At Ormiston, one of our founding beliefs is that we work where the challenge is greatest, and we embrace the challenge.
It is the essence of what the trust system was set up to do, and it motivates so many of us who choose to work where we do
And in an education system which too often incentivises the wrong things, moral purpose and values matter in decision-making which prioritises the most challenging schools and the most vulnerable children.
Recent times have brought a very different challenge for our trust, as we dealt with the deeply sad news of the death of our chair, Julius Weinberg, in September.
Julius was many things to me: a chair, mentor and teacher. He was a wise man who cared deeply about education and who understood the responsibility that comes with leading organisations like ours. The decisions I write about here are ones Julius and I discussed many times. I know he would have encouraged me to write openly about them: about the choices we have made, the thinking behind them, and why we believe they are in the best interests of children.
That feels particularly important because, as well as knowing when to take on challenges, leadership can also mean knowing when to let go.
That is the thinking behind our decision to transfer two of our schools to other trusts. We remain ambitious to improve and to grow, and to take on challenging schools where we know we can make a difference. But if we believe trusts exist to serve schools and children rather than the other way around, we also have to recognise when another trust is better placed to provide what a school needs next.
When Ormiston took on many of its schools, we did so in a system that looked very different to today’s. In many parts of the country there was little local trust capacity, and schools – often in isolated areas – needed expertise, leadership and support that simply wasn’t available locally. National trusts like ours stepped into that gap, taking on some of the country’s most challenging schools and developing the expertise to improve schools at scale.
But the system has matured. Strong local trusts have grown, clusters of schools have developed real depth, and capacity now exists in places where it was once scarce. That is something to welcome – and it should change some of the decisions trusts make. We should pay more attention to place: where trusts grow, how schools connect with the institutions around them and, sometimes, whether a school would be better served in a different trust.
This is increasingly reflected in government policy too, with greater emphasis on schools as anchors in their communities and on collaboration between education, local government, employers and other public services. February’s Schools White Paper set out an ambition for all schools to be in trusts, with more emphasis on collaboration and place. A new political focus on devolution will advance this conversation further.
National scale and strong local clusters both matter, and we need both in the system. But the interests of an individual school and its community must come first.
Tom Ress, CEO Ormiston Academies Trust
For trusts, this requires a willingness to look beyond institutional growth and ask what will genuinely work best for individual schools and the communities they serve, even when the answer doesn’t fit the traditional growth narrative.
This thinking sits behind the two transfers we are currently making.
In one case, a local trust was already providing additional leadership capacity and improvement support, and the transfer formalises a relationship that was working well. In the other, after years of work to stabilise and strengthen the school, we recognised that another trust, with different expertise and a different school improvement network, is now better placed to provide what it needs next. Geography has influenced these decisions, but hasn’t been the sole deciding factor, nor should it be.
These are different schools with different needs. What connects them is a single question: which trust can give this school the support, expertise and capacity it needs to succeed? Recognising that another trust may sometimes be better placed to do that should be a sign of a mature system, not something trusts feel they must defend against.
None of this diminishes the case for national trusts. Ormiston is one of the longest-running trusts in the country. We run 45 schools and serve more than 35,000 pupils across England, and we will continue to grow strategically and develop our work nationally.
Scale is important. Working across the country helps us build capacity, learn what is working in different areas and share it elsewhere. But we also see the benefits of local density. In Wolverhampton, for example, the relationship between Ormiston NEW Academy and the local authority has helped create a new SEND resource base to meet local need. We see similar benefits across our clusters elsewhere, such as London, where we run both specialist autism and alternative provision.
National scale and strong local clusters both matter, and we need both in the system. But the interests of an individual school and its community must come first.
When I speak to other trust leaders, there is broad recognition that this is a commonsense approach. Trusts should grow where they are strong, where they have good relationships and where they know they can make a difference. They should also be willing to say when another organisation is better placed to take a school forward. I believe this is an example of ‘advancing education for public benefit’, the objective written into so many of our articles.
This is not about walking away from responsibility. In these circumstances, it is the responsible decision.
As trust leaders, our responsibility extends beyond the organisations we lead. We are stewards of a wider school system. Our first responsibility is to children, and growth is not an end in and of itself. So at Ormiston, we will continue to work where the challenges are greatest, and to embrace the challenge. We will continue to grow and take on challenging schools where we believe we can make a difference. But a mature trust system must also be open to consolidation and change, and we should be confident enough to embrace that when it is the right thing for a school.