This is a recording of the SAAS Session, "So, You Want to Be a Top MAT CEO?", which took place at the Schools & Academies Show London on 1st May 2024.
This discussion focused on key topics such as:
📍 What knowledge, skills, and behaviours separate a top-quality Trust CEO from the rest?
📍 What should the pipeline look like for recruiting and/or developing the next generation of trust CEOs.
📍 Building and utilising a powerful relationship with the Department for Education to support professional development for you and your staff.
Panelists include:
- Dr Jeffery Quaye OBE, National Director of Education and Standards, Aspirations Academies Trust
- Cathie Paine, Chief Executive Officer, REAch2 Academy Trust
- Tom Campbell, Chief Executive, E-ACT - Sam Henson, Deputy Chief Executive, NGA
Check out the session for free here! 👇
Transcript
Sam Henson 0:00
Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Okay, brilliant. Well done for making it to this session, the best session of the day. So congratulations for making it here. I'm certainly thrilled that we have an amazing, inspirational panel with us today. So we've got Tom Campbell, the CEO from E-ACT, with us. We've got Cathie Paine the CEO from REAch2 Academy Trust and we've got Jeffery Quay from Aspirations Academies Trust. Actually, Jeffrey, I should have said you're the National Director of Education at Aspirations, aren't you? Yeah. So I've got some questions for our panel, but we're also really, really hoping that you have some questions as well. Hopefully you've seen the title of this session. What we want to cover. I think it's going to be a really innovative conversation. And really now is your chance to hear from these three about the different experiences that they've all been on in their respective trusts, and what's happened before, before that putting them on the executive journey. So I'm going to ask go to Tom first, if I can, and Tom, I just wanted to ask you about what you thought the key experiences and achievements that are needed to distinguish a top quality mat CEO.
Tom Campbell 1:36
Well, the top quality MAT CEO dropped out and they phoned me in the coffee queue. So I'll share my thoughts, but in truth, I've been in this job two and a half years now, and I've been in education for 25 years, and I think I draw upon learning experiences from throughout that career, whether that was in teaching or in school governance, inspection work that I've done, or policy development work at the DfE. I think every day I draw upon some of those experiences. Perhaps the most significant experience is time spent with children. The main job being a chief advocate for children. And every day, I can envisage an experience of a particular child whenever we're making a decision or we are talking about strategy or impact or compromises we might need to make in terms of finance and budget, all the time, I'm reminded of individual children throughout my experiences, which helped me make a decision with them in mind. So I think any math leader should have children at the forefront of their decision making, irrespective of whether they come from an education or a business background. Brilliant.
Sam Henson 2:56
Thanks Tom. Cathie, I think what Thomas just said was an incredibly powerful example, isn't it? About what can help you along the journey, but also, crucially, how you make those decisions. How about from your point of view? Do you resonate with that?
Cathie Paine 3:11
Yeah, well, a bit like Tom in the coffee queue, and I'm quite new to being a CEO, so being with you good people in this sort of setting with the words top notch in the title, I'm learning as I go, and it's still quite a recent promotion from being the Deputy to CEO in REAch2 for 10 years before that. Like Tom, I come from a teaching background, primary school teacher, head teacher, exec, head NLE, and very much echo with all of the complexity of what it is to run a Multi Academy Trust, none of which I am an expert on, but learning around corporate governance, corporate finance, marketing, different structures, leading complex and large organizations, things that you could come become quite distracted by, overwhelmed by. We have a phrase at REAch2 affectionately, I hope affectionately, people say, "Oh, Kathy's waffling on about the North Star again". Well, I do waffle on about the North Star a lot. And in our organisation, the words we use for our North Star are that "every school, a great school". And it's that same mentality of when I used to walk the corridors as a head teacher and ask myself, could my son be in any one of these classrooms? And if the answer in a three form entry primary is yes, he could, I'd love him to be you kind of know, it's Game, set and match everyone. Now I think that way about 63 schools. I'd love to say my sons, but they're now young adults. I'm a grandmother to two little girls, so now I have to say, would I put my granddaughter in any one of these 63 schools? And the closer that gets to being the answer yes, the closer I know that we are to the North Star. So it's that non negotiable, unequivocal shows you where to go when you're lost. Just keep looking at that star. And for me, the word in that that matters the most is "every". So it's a humbling and sometimes uncomfortable experience, I guess, to keep asking, we're only as successful as the least successful school, and we're only as successful as the least thriving class and teacher. And that keeps your feet really on the ground.
