Prominent academy trust CEO Dr Tim Coulson is set to leave his 40-school MAT and become director general of the Department for Education’s regions group.
Having led the Unity Schools Partnership for eight years, he will move into John Edwards’s position at the DfE, overseeing the academies system and other education policy areas in England.
Coulson said his stint at the trust has been “by far the longest time in any post in my career” and “exceeded all the expectations I had when I was appointed”.
“While looking forward to the challenge of my new role, I will always look back on my time with Unity Schools Partnership with great fondness and how all our schools have played such an active role in the heart of their communities.
From 12 to 40 schools
“Visiting schools across the trust has been one of the greatest joys ever in my work, as has been the extensive partnerships with colleagues in schools beyond the trust.”
Coulson has overseen a period of substantial growth at Unity. By the end of 2016, it had 12 schools on its books.
It now has 40 academies across Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Coulson will start his new job on September 8.
Coulson was named one of the government’s RISE advisers earlier this year. Prior to becoming Unity CEO he was the first regional schools commissioner for the east of England and northeast London.
Schools Week revealed in April that Edwards was set to step down to become CEO of Rotherham council. He has been director general of the group since its creation in June 2022.
The regions group replaced the old regional schools commissioners structure, with Edwards’s role replacing that of the national schools commissioner.
Search for new CEO
DfE’s website says the regions group “is part of the future DfE transformation and plays a central role in helping to develop policy across the department that reflects local needs and drives our ambition to become a more place-shaping and focused organisation”.
The regional directors are tasked with brokering and re-brokering schools between trusts and intervening in settings when they fail.
More recently, the regions group is now home to the government’s new specialist RISE (Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence) teams, the first of which were launched in February to broker support for struggling schools.
The teams have been heavily criticised by school leaders.
The regions group also took on oversight of school finance when the ESFA closed this year.
Chris Quinn, Unity’s chair, confirmed Sarah Garner, the trust’s current deputy CEO, will take over the reins from Coulson on an interim basis.
“We are engaging a recruitment partner, Saxton Bamfylde, to make our next chief executive appointment and will be advertising shortly,” she added.
Coulson’s appointment follows that of Gila Sacks, who will take over as director general of the DfE’s families group. Her responsibilities will include attendance and exclusions.
DfE permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood said Coulson and Sacks’s “extensive experience will be invaluable as we deliver on the opportunity mission to ensure that every child, no matter what their background, gets the best start in life and can achieve and thrive”.
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