The Triple Pivot

But, as we commit to openness and transparency within AET, in the spirit of modelling system generosity, we are also going to narrate and share our next phase of development externally.

By 2028, we want all 33,000+ AET students to enjoy an excellent education, in every classroom, every day. We are building a shared understanding of what success looks like within our national network of schools and our joint ambitions for the future. Central to that is balancing the moral imperative to deliver an entitlement to excellence for every child in any AET school, with the need for those same schools to be distinctive and reflect the colour and context of their local communities.

At our November conference we focussed on the importance of perspective, to set events and opportunities in context, and to think in the short, medium, and longer term.

Sustainable excellence is as much a process as it is a destination.

We have set ourselves some seriously ambitious goals, but we know that meaningful progress and irreversible change will require focus, persistence, and patience. So, whenever we ask ourselves where AET will be in one or two years’ time, we also ask ourselves: where could AET be in ten years’ time?

To do this effectively, we must be clear on our collective and individual purpose, our compelling ‘why.’ We characterise this process of continuous improvement as a “triple pivot.” Moving from turnaround to high performance; from post pandemic to the next normal; and from a financially focussed organisation to an educationally focussed organisation.

On joining AET last year, I was clear that to do this effectively, we must - and have - reduced the cost of the central team; limiting spending on external consultants so that we can invest more in our schools and educational leaders to make that change.

The essential lever for success derives from consistently effective leadership. There will be moments of inspiration along the way, but if we are serious about sustainable excellence, we must build it on the premise that we exist to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary work, every day. This pivot will not happen without purposeful leaders, who understand themselves and why we do what we do.

We consistently return to the key features which will underpin the development of our network in this next phase:

• Having a clear educational approach

• Building school improvement capacity ahead of growth

• Understanding the differences between how formal hierarchies and networks operate

• Clarity about the role of the trust in leveraging scale and expertise

• Detailed thought about the location of decision making and accountability.

Too often we succumb to the short-term treadmill of the academic year and that next set of results. Whilst this might lead to incremental improvements, we risk falling into the familiar trap of overestimating what we can achieve in a year and underestimating what we could achieve in a decade. So, we are taking our time to consider and develop our network improvement model, our school improvement model and the associated theories of change, action and scale that underpin them.

We are determined to set audacious goals, which is why we have started by asking ourselves, what would it take to get 90% of pupils in all of our schools above any significant headline measure - Chronological Reading Age (year on year), Phonics, Expected Standard in RWM and to grade 4 or above in their English and maths GCSEs? AET 4 x 90 - do we believe that we can get there?

The pragmatic optimist in me says that we have to believe we can get there, because to think otherwise will only create a self-fulfilling prophecy for thousands of children.

Our detractors might react to this challenge with cynicism, but I am certain that it is right to start from the premise of who really cannot meet those levels of achievements and then what success looks like for the children who really do need a different focus and approach. In this space we have a lot to learn from our five Special Schools.

Our priorities then must be what we are doing now for our children in Reception and Year 7 this year to make those audacious goals inevitable by 2028? How does it map across to a carefully structured approach to education recovery and early intervention? And how do we maintain the breadth and variety of the essential wider experiences which so often define a child’s education?

If we are going to commit to doing difficult work together, and setting ourselves seriously stretching goals, we must trust one another to confront the brutal facts.

There are some exceptional schools in our network, but others that need support, investment, and priority attention. Reducing variation and enhancing provision and performance is the responsibility of every leader and teacher across AET.

As we move through this “triple pivot” we have committed to being open and transparent about our approach. Not just within AET schools but across the wider education system too. We want to share when things haven’t gone to plan, alongside our successes. This approach to system generosity and learning from and with one another is essential if the entire system is going to realise its capacity to realise the full potential of every child over the next decade. And perhaps a little selfishly, we also know it will help us to get better, faster too. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be developing this work under the moniker of “Project H.”

Now, more than ever, it is of even greater importance to the entire system that we commit to purposeful codification and collaboration that utilises our finite time, talent, and resources in the most effective way to secure a better education for all children across the whole country.