadership, operations and governance can see what’s happening and give support within their role or remit.
I’m not talking about another document, process, direction or policy. I am talking about a way of bringing strategy, risk, vision, improvement and resilience together so it’s visible, transparent, connected and genuinely useful in moving the dial, supporting school leaders, trustees and governors to see the whole picture, and act on it with confidence.
I feel like this is something the education sector has been edging towards for some time, without quite landing on a solution. Something that multi and single academy trusts are uniquely positioned to do well, and something that could support the direction of travel to more collaborative, group-based working across the system.
It feels like a small shift in approach, but potentially a significant shift in how schools and trusts lead. SBLs don’t wait for perfect conditions, they design better ones, and at 1st Pillar we have started to shape some thinking around how this could work in practice, but it’s still evolving.
I’ve started talking about it, but there is a lot more thinking to come.
