As part of the preparation for TransforMATive LIVE: Sweden, our leadership exchange taking place in December, I recently had the opportunity to spend a few hours in Stockholm.

Sweden feels like a particularly relevant place for this conversation. It has a long history of digitalisation in education, strong digital infrastructure and skills, and a well-developed EdTech ecosystem. Around nine in ten secondary pupils have access to a school-provided digital device, while the European Commission continues to describe Sweden as having a strong digital ecosystem, high-quality connectivity and a highly digitally skilled population. Digital Strategy

For me, that makes Sweden interesting not simply because technology is present, but because it provides an opportunity to explore what happens after digital adoption. How do digitally mature organisations make better choices about what technology should enable, where it should sit and, increasingly, where it should not?

That question stayed with me as I experienced Stockholm.

From the Vasa Museum and Djurgården, across the waterfront and Skeppsholmen, through to the Royal Palace and the streets of Gamla Stan, what struck me was the contrast.

The Vasa itself provides an extraordinary leadership lesson. It was an ambitious seventeenth-century Swedish warship which sank in Stockholm harbour just minutes into its maiden voyage in 1628, before being recovered from the seabed 333 years later. Vasa Museum

For me, its story is a reminder that progress is not simply about ambition, resources or technical capability.

It is also about judgement.

Challenge.

And whether an organisation creates the conditions for good decisions to be made.

Elsewhere, Stockholm brings together history, culture, design and modern public life in a way that feels intentional and connected rather than hurried.

That feels increasingly relevant to leadership in the age of AI.

AI gives us the ability to move faster, process more information and automate increasing amounts of work.

But speed and productivity are not the same thing as progress.

If every efficiency simply creates capacity for another report, another task, another analysis or another decision, we risk replacing workload with work intensity.

For MAT leaders, that distinction matters.

The promise of digital transformation should not simply be that we can fit more into the working day.

It should be that we can make better decisions about what deserves our time in the first place.

That is why I increasingly think head space is becoming a strategic resource.

Leaders need space to think.

Space to challenge assumptions.

Space to make connections between things that might otherwise remain separate.

Space to listen to different perspectives.

And, occasionally, space to decide that something does not need to be done at all.

This thinking sits at the heart of the Connect theme for our Digital Leadership Summit and our wider TransforMATive community, including TransforMATive LIVE.

Connect is not simply about bringing people together.

It is about creating the conditions for reflection, challenge and shared understanding.

It is about stepping outside the rhythm of everyday operational leadership long enough to ask whether we are solving the right problems, whether technology is genuinely helping and whether activity remains connected to organisational purpose.

These moments deliberately introduce a little useful friction.

They allow us to listen.

To compare experiences.

To question what has become normal.

To understand how other organisations are approaching similar challenges.

And to consider where technology can genuinely add value, rather than simply add pace.

For me, that leaves three increasingly important questions for MAT leaders:

What can technology enable us to do?

But also:

What should we do differently because the technology now exists?

And perhaps most importantly:

What should remain fundamentally human?

As trusts mature digitally, those questions become more important, not less.

The greatest value technology creates may not always be additional capacity to do more.

Sometimes it is the space to think more clearly about what matters, what we can stop doing and what should come next.

Perhaps that is one of the most important forms of Connect of all.

Jonny Wathen
CEO, TransforMATive

TransforMATive Insights brings together learning from our work with multi-academy trusts, sector leaders and partners, informed by the latest research and emerging evidence, to explore the issues, opportunities and practical choices shaping digital leadership across education.

Most conversations about operating models begin with structure.

Who reports to whom? What sits centrally? What remains within schools? Where does responsibility ultimately sit?

Those questions matter. But increasingly, I think some of the more important organisational challenges sit between the boxes.

Take AI governance.

A trust can appoint a senior responsible officer, publish an AI policy and establish a clear approval process.

Structurally, everything can look sensible.

But what happens when a teacher identifies a new use case?