Sam Henson 5:52
Thanks Cathie. And I think that's, again, such an inspiring example. I think thinking about the fact that really, you want the very best for every single child in your trust. And I think picturing your own family there is a really good way of doing that. So thank you. Jeffrey, obviously, on your journey as well, I'd be really interested to know what have been the key things that have got you to that the position you are now in? what has been the most important part of your journey?
Jeffery Quaye OBE 6:28
Okay, well, thanks, Sam for that question. I think some of the points said by my colleagues, you know, rings true to my journey as well. So as a teacher set out, as you know, maths teacher then quickly became an ASD, and I've gone through the process of focusing on high quality teaching and learning in that journey. Move to different schools, so I like some challenge. So I've worked in varying kind of context, in terms of either deprivation of the core that I serve, or the state of the school in terms of whether Ofsted rating or outcomes. And I've been a head teacher, and I've come through the process of becoming, firstly as a regional CEO and in our current role as a national director of education and standards. And I think what is very defining for me, you know, working with other colleagues that are CEOs or also doing the role that I undertake, is that relentless pursuit of excellence and that relentless focus on standards. So wanting the best for young people. And as Tom said, you know, we do this job because of the young people we serve. But also, I think, having that strategic thinking where you have some conception of the model of theory of change, or how you're going to get there, because it's all good saying we want young people in, you know, great schools, good schools, but you need to have an understanding of how to get to that point. And I think for my work, like Tom I've been an inspector for years, both primary and secondary. So across the many roles that I undertake, acquire some learning experiences from that, and I try to feed that into my role. I've done some policy work with the DfE, and I think each time, the point I take is, if you are ready to learn from these experiences, you can make your organization better. Because one important thing that is defining for me is contextual knowledge about schools, and that is taken for granted. So context can be an enabler. Equally, it can be a constraint for school improvement. Yeah, so understanding that each school is unique and there might be some distinct features or characteristics that you need to grapple with to be able to drive change. And yes, you know, putting pupils first is what has been my focus and improvement journey that I've had.
Sam Henson 9:07
Yeah, brilliant. Thanks, Jeffrey. That relentless quest for improvement, I think, is something that really shines through for what you've just said. And I think certainly is something that I think lots of people want will want to know how you do that. How do you keep the momentum going? How do you maintain that kind of energy and I guess one of the key things, Cathie, is motivation, isn't it? And you've already talked a little bit about what it is that motivates you. But I'll be really interested to know how you, how you apply that motivation on a daily basis, specifically thinking about the kind of the multiple roles that you are expected to do within the CEO dynamic. It's not a straightforward role, is it?
Cathie Paine 10:03
No, no, it's not a straightforward role, but it's an amazing journey to be on, to try and become worthy of what you're you're being asked to do. And I think the biggest, most significant learning journey I think I've been on and am on, is that the more complex the role is, the more important it is to lead through people. And I think starting off when REAch2 was smaller. You have to have your fingers in every pie, you're all over the place. I was saying to Jeffrey before the session started, in the early days of REAch2 with a geographical spread, my husband's got a theory that I can't find my way back to our hotel room until I've been somewhere for four days. My sense of direction is terrible. I used to congratulate myself when I actually signed into a school because I managed to get there. And that sense of I've just got to be everywhere and travel around, and you end up being paid to be tired, rather than being paid to be impactful. And in this job now I know that I've got to be I've got to be smart in the job, and that means learning to lead through people, whether that's director of HR in the whole with the people strategy, someone in Jeffrey's role as our national director of education, that was my previous job. So it's not dabbling and letting him be empowered to fly with that role, zooming in and out of the trust finances, but again, empowering the CFO to lead and make sure I know what I need to know and don't meddle in the detail. So it's how much should you know? And therefore, what should you do, and therefore, what might your diary look like? I think that's still something that I'm learning.
