John Murphy, the chief executive of Oasis Community Learning, is to step down after nine years at the helm of the 52-school trust.
The school leader said he had “decided now is the right time to pursue a range of projects across the education sector in leadership, mentoring, and supporting school leaders and trusts”.
He will stand down in the autumn term. The trust said it is “starting the process of finding a successor”.
“Having dedicated all my professional life to education, as a headteacher in the primary, secondary and special sector, and more recently as CEO, I am confident that the trust is at a point of success and stability which means now is the right time for me to hand over to a new CEO,” Murphy said.
“It has been an honour and my passion to serve communities facing some of the highest levels of disadvantage in the country, ensuring that children and young people are given every opportunity to flourish.”
Oasis is the country’s joint-fifth-largest academy trust, educating more than 32,500 pupils in 52 schools across 21 council areas.
The trust is sponsored by Oasis Charitable Trust, a “community transformation” charity, which states that its “vision, values, and ethos are Christ-centred, informed by the life and person of Jesus”.
Murphy proud of record
Murphy said the proportion of Oasis schools rated ‘good’ or better by Ofsted had increased from 27 per cent to 87 per cent during his tenure.
He added he was “particularly proud to be one of the founding CEOs of the National Institute for Teaching and I look forward to seeing the great difference it will make in the education sector for teacher development and research.
“I would like to thank my colleagues at OCL and all of the fantastic school leaders and teaching staff in the Oasis Community Learning family. I have been proud to work alongside them, and I wish them continued success in the future.”
Caroline Taylor, who chairs Oasis’s board, thanked Murphy for his “hard work and exceptional leadership as our CEO over the last nine years, and to wish him every success for the future”.
“He has been a hands-on leader and has spent much of his time as CEO on the ground, working in our schools.
“His dedication to providing the highest quality education for our students, passion for closing the ‘disadvantage gap’, and his innovative and forward-thinking approach to leading and improving our academies, including during the challenges of Covid, has given OCL a strength and stability that is both John’s legacy and the basis for our future success.”
The trust is “now starting the process of finding a successor”.
It follows the announcement in January that Ormiston’s Nick Hudson, another long-serving trust chief executive, will retire. The trust announced last week that Tom Rees, currently a director at the Ambition Institute, will replace him.
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