This paper proposes an evolution of the existing accountability, regulatory and support architecture in the school system in order to provide a more sophisticated, effective and proportionate approach that will, together, better support sustained school improvement.

Safeguarding will always be an issue of critical importance in education. From boards, through trust leaders, Designated Safeguarding Leads, and on to all frontline staff, everyone has a role to play. We all need to be clear on its importance, and to recognise the growing complexity of safeguarding issues and the pressures that can come with attempting to deliver excellence in safeguarding without a considered, strategic approach.
Updated January 2024.

Slides from the CST member engagement call on 10 January 2024, setting out CST's draft priorities for the upcoming general election.

The aim of this framework is to identify trusts' most significant areas of strength and challenge, so that they can build organisational capacity. It is diagnostic, not evaluative, or judgemental.
The framework is supported by Ambition Institute, Challenge Partners, Evidence Based Education, the National Institute of Teaching, and ImpactEd.
Updated September 2024.

In February 2022, CST published an influential discussion paper asking the question, ‘What is a strong trust?’ Since then, we have engaged in a sector-wide discussion to understand how our proposed domains of organisational strength and resilience aligned with sector thinking and the emerging evidence base. This paper sets out our current policy position.

In this pamphlet, CST chief executive Leora Cruddas CBE sets out the case for the school trust, and a trust-based system. It attempts to set out why a trust-based system might be our best bet, and explains why a group of schools working together in a school trust is so much more than simply the changing of the legal structure of the school.

Following the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, CST's Trust and School Funding Policy Specialist, Susan Fielden, reflects on what we learnt from the statement - and poses seven areas of interest for the sector to consider.

CST’s policy position on funding pressures as of September 2022, including action taken over the summer and longer-term work.

Following analysis of Budget Forecast Return submissions, shared by over 70 Trusts representing more than 700 schools, we have produced an infographic highlighting the scale of economic challenge facing the sector.

The paper explores ways in which the outcome of the SEND Review and Green Paper consultation could shift the way society thinks about people with learning disability by avoiding deficit language, that suggests people with learning disability are somehow incomplete or worth less, and makes the case for a more ambitious vision of what a good life is - placing greater value on difference, common values, the process of learning and more, to provide a healthy balance to meritocratic values of academics, occupation, and wealth.