Sam Henson 12:06
Yeah, well, that's really interesting. I think it's not all like the bigger picture stuff, is it? So some of is actually about how you coordinate your day to day life, which isn't easy. Tom, I'm really interested to know your thoughts then kind of following on from what Cathie said, again, about that diverse range of responsibilities, I guess there's an assumption from some, isn't there, that you have to have been a head teacher before you're a trust CEO. Obviously you were. You come from that background. But what key differences, I guess, and how, how do you manage that diverse role that you're doing?
Tom Campbell 12:48
Yeah, I mean, it is a real challenge, and I think you have to go into the role eyes open, because wanting to do the job and being passionate about it just isn't enough. Yeah, most roles, people would encourage you to put yourself out there, "fake it before you make it". You know all of that sort of stuff. But when you suddenly become responsible for a quarter billion pounds of public money, you know 1000s of employees, welfare, you know 10s of 1000s of children, it's too serious to fake it. I mean, my background is academically. I'm a psychologist, teaching, head teaching, but probably the most significant learning experience was when I went out of teaching to do an MBA and learn about the business of running an organization, the business of strategy, of finance, of HR, and that really is most of the job. There's a risk as a CEO that you can be fairly indulgent, and you can spend all of your time in schools speaking to staff and children, which is a critical part of the job. Don't get me wrong. But there's the big picture and the crises that we have at the moment, around buildings, around funding, our staff are looking to the trust leadership team to navigate through those challenges. And ultimately, there's a responsibility for jobs and futures, and you must take that responsibility seriously. And I just don't think you can learn as you go, you've got to be really confident that you have the credibility and the authenticity to deliver that. And it's a very different set of skills. And like Cathie, I'm learning in the job all of the time, but there's probably a barrier of entry that makes the job doable or makes the job impossible. And, you know, it's a difficult job. Tere's been a big turnover of CEOs in recent years. The life cycle doesn't feel secure. It feels a little bit like a Premier League manager sometimes. You know, I'm two and a half years into. My job is five years, the maximum that you can do,but it's a real it's a real challenge.
Sam Henson 15:06
Yeah, brilliant. Thanks Tom. And Jeffrey, I think, you know, in a trust like yours, as the director of education, obviously, you've got a lot of heads that will be looking to you, a lot of staff from different schools that will be looking to you on a daily basis. What are the kind of things that you can showby example? How do you lead them through their respective journeys? By kind of being yourself, but equally showing them what is needed to get to the next step.
Jeffery Quaye OBE 15:47
Okay, well, that's a really good question. I think, firstly, my role is mainly representing the organization in a sense of values and behaviors. So I think you know, when I visit any school, people interpret your behavior, any communication you have with staff, they might read more into it than you intend. So again, having that sort of clarity in the messaging. But I also think that my role is mainly also being able to model the excellence that we want staff to really demonstrate when they teach young people. So creating that mindset that we're on a learning journey as an organization, and one of the things we've done is we've created what we call the growth model of development for teachers' professional growth. So we don't set targets where it's based on just that minor target of Pupil outcome. It's rather about where do you want to see yourself in the next 10 years? How do you get there with the pupils you have in your care? And therefore the focus is on high quality training. Equally, making sure accountability is well understood, you know, not compromising on what the quality of education is meant to provide, because to be sincere, some communities are very deprived from where our young people come from. The only escape they have is high quality education. And for us as a trust, you know, values lead Trust, which I think the best trust, put a lot of emphasis on values. So we have three guiding principles, which is the purpose of education. So we see purpose for young people coming to school. Again, self worth, because people have self worth irrespective of background, social class, ethnicity, you name it, they can be authentic and engage with the learning environment. But also we want high quality learning experiences through engagement, so we are quite keen on finding out what works and what doesn't work. So again, we try to innovate the curriculum. We try to share best practice, but also focus on next practice, because sometimes the organization can be very stale. Everyone needs good GCSEs, excellent sat outcome. But education is more than that. So I think using the values that we promote that creating greater opportunity for young people in our schools, and I must add that when we go into schools, we always want to get the views of teachers and what works so we're able to retain that distinct features of schools by now making it look like McDonald's or some corporate brand that has no distinction. And ultimately, we are always revisiting the impact of our work, so we come back to our five year strategy. "What does success looks like?", And we can't be given different layers of success because a school is in a deprived area, high standards, high expectations, and that permeates the conversations that I have, yeah, and I think by so doing, we're building the next layer of leaders coming through our schools. And can I just add that 80% of our head teachers are recruited internally. There's always somebody that is ready to take your job, because we do excellent training, and we have an army of leaders coming through.