When should the DPO become involved?

When does curriculum leadership need to engage?

Who speaks to procurement?

How does learning from one school reach another?

And what happens when an issue crosses technology, safeguarding, education, data protection and finance at the same time?

The answer rarely sits neatly within a single role or reporting line.

That is relational architecture.

It is the way people, teams and responsibilities connect around the work that actually needs to happen.

This feels particularly relevant to our Connect theme for this year’s Digital Leadership Summit.

As trusts grow and become more digitally mature, the challenge is not simply to design clearer structures. It is to ensure that the relationships between those structures are equally deliberate.

Evidence around organisational decision making consistently suggests that allocating roles and responsibilities is only part of the answer. Effective organisations also need clarity about how those roles interact, where information moves, who needs to be involved and how disagreement is resolved.

The same is true of organisational networks. Performance is shaped not only by formal hierarchy, but by the connections that allow knowledge, challenge and expertise to move across traditional boundaries.

For MAT leaders, that creates another set of questions.

Who needs to connect with whom?

About what?

How frequently?

What information should move between them?

Where does a decision ultimately sit?

And what happens when there is legitimate disagreement?

These questions become even more important in a trust model, where local agency and organisational coherence will always need to coexist.

The ambition should not be to centralise every decision or create another layer of process.

It should be to design the connections that allow the right decisions to be made, by the right people, with the right information.

That is why Connect is not simply about collaboration.

It is about organisational design.

It is about recognising that the quality of a trust’s operating model is shaped as much by the relationships between functions, schools and leaders as it is by the structures themselves.

So the provocation I would offer MAT leaders is simple:

If you removed every box from your organisational chart and left only the connections between them, would there still be an operating model?

If not, we may have designed the organisation, but not yet designed how it actually works.

Jonny Wathen
CEO, TransforMATive

TransforMATive Insights brings together learning from our work with multi-academy trusts, sector leaders and partners, informed by the latest research and emerging evidence, to explore the issues, opportunities and practical choices shaping digital leadership across education.

We can describe a multi-academy trust very neatly.

There is an executive team. Central functions. Regional structures. Schools. Committees. Reporting lines and accountability.

But that is not necessarily how the organisation actually works.

Knowledge rarely moves only through formal structures. Advice, influence, challenge and problem solving often travel through relationships that sit alongside the organisation chart. Some are visible. Many are not.

That matters.

Research into social networks has consistently shown the importance of connections between people who would otherwise sit in separate groups. It also highlights the value of individuals who bridge gaps between different networks, helping information, knowledge and opportunity move across organisational boundaries.

Applied to a multi-academy trust, the implications are significant.

Two headteachers might occupy exactly the same position on an organisational chart, with the same reporting relationship and broadly similar responsibilities.

But their experience of the organisation can be completely different.

One may speak regularly with five other heads, have strong relationships with colleagues in the central team, know who to contact when something goes wrong and feel confident asking for advice.

Another may primarily interact with their own school and formal line manager.

Structurally, they are identical. Relationally, they are very different.

As trusts grow, I think one of the most valuable leadership exercises is therefore to understand the network that actually exists.

Where does advice really come from?

Who do colleagues contact when they need help rather than when the process tells them to?

Who connects education with technology, finance with operations, or schools with the central team?

Where is important knowledge repeatedly held by one individual?

And which colleagues have quietly become critical points of organisational dependency simply because they are trusted, connected and know how things really work?

This becomes particularly important as trusts mature digitally.

Technology can make communication easier and information more accessible, but it does not automatically create meaningful connection. In fact, more platforms, more channels and more information can just as easily create additional noise.

The objective should not be maximum connectivity.

It should be purposeful connectivity.

For our Digital Leadership Summit, that is what makes Connect much more than an invitation to network.

Connect is an organisational design challenge.

It is about understanding how knowledge, trust and influence move through the trust. It is about ensuring that expertise is not trapