Building strategic capability and confidence across school trusts
This masterclass addresses three key questions facing school trust leaders: what does artificial intelligence mean for your organisation? How can digital strategy deliver organisational purpose? And what does effective delivery and governance of transformation at scale involve?
The course aims to help leaders move from experimenting with individual tools and isolated innovation to consider AI as part of a wider digital and organisational agenda. One that connects technology, data, cyber security, safeguarding, governance, workforce and school improvement so that trusts can make informed decisions and build sustainable capability.
Who is it for?
- Chief executives and chief operating officers
- Chief information, digital and technology leaders, and transformation leads
- Executive leaders with responsibility for school improvement, data, safeguarding, governance or organisational strategy
What you will gain
This course will give you:
- A clear leadership-level understanding of AI, where it can add value and where human judgement must remain central
- A practical architecture for building digital strategy with AI embedded across technology, data, cyber and privacy, and EdTech and innovation
- A structured approach to assessing digital maturity, prioritising investment and translating strategy into an achievable roadmap
- An understanding of the governance, assurance, operating model and workforce considerations needed to lead transformation at scale
- Practical learning from three multi-academy trusts at different stages of AI and digital transformation
Course overview
Each 90-minute webinar combines structured input, practical frameworks, facilitated discussion and a case study from a multi-academy trust leader. The emphasis throughout is on informed judgement: Understanding what technology can enable, what must be in place before it can scale, and how leaders maintain purpose, accountability and assurance as the environment changes.
Webinar one: Understanding AI in education
From tool use to informed, responsible and purposeful adoption.
This session builds the essential AI literacy needed by trust leaders to make confident decisions. It establishes a shared language for AI, explores the shift from generative tools towards connected and agentic workflows, and considers how opportunity, risk and professional accountability should be balanced in an education context.
In this session, Paul Butler, Director of School Improvement, will share Exceed Academy Trust's journey from early AI exploration towards a more coherent trust-wide approach.
Webinar two: Building digital strategy
From digital maturity and organisational purpose to a coherent, deliverable roadmap.
This session provides a practical model for building or refreshing digital strategy. It positions digital as an organisational enabler rather than an IT plan and demonstrates how AI should be embedded across the strategy rather than treated as a separate innovation strand.
In this second session, Ash Mudaliar, Director of IT & EdTech, will explore how Creative Education Trust has approached AI and digital development through clear organisational problems rather than technology-led experimentation.
Webinar three: Leading digital strategy
Governance, assurance and transformation at scale in an AI-enabled organisation.
The final session focuses on the leadership discipline required once a strategy exists. It considers how executive teams and boards create clear ownership, make high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, assure risk and impact, and evolve the trust operating model as AI, automation and digital capability become embedded in day-to-day work.
In this final session, James Browning, COO at Lift Schools, shares how AI-driven operational transformation can reduce workload, improve outcomes, and scale change through effective governance and capability.
Course leader
12:30 pm
10 Nov 2026 11:00 am to
12:30 pm
17 Nov 2026 11:00 am to
12:30 pm
- Member price: £280+VAT
- Non-member price: £340 +VAT