Sam Henson 19:26
Brilliant! Thank you so much, Jeffrey! And I love that point around kind of trying and testing, but also that focus on self worth, self confidence, so important. Cathie, I guess what I'd be really interested to know is it would be quite easy, I'm assuming, I'm not a trust CEO, so I've not been in your position, but I imagine it would be quite easy to lose confidence if things don't go according to plan. What do you do to stay in high spirits? And I guess adding on to that, how important has relationships and mentoring, you know, with not just other people in your trust, but you know, beyond that, other trust CEOs or whoever, how important has that been to your your job?
Cathie Paine 20:17
I think this is probably my favorite but most uncomfortable question, which must mean it's a great question. I spoke about the North Star, and that journey, it has not been linear in REAch2 in 12 years. There's been moments where it's been two steps forward and about five backwards, moments when it's felt like we've in the early days, we grew very quickly. So the the trust went from naught to 60 schools in five years, and only four of those schools were already good schools. So there was zero capacity, really. And unsurprisingly, turning around, building 10 new schools and turning around the remaining 40 odd was a monumental task, and I've been in the Trust for three years as Deputy CEO and director of education when our first school went into special measures on my watch. And to have something go that sort of catastrophe, I'm not saying I've got it right before that, we all make mistakes in whatever job we're doing, but I'd never had anything headline go wrong in my whole career, and to find that a school went down on on my watch was horrendous. There's a couple of things I guess I'd want to pull out as points for for learning, for me and for others. Perhaps one is that within a Multi Academy Trust, my experience of those failures was that the number of people lining up offering their head on a plate, saying it's on me, was about seven or eight. We had a school go down for safeguarding and went into measures for the family support worker said, "it's my fault". The safeguarding DSL in the school, said, "it's my fault". Head of School, exec head, the Deputy Director of Education, me the CEO. We all said "it's on me". And actually what happened was nobody lost their job. The trustees got behind the rapid improvement plan, the DfE allowed us to keep the school four terms later, the good school was good across the board, but it was something about the collective responsibility and no one feeling like they were alone, that the power of the Multi Academy Trust and the culture that we built came into play. We were falling over each other to take responsibility for what had gone wrong, and I think that's where culture and people is just so important. That you're clear on accountability, you're clear on where you can learn. And I think one of the things I say to our head teachers and central team is "I want to be the best trust at getting better". And so when there are mistakes, and we don't want them, but they happen that we quickly learn from what they are and put it right. So in the case of a theme of some of the things that have gone wrong in REAch2, we now have no inadequate schools, and only three are RI and they've all been inspected. So those dark days feel like they are behind us somewhat. But one of the things that we have been very clear on as a theme is things go wrong when people start back filling roles. So if you've got a regional director and they slip into the role of head teacher, because there's no head in a school for two three terms, things go wrong because they haven't got the balcony view anymore of what's going on over here. And it's very easy, in a large trust to be blindsided, where you're busy sorting out what feels the most urgent and important problem here, and you haven't spotted that there's a risk that's increasing over here. So we now have a rule, and it's difficult, no backfilling. No one is allowed to backfill a role, because what happens is we cause a problem somewhere else. So our Trust Board have commissioned three or four really extensive deep dives into things that have gone wrong, where we analyse the errors that might have been made. Where's the learning, and then where are the organisational recommendations that we will not do this again. And we haven't had a school go backwards or into category now for five years, and we only have three remaining RI schools out of 63 and so it feels as though painful though it's been, we are a good trust at getting better.
