The school system has changed radically over the past twenty years. Evolving and maturing since ‘City Academies’ were first created under the last Labour government, school trusts now make up the largest part of England’s education system.
The majority of children are taught in academies and most schools are now academies.
The development of the sector has been supported by the work of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), the sector body set up specifically to advocate for, support and connect school trusts. CST takes its place alongside other public sector bodies like the Association of Colleges and the NHS Confederation.
Just as the trust sector has grown, so too has CST. In five years, membership has expanded to include more than 75 per cent of all academy schools. Collectively, these account for the education of more than 3.5 million children.
This is a key reason why CST has become a strong voice in the sector, working as an independent but collaborative force alongside a range of other national organisations.
Membership organisations work by bringing otherwise isolated voices together to speak as a collective whole. The scale and nature of membership plays into the legitimacy and authority of your voice.
So too does your constitution. Trusts and trust leaders are well served by a range of services to support their work, but the ability of CST to speak on behalf of the sector is unique.
In part, this is because it is constituted as a charity. Unlike a private company, its operations are tightly bound by charity law and the oversight of a board, just as school trusts themselves are. Members and government can be confident that when CST speaks, it does so on behalf of members, not shareholders.
CST works hard to listen to the views of its members. Trust leaders turn up in their hundreds at our fortnightly Zoom calls to discuss the latest policy matters, the issues they are facing, and to share solutions.
We have engagement with more than 15,000 individual trust leaders through meetings, emails and conferences, and more than 5,000 trust leaders belong to one of our ten professional communities.
This will be central to how we help government to deliver its ambition
These channels are vital to us. They allow us to understand what’s happening on the ground, to probe issues and to take a steer from members about the positions we should take.
In a sector that is characterised by intentional difference, we work hard to understand the range of different views by convening discussions with trusts of all shapes, sizes, regions and phases.
And in the autumn we will be launching a new and additional way to hear from members and strengthen our voice: a national, elected Policy Advisory Council.
In September we’ll be seeking nominations from trust leaders who would like to be a part of this group. Members will be elected to represent their region. Given CST’s commitment to the work of specialist SEND and AP settings, there will be places reserved for representatives of these institutions too.
More than half of the places on the council will be taken up by CEOs of trusts; these tend to be the accounting officers in their organisations and their insight is crucial. But so too are other trust leaders and we will also be seeking nominations from colleagues leading across trusts in other roles.
We are particularly keen to receive nominations from trust leaders from diverse backgrounds as we believe the sector can do more to be representative of the full richness of our communities. The advisory council can’t achieve this on its own, but we hope it will make a meaningful contribution.
Nominations will open in September and once they’re closed CST members will have the final say by voting in their regions for who they want to represent them.
We will of course continue to engage with CST members through our usual channels; the council’s role is to supplement this by getting into more detail on specific issues. Across its range of channels CST will continue to be a sounding board for organisations, officials, and others who want to hear the authentic voice of trusts and trust leaders.
The council is something we’ve been building towards for a while but, as they say, timing is everything. We have a new government, elected on a mandate to bring change and to deliver a mission that breaks down the barriers to opportunity.
This is exactly what trusts do and it is a key tenet of CST’s work. Our elected policy advisory council will be central to how we help government to deliver its ambition.
Keep an eye out for nominations opening in September.
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