Samuel Skerritt, Director of Public Affairs and Policy, CST
Ukraine had not yet been invaded by Russian forces, Queen Elizabeth II had just marked 70 years on the throne, and Nadhim Zahawi was five months into his tenure as Education Secretary. We were eagerly anticipating the publication of the White Paper, early worries about energy bills were coming to the fore, and CST was gearing up for its first in-person Annual Conference.
While much has changed over the past 12 months, much has stayed the same. We’re still discussing the cost of energy bills, a different Education Secretary is approaching five months in the role, and the team here is preparing for another Annual Conference.
#Belonging
Inspired by Owen Eastwood’s speech last year, we have adopted ‘belonging’ as the conference theme for 2023. In his words, "belonging is a wildly undervalued condition required for human performance. When our need to belong in a team is met, our energy and focus pour into the team's shared mission.”
Our sector is a team with a shared mission: to advance education for public benefit. We think this is best explored through three connected but discrete lenses, which will form the basis of our workshop programme.
Our people strand will explore the intrinsic sense of belonging that is built through our relationships – with one another, with our staff, with our students and families, and with our wider communities. This epitomises why Annual Conference is such an important moment of the year, and why we are so excited about it.
Our purpose strand reflects those shared aims I wrote about earlier, the deep and interconnected reasons we come together and bind our sense of belonging as a sector.
Our place strand thinks about our natural connection to place and where we feel rooted, which is fundamental to identity and belonging. This is where we will build on the theme of Annual Conference 2022 (Truly Civic) and develop our thinking on community anchoring and the civic role of school trusts.
As you would expect, we’ll be joined by some of the leading voices from within and beyond the sector. I’m especially excited that Chris Lubbe will be speaking.
Chris worked closely for many years with Nelson Mandela and other leading figures in the fight against the apartheid regime. He will reflect on the concept of Ubuntu, often boiled down to a simple yet powerful phrase: I am, because you are. Surely, that is the root of all belonging.
Making a statement
As a membership body, I’m guilty of sometimes talking about CST as if we – CST members, CST staff, CST’s place in the education sector – are one homogenous group. But it is of course much more remarkable than that.
As a sector body, CST represents member trusts as an organisation, but those organisations are nothing without the people in them. Passionate and hard-working individuals, who spend their working lives in a team, serving their communities, together holding trust on behalf of over three million children.
It is in this context I think our Annual Conference 2022 made such a statement. We came together to share that collective purpose and embody the community that we are cementing.
This year, Annual Conference will be bigger. So will the statement it makes.
The CST Blog welcomes perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