Sam Henson 25:20
Yeah, brilliant. Thanks, Cathie. Tom, listening to Cathie speak, I think it becomes very obvious that, you know, whilst you are kind of up here on the list of staff on an organizational chart, actually it's a team, isn't it? So a huge team of people, and you know whether that staff, Governor, the Trust Board, whoever you're not alone. But actually sometimes, by definition of the fact that you're kind of there at the top of that organisational chart, it's a pretty lonely place to be, right? So how do you deal with that? You know, what's been important to your kind of developing confidence, but also having the chance to bounce off of other people, perhaps from other organisations. What's been key to you?
Tom Campbell 26:19
Yeah, I think it is a lonely job sometimes. I mean, I'm not a particularly good networker, so I only have a very small number of probably good relationships, but I draw upon those relationships all of the time. So, you know, even going back to when I was an NQT, I suppose I would describe my first mentor is a lady called Sue Thistlethwaite, who was this retiring deputy head and she really knocked me into shape as a young teacher. But interestingly, you know, sort of 10 years later, when I was a head teacher, Sue Thistlethwaite came to work at her school. I mean, God knows what age she was then, but she was she was there, and she was important, and she was a really important influence on me, and as I moved into this role, equally, I found interesting connections with people whose opinions are important, are trusted. I know he's not 100% popular figure, but when I arrived at E-ACT, Michael Wilshaw was a great mentor. He was one of our members at the time, Lord Nye, the chair of the YAC board, shares a huge amount of experience. My old chair of governors as a head teacher, guy called Rick Moore. I meet him every time, and he becomes this emotional sort of coach and mentor. So those relationships with either professionals that understand the sector or those that have been responsible for your well being in the past, you can very quickly pick up those relationships. But organizations like CST, NGA, they play a really interesting role in trying to coordinate collaboration between trusts, because we may lead an organization, but we work within a system, and I think it's incumbent upon trust CEOs to disrupt the system. Where there's value in disrupting it, to work together to change to bring about changes in policy or whatever will improve the life chances of children. So yeah, it's lonely, but there is a network of others who really understand the job and can be really great source of support.
Sam Henson 28:26
And it's quite easy to access those, those networks, isn't it?
Tom Campbell 28:30
Yeah, I think it is. But, you know, I think, I think there's a change. When I was a head teacher, looking back, I think I've felt very competitive, you know, so competitive within the local community for pupil numbers, reputation, exam results, and I was very focused. Simon Sinek might call that the finite game, as opposed to the infinite game. And I think as I've moved into a trust role, I sort of really changed how I feel about that, and much more emphasis on collaboration and working in partnership as a system. I think that's really critical.
Sam Henson 29:02
Thank you. Jeffrey, can I ask you about the role of the relationship with the department Ofsted? You know those kind of big, big players in the sector, how important is that to you personally in getting your role right? What ways have you connected with the department, for example, and how do you even start to have the confidence to have those conversations? I imagine that you know, for the perhaps people who are newer to the profession, or coming through, it's quite a daunting task thinking, "Oh, I'vegot go and talk to the DfE or or whoever". What's that been like for you?
