This document is for chief executives, those aspiring to the role, and trust boards. It aims to underpin key aspects of leadership development and governance by offering a framework to inform executive performance review, executive development, organisation design, and recruitment.

This paper, part of our 'Bridge to the Future' series, sets out the vital role of trusts as employers and how to build sustainable people strategies in our sector. It argues that policy makers need to engage more with trusts as employers and better connect with the HR profession. The paper argues firmly that trusts themselves are the key enablers of quality people management in our sector and will play a vital role in building a sustainable education workforce.

CST considers school trusts as structures with the potential to build and mobilise knowledge pertaining to school improvement. This paper, part of CST's 'Bridge to the Future' series, seeks to extend this analysis by arguing that we need to understand school improvement as a field of practice rather than view it as a series of disconnected activities.

This guidance, in partnership with Stone King LLP, sets out the strategic and operational considerations around trust growth for the trustees and executive leaders, with particular focus on how trusts can grow through academy conversion and academy transfers.

In this 'A Bridge to the Future' series paper, Dixons Academies Trust's Funmilola Stewart and Jenny Thompson argue that while the application and delivery of powerful knowledge within schools is recognised as a tool for social justice, for this to be truly consequential our focus must shift from a broad consideration of the disparities between the elite and the disadvantaged, and towards an acknowledgement of the intersectionality underpinning social disadvantage.

With an incredible foreword written by best-selling author Matthew Syed, six academy trustees from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds share their personal and professional experiences and highlight why a diverse and inclusive board is so important. This timely collection is part of a broader programme on diversity and aims to encourage everybody in the sector to reflect.
Published in association with the New Schools Network.

‘Rising Strong’ is a series of essays from CST members. This attempts to celebrate the leadership response to COVID-19 and CST’s warmest thanks to the colleagues who approached us about creating a record of our responses: Dawn Haywood, John Camp, Rebekah Iiyambo, Stephen Chamberlain and Sharon Gray. This artefact is a contribution to recording and remembering what we have done.

We believe school trusts are well set up to play a civic role – particularly the larger trusts who may be quite large employers in an area and will have the capability and capacity to act with other civic partners. But even smaller trusts can all play a role – as many already do – as good civic partners to their local authority to advance education as a public good in their community.

Over the past 12 months, CST has been developing a new narrative promoting school trusts as education charities with a single legal and moral purpose – to advance education for public benefit. As part of our work on a new narrative, we have also been developing three ‘nested’ leadership narratives considering trust leadership, civic leadership, and system leadership.

This document should be read alongside the Department for Education’s guidance for maintained schools applying to join a school. It provides an overview of good practice on public engagement and consultation at each step of the process.