Academy trusts must protect school leaders’ wellbeing amid widespread anxiety about planned major reforms, the Confederation of School Trusts’ (CST) chief executive has urged.
Leora Cruddas warned that the number of “moving parts” in terms of government reforms - including changes to Ofsted, the curriculum and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support - is creating uncertainty.
Organisations need to offer a “protective structure” for heads worried about the sheer number of changes heading their way, including in the government’s autumn White Paper, she said at CST’s CEO Leadership Summit in Birmingham yesterday, attended by Tes.
Ofsted inspection changes
Ms Cruddas highlighted the recent row over Ofsted’s planned timetable for changes, which will give schools less than the promised one term’s notice of new inspections.
“We are trying to say...‘You committed to a term’s notice between the publication inspection materials and the implementation date, don’t renege on that commitment now’ - but we’ve seen no shift on that,” she said.
Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver apologised for this reduced notice period last week but added that it was his job “to inspect”, not to “say when or how I inspect”.
Trusts ‘should carry anxiety for school leaders’
CST members have reported a lot of concern among school leaders, including heads, Ms Cruddas said.
This is down to “too many moving parts in this policy arena, and leaders feeling anxious about how they deal with quite significant funding issues alongside all of this reform, when they are already working all of the hours under the sun”.
Ms Cruddas added: “So we do need the trust to be a protective structure. We need you to help take that anxiety out of your leaders. Carry some of it for them. Offer reassurance to them.”
If there is no movement on the 1 November date for Ofsted introducing its new inspection report cards, she told delegates: “You need to be reassuring your school leaders that nothing will happen if an inspection comes and the outcome is not what they would want - because it’s coming too soon.”
‘Stop negative stories about trust sector’
The government’s forthcoming White Paper is likely to include SEND reforms as well as “a commentary on wider system reform”, Ms Cruddas predicted.
This creates a “hugely important moment for CST to be talking to the government about just how much capacity there is in the trust system”, she said.
Ms Cruddas challenged members to “work together to tell a better, a stronger story of the trust sector”.
“We need to stop those protagonists who are telling negative stories about the trust sector. We need to stop them in their tracks,” she said.
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