Jeffery Quaye OBE 29:52
Yeah, I mean, I set out initially, I thinkwhen I train as an Ofsted inspector. So you have more opportunities to go to different schools. And I think in those days, it wasn't kind of regionalised as we have now. So I used to do the southwest, you know. So you do quite a lot of places, whereas when we moved to regions, I was then inspecting only in the London region. I think part of the point about developing that sort of skill set and confidence in working with the wider sector. Mainly, it's about networking, so getting involved in different things. So I remember when I was a head, I offered some help to the DfE about relationships, sex education, policy review and the subsequent kind of curriculum that ensued from that. I had the first opportunity to contribute as an advisor to the Tim sings review, and I felt I enjoyed that process of seeing the back-end, some of the considerations that the department has to take and lots of stakeholder voice, and that has carried on for six years plus. And the more recent work is about the CEO content framework. Because what we notice is, you know, there isn't any national training for CEOs. We have the head teacher, MPQs, and there's a need for a pipeline, as Tom is saying, if the shelf life of a CEO is five years, who's going to take the role? And I think it's quite a challenging role. So using the knowledge from the sector, different actors in the sector, we've put together the content framework. But I think back to the question about, "How do you go about that?" I think you've got to be ready to learn, and that commitment to accept new knowledge, new information and digest it, also liaising with those that may have good pells of wisdom to offer. So, you know, networking more widely, not just in the areas of your interest, but making sure you go beyond that. And I think that helps to develop that rounded view. Because if you take Ofsted, Ofsted is now just, you know, regulating schools. You know, they do all kinds of monitoring work. So when you hear some bad news about Ofsted, whether in your role as an inspector or a school leader, you might think, "Ok, well, everything is going bad", but it's probably not the case, because they are the parts of Ofsted work that is brilliant, and it's good to have that sound knowledge of you know, where can improvements be made, and then you can contribute to the sector. But I also think making sure you're up to date with changing landscape. So, you know, like future scoping, you know, what do you think it's not working, but also offering your views about what could be done differently. Because I think it's quite easy to get in a cycle of critiquing what doesn't work. And we don't spend enough time to offer solutions. So I think when you work with the department, essentially, it's about bringing on board solutions. So you have to have that thinking time console those, not the immediate people that you think sounds like you and saying the same things. You've got to be open to those who don't like what you are doing, and still accept that there's some wisdom in what they might say and process that. And you know, I think also just making sure that whatever you think is tested. So I think the Department is quite good at doing that sort of testing with different stakeholders before policies are rolled out, and that's some of the learning process that I have taken on board as well for my organization.
Sam Henson 30:25
Well, thanks, Jeffrey. And just kind of rowing back to a point you made around the kind of the pipeline of CEOs and how you get to that point of giving giving people the right information and equipping them properly. I was at the Asch school, kind of up and coming CEOs development program, doing a session on governance a couple of weeks ago. And one thing that, obviously, we're being the NGA obviously that's, that's what we we care about an awful lot. But one thing we know we've heard from others in the sector, and it's definitely our view, is that governance is often not really talked about that much in that kind of development stages. In terms of CPD and stuff, it's quite often right you get to this role and right? How do I do this? How do I interact with my board? Cathy, where do you start?
Cathie Paine 34:45
it's been a big, a big learning journey, but a very productive one actually. When we first started out, when I first got the job, there really wasn't a board at all. And we did choose in REAch2 to keep local governing bodies. We've also got a cluster tier of governance. So we have 10 regional clusters in REAch2 of about six to eight schools in each, and each of those has got a cluster board. And one of the reasons why we did that was because the educational need of a cluster, we call the deputy director of education. They report into the director of education, and we wanted that cluster board to hold the Deputy Director of Education to account from a governance perspective, for two reasons. First of all, to keep their eyes on the North Star and make sure that there was that middle tier of accountability, but also to bring professional development experience to those upcoming CEOs of the future. So, they, the deputy directors, have got that experience of working with a governance tier at cluster level. And in terms of the Trust Board, I think that's been a huge and steep learning curve for members of the executive team that I work with and for me, and I think the single most important bit that I've worked hard in the last two years to get right is the relationship with the chair. I met with the chair a week into the job at my request, and basically said, you're going to get the best from me if I feel psychologically safe, if I go into a fearful place where I don't know whether I'm getting it right, and I worry what you're thinking, and You're ringing me day and night, and I'm caught off guard without the answers to questions, then I won't flourish, and therefore you won't get the best out of me. So how can we work in a way that means I can be my very best for these children, and without drilling down too much on the detail, having had a previous couple of weeks where eight o'clock at night, Sunday morning, Saturday afternoon, my chair was on the phone asking me questions. I said, "that doesn't work for me". Not that I mind picking the phone up, but I'm you're catching me off guard. I'm not ready to answer your questions, so we have an hour and a half meeting on Zoom every week. We both bring agenda items. We look ahead at board meeting agendas. I ask him, "What does he want from a board report? What does he want trustees to be?" In other words, there's a lot of Stephen Cove. He's lovely. You measure twice and you cut once. So I do a lot of measuring with the chair, so that when we cut with a lot of executive time and all these incredible trustee volunteers, when we actually have the meeting with all the paperwork in front of them, it's top notch because we've had that safe space to prepare. And I think getting that relationship right. It means that I thrive, that helps my team to thrive, that helps the schools to thrive, and it takes the fear away, a lot of the fear away in the role.
