Every growing organisation faces the same challenge. As it becomes larger and more complex, it invests in structures. Clearer governance. Clearer accountability. Clearer processes. Clearer expectations. It has to. Without them, organisations become inconsistent, difficult to navigate and increasingly dependent on individual personalities. As organisations grow, coherence becomes more important, not less. For a multi-academyContinue reading “The View Looks Different From Here”
Author Archives: Ali Durban
What your staff survey is not telling you
Most multi-academy trusts I work with can share their values, their strategic plan, and their leadership structure. What is sometimes more difficult is understanding what it actually feels like to work there. And that is the part that determines almost everything else: whether talented people stay, whether honest conversations happen, whether the trust feels likeContinue reading “What your staff survey is not telling you”
Prepare the world for them
Seven of Blackpool’s neighbourhoods sit in the top ten most deprived in the country. FCAT’s education, employment, and training rate is 98%. From Blackpool to Stoke-on-Trent, what inclusive pathways for young people with SEND look like when places stop waiting for national policy to catch up. Last week, I was in Blackpool with The EdgeContinue reading “Prepare the world for them”
Why Team Coaching Matters Most in PRUs and Alternative Provision
Of all the settings I work with, pupil referral units and alternative provision are where sustained team coaching has the biggest effect on what children and young people actually experience. Why that is, and why this work is so often the last thing that gets funded in these settings. Team coaching in pupil referral unitsContinue reading “Why Team Coaching Matters Most in PRUs and Alternative Provision”
The Space between CPD and Wellbeing: what the work actually is
What sits between continuing professional development and wellbeing support is the work most schools and trusts have nowhere to put. This is what it is, why it matters, and what makes it different from coaching as the sector usually means it. The work in the space between CPD and wellbeing is sustained, relationally intelligent practiceContinue reading “The Space between CPD and Wellbeing: what the work actually is”
Inclusion is not a Policy, it is an Experience.
A story about a young person, a camping trip, and what inclusion actually looks like. On equity, opportunity, and the relational integrity that holds it all together. When Alex was in primary school, he found it hard to belong. He had been bullied by teachers, struggled to make friends, and outside of football at breakContinue reading “Inclusion is not a Policy, it is an Experience.”
Is your leadership team a team, or a group of individuals operating in parallel?
This piece is for MAT CEOs and the senior leadership teams running multi-academy trusts, though much of it applies to any senior team trying to function as more than the sum of its members. Leadership teams in schools and trusts are under enormous pressure. And one of the things that doesn’t get talked about enough isContinue reading “Is your leadership team a team, or a group of individuals operating in parallel?”
The Density of Togetherness – why culture is key in schools
A short essay on why the most important work schools do may not appear in any inspection framework, and the three questions that sit at the heart of every school community. The conversations young people most need to have are increasingly happening without another human present. Young people can now talk about loneliness, anxiety andContinue reading “The Density of Togetherness – why culture is key in schools”