Dawn Haywood, Chief Executive Officer, and Claire Gething, Director of Communications, Community and HR, Windsor Academy Trust
When we talk about the future of education, the conversation too often stops at exam results and school improvement. Yet the real measure of success lies in how education changes lives and strengthens communities. As civic institutions, school trusts have both the opportunity and the responsibility to lead that change.
Our new framework, Co-Creating Healthy Futures: Schools and Health – A Framework, developed by Windsor Academy Trust in partnership with six school trusts, nine NHS trusts, Confederation of School Trusts, NHS Confederation and NHS Employers, is built on this belief. It calls for a new era of collaboration between schools and health services to improve education and health outcomes, and the life chances of children and young people.
At its heart, the framework recognises something fundamental: education and health are deeply intertwined. Where we find educational disadvantage, so often we find poorer health outcomes, and vice versa.
Schools are not just places of learning; they are anchor institutions at the heart of their neighbourhoods. When they act as civic leaders alongside health, local government and the voluntary sector, they can become powerful drivers of early intervention and prevention.
School trusts are uniquely positioned to make this vision a reality. Their scale, governance structures and place-based connections enable them to work strategically across communities. We see this every day in our own trust and across the wider CST network: trusts convening local partners, aligning priorities and translating policy into meaningful local action.
Through Co-Creating Healthy Futures, we have seen how trust-led innovation can open new gateways for collaboration. Whether that’s transforming schools into neighbourhood health hubs where families can access vital support, embedding mental health services directly into school life, or co-designing NHS career pathways that inspire the next generation, these partnerships are reshaping what it means to serve children and communities.
This is civic leadership in practice, not as an abstract idea, but as a lived reality. It’s about seeing beyond institutional boundaries and asking: What can we achieve together that none of us can achieve alone?
The frameworks and policies emerging nationally – from the NHS’s shift towards prevention and local care, to the government’s focus on family hubs and the Opportunity Mission – all point towards the need for collaboration. But making it happen on the
ground depends on trust leaders acting locally, strategically and with purpose, underpinned by the intent, trust, time and leadership to drive it forward.
By our nature as school trusts, we serve whole communities. The next step is to extend that mandate beyond education to become true civic partners shaping fairer, healthier and more hopeful futures for every child.
The power of trusts lies not just in improving schools, but in building the civic infrastructure of a better society. Together, through collaboration, we can co-create the healthy futures that every child deserves.
We would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this and would very much welcome a conversation to discuss further: please contact cgething@windsoracademytrust.org.uk to find out more about the framework.
We welcome 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.