Sam Henson 38:11
That's so good to hear. And I love that description, and that it is a two way conversation, isn't it? And it's, it's interesting that you were able to say to your chair, that doesn't work for me, and I guess it goes both ways, doesn't it? It needs to be something that you know, as they are a volunteer essentially. It needs to be something that works for them, but it has to work for you, especially considering the huge array of responsibilities you've got that we've just been talking about. I'm very conscious that we've got about five minutes left, and we haven't had a chance to open it up to any questions yet, so I'm just going to pause. There's so many questions I think we could ask that I'd love to ask. But does anybody in the audience? I think we've got a roving mic. Does anybody like to ask the panel a question? If you could put your hand up please? Oh, we've got got one down here. Thank you.
Audience Member 1 39:06
Hello. How do you nurture your head teachers?
Sam Henson 39:09
Great question. How do you nurture your head teachers, Tom?
Tom Campbell 39:12
Yes, it's great. I mean, it's perhaps the most critical role in the trust, is to look after their teachers. And I think that's really, really important. At E-ACT, we've got a number of things that we do with our head teachers, including supervision and coaching. One of the culture intentions we had at the start was to create an environment of psychological safety, drawing on the work from Amy Edmondson around the fearless organisation. And if you want to be a fearless organisation, if you really want to empower leaders, if you really want to know the truth, then you need to create an environment where people feel safe to do that. So there's lots of collaboration, lots of investment in training, but really quite critically, there's some external coaching for head teachers and individual and group level. And the group level is interesting because it involves the head teachers, line manager, the education director, around agreeing the rules of engagement, around accountability, around quality assurance, performance management, so that we de risk the sort of threat around some of that core activity and create an environment where people learn and develop and grow, as opposed to seeing someone's number on the mobile and just heart sinking feeling, "I don't want to take that call". So that's how we support our heads. And they tell us that a really important part of keeping them going.
Sam Henson 40:40
Yeah, brilliant. Thanks Tom. I love that element of focusing on the truth. It's so simple yet fundamental, isn't it? I think we got another question over here.
Audience Member 2 40:49
Thank you very much. My name is Jonathan Ronan. I am the CEO, newly appointed CEO of the St Benedict Catholic Academy Trust. I'm just interested in the idea of visibility. As a head teacher, who's been for 10 years putting a lot of importance on the fact that being visible as a leader is important in my organisation. I'm just sort of struggling with the idea of what that looks like now as a CEO. How do I strike that balance of being visible enough and, you know, giving the head teachers enough room to lead their schools?
