System leadership

System leadership across the academy trust system and beyond

In April 2023 Forum Strategy and The Brown Collective published an initial system leadership thinkpiece ‘What does system leadership look like in 2023 and beyond?’. This provided a helpful source of reflection and provocation. It was a timely reminder that effective system leadership has much more untapped potential to help the education system develop and improve further, including opportunities to identify and address cross-community and cross-sector challenges and the potential to collaborate with other influencers.

Since then, we have formed some small, focused and expertly facilitated CEO professional learning communities to further explore what system leadership might look like from their perspective, offering the space and time to explore this important area in detail and providing the opportunity to pull reflections and ideas into some follow-up thinkpieces.

Three further thinkpieces have been produced by three separate CEO professional learning communities. The first published in September 2023, ‘Reflections on system leadership in 2023: Why it matters in the evolution of the English Education System and how it can be done’ followed on directly from our initial thinkpiece and offered the opportunity to build on this by outlining what system leadership would look like from those already serving as CEOs across the system. The second thinkpiece ‘How the challenge of teacher retention can be better addressed through system leadership’, published in September 2024, developed the system leadership work further by exploring a large-scale, system-wide challenge (in this case, teacher retention) and outlined ways in which effective system leadership would help to address this important issue. And our third thinkpiece ‘The Power of Place’, published in September 2025, explores one of our three key areas of system leadership in-depth, locality leadership. The paper explores the role of CEOs in locality leadership and how they can support their local area and communities to thrive through their leadership; outlining the key enablers/barriers to this, useful skills, behaviours and knowledge that help to enable it, and offers some practical recommendations for CEOs and their Boards.

Our initial thinkpiece is shared below as an open resource for all. Our further three thinkpieces are offered as ‘member only’ resources. However, if you would like us to send you a copy of any of our thinkpieces we are happy to do so – please contact us at admin@forumstrategy.org

If you would like to know more about our CEO system leadership professional learning community programme, please contact admin@forumstrategy.org . This programme has helped inform and develop a number of the resources shared below. The programme usually commences in March, running for five months and culminating in the publication of a report at our National #TrustLeaders CEO Conference in September. 

Thinkpiece 1: What does system leadership look like in 2023 and beyond?

The thinkpiece – ‘what does system leadership look like in 2023?’ – will help us to commence this work. It s intended to explore some of the historical background to system leadership across education and start to offer questions and areas to explore as we consider what system leadership looks and feels like now, across our current landscape.  The thinkpiece will draw on cross-sector perspectives and learning, as well as the latest thinking from within education (including some of Forum Strategy’s previous work and examples from members across our networks).

You can download the the initial thinkpiece by clicking below.

Thinkpiece 2: Reflections on system leadership in 2023: Why it matters in the evolution of the English Education System and how it can be done

The second thinkpiece builds on the first by setting out the key thinking from Forum Strategy’s System Leadership Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), which involved ten Chief Executives of academy trusts working across two groups over the Summer of 2023. We undertook this process of exploration and reflection specifically with CEOs, not least because Forum Strategy is a support organisation for Chief Executives (and other executive leaders), but also because the CEO role is highly influential in determining how academy trusts engage and involve themselves with wider systemic matters and partnerships.  The thinkpiece shares key learning points from the PLCs and some suggested next steps if we are to see system leadership develop to become a sector wide habit.

You can download the the second thinkpiece by clicking below.

Thinkpiece 3: How the challenge of teacher retention can be better addressed through system leadership

The third thinkpiece sets out the ideas and thinking from our 2024 System Leadership PLC group. Titled ‘System leadership in focus: How the challenge of teacher retention can be better addressed through system leadership’ it explores the system-wide challenge of teacher retention through a system leadership lens, offering insights into the challenge as it stands and ideas as to how effective system leadership can help to address retention across the education system as a whole. It includes the proposal to introduce a ‘system-wide retention promise’ to demonstrate our commitment to retention across the country.

You can download the the third thinkpiece by clicking below.

Thinkpiece 4: The Power of Place

The fourth thinkpiece sets out the ideas and thinking from our 2025 System Leadership PLC group and explores one of our three defining areas of system leadership, locality leadership, in-depth. The paper sets out the context for why effective locality leadership is so critical for our system (and society as a whole) now, outlines some of the key areas that enable or present a challenge for effective locality leadership, explores the skills, behaviour and knowledge that underpin effective locality leadership (including a useful one page summary matrix), and provides some practical recommendations for CEOs and their Boards for building locality leadership into all that they do. This is a valuable read for individuals looking to reflect on the role of academy trust CEOs in community and locality leadership.

You can download the the fourth thinkpiece by clicking below.