Sheila Naughton: The Developmental Trust, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Klappentext

Every school is running two jobs at once: the one people were hired for, and a hidden one - managing how competent they appear. That second job isn't a failure of staff. It's what a system produces when it makes struggling feel unsafe, and it's quietly bankrupting the profession, one resignation at a time.

The Developmental Trust makes the case that a school or trust can be redesigned so growth is not an event bolted onto the job, but the ordinary way the job gets done. Drawing on the deliberately developmental organisation research pioneered by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, and the author's own years as an embedded leadership coach inside a multi-academy trust (MAT), this book translates that model into the specific grammar of English schools.

This is a playbook, not a theory.

Across fourteen chapters in four parts - the case, the model, making it real, and sustaining it - every idea closes in a tool a leader can use next term.

Inside, you'll find: The Developmental Trust Operating System - the principles, routines, and communities that make growth a standing feature of the working week, not a twilight INSET session Edge, Home, Groove - Kegan and Lahey's framework translated into classroom and staffroom language Crews - the small, power-free peer groups where adults actually develop, with composition, cadence, and facilitation set out in full Governance for a developmental trust - scheme-of-delegation and board-paper templates that make culture a standing governance item, held to the same rigour as results and money A complete five-phase implementation roadmap - Frame, Explore, Prepare, Deliver, Sustain - built to stop trusts launching everything everywhere at once A full toolkit appendix - every worksheet and protocol from the book's fourteen chapters, ready to use without re-reading where it came from

Teacher recruitment and retention are in sustained crisis, Ofsted's post-2025 framework has moved decisively away from single-word judgements toward continuous improvement, and MAT boards are under growing pressure to evidence workforce sustainability, not just outcomes. This book arrives exactly where sector policy and everyday practice are already heading - giving trust leaders a practical, evidence-based answer rather than another initiative to defend.

Who this book is for:

Written for MAT chief executives, boards, and headteachers navigating a recruitment and retention crisis the old CPD model was never built to solve.

Also essential reading for:

MAT chief operating officers and HR directors accountable for workforce strategy, trust improvement leads, and non-executive directors advising a board on culture and governance.

Sheila Naughton works directly with multi-academy trust chief executives and boards on coaching-led leadership architecture, building leadership operating systems that make development part of how a trust runs. A former Department for Education regional adviser to 33 local authorities and school-improvement consultant, she holds a Level 5 qualification in Professional Coaching (Distinction). She writes and advises across the UK.