Cathie Paine 41:20
Yeah, share that. I think Tom talked about how important it is to be on site and in school, and I think that is important when I go into school, I've got a standard format for a school visit. I do still do an assembly, and I don't do that to indulge myself, although I've always quite enjoyed assemblies. I do it because all the children are there and all the staff. So in 20 minutes, you see everybody. I always talk to children obvious things. Have a staff focus group where staff volunteer themselves to come and meet me to talk about a topic they're interested in, all of the things you'd expect, meeting, governance, doing, learning, walks. But it's what do you do when you're off site that I think is the tricky bit, and that's really come down to asking myself about brand and how it's a funny word to use in our sector when we talk about Nike or Coke or whatever. Brand is an easy thing to talk about, but I wrote my dissertation for my MBA on brand in education and brand as I understand it linked to visibility, is what is in the hearts and minds of people when you speak of the CEO, the reach to trust your trust. What's left in people's hearts and minds when you're not there? So I try and do keep a personal touch. So there is a good news Express, there's an open invitation to everybody in the organisation, if something is going well, I want to know about it. And I write 30 to 40 handwritten cards every Sunday, I put on one of my five favorite films where I know the script and sit and write cards. Now I thought that was perhaps a little bit niche and silly when I started it, but I've done quite a bit of reading about this since, and it's something a number of CEOs of FTSE, 100 companies still do handwritten notes. So that I can write to a maths leader in a school who's just achieved something through the apprenticeship Levy, and I know you did this. So something about being present even when you're not. The other thing I do is, once a month, something drops into everybody's inbox, every TA, midday supervisor, every employee. Call the CEO, hello. The idea is you could read it with three swigs of coffee, if you're lucky enough to get a coffee break, just saying, "Hi there. This is what I've been doing. I've heard about this. This is exciting." It's quite visual. It's got lots of pictures of children on it. So I've tried to find a rhythm of being in contact with the organisation that doesn't rely on me at the expense of REAch2 to hurtling across the country on the train where it's lovely to do and I try to go to every school once a year. But any more than that, I think it starts to take away from that balcony role that you've got to keep in order to see everything that's going on. I hope that helps.
Sam Henson 44:39
Brilliant, thanks Cathie. Sadly, we have pretty much run out of time, but I'm really keen to just quickly, if I may, just go to you all one more time, just for a very quick response to what's the best thing about your jobs, and if you were to tell yourself, your younger self, say, 10,20, years ago one bit of advice, what would it be? Jeffrey, if I start with you?
Jeffery Quaye OBE 45:06
Well, I think the best bit is about seeing transformation in the lives of schools and communities. So it makes a difference to provide high quality education. And sometimes it doesn't look like you're making a difference, but when you see that happening day after day, it does give you the energy to keep going. I think maybe advising my young self is to give more attention to understanding contextual kind of differences that exist between schools, because even schools within the same trust, there are some subtle differences that you need to be aware of, which means you can't always at scale school improvement expect the same improvements quickly if you don't take those factors into consideration.
Sam Henson 45:52
Brilliant. Thanks Jeffrey. Cathie?
Cathie Paine 45:54
I can only echo what you said Jeffrey. I think going from class teacher to Deputy Head to Head to CEO. It's only ever for me, been about making more of a difference to more children, particularly children who are most vulnerable, and to be able to look back down the mountain and say there are now 18,000 children that go to school in a good or outstanding school that didn't before. That's not down to me, it's down to mostly the people on the ground, and hopefully we've made a bit of a difference. But that's a great feeling to think we have transformed between us as a team. We've made a big difference. I think the advice to my younger self, maybe starting in REAch2, 12 years ago, would be assume nothing and always ask the next question. Some of the mistakes we've made have been where, I don't know, we've appointed an experienced head into a school that's in difficulty, and I've thought cracking that's that sorted, not necessarily. So keep on asking the next question. Don't be afraid to drill down into the detail, because sometimes that's where the gems lie.
Sam Henson 46:59
Amazing. Thanks Cathie. Tom?
Tom Campbell 47:02
Yeah, similarly, I think it's a privilege of being part, a very small part in the life of schools at various stages of their journey. As I said at the beginning, I'll sort of remind myself of this sort of 14 year old boy on the council estate that I was, no confidence, no one at school pushing me, and I just want to make sure that that's not the case in any E-ACT academy or in or in any other school for that matter, that we are doing our best for the children that we serve.
Sam Henson 47:30
Brilliant, amazing. Well, thank you all so much. Jeffrey, Cathie and Tom, that is a real privilege to sit here, and I could sit here all day and learn from you all absolutely incredible. So thank you so much. We give our panel a round of applause. Thank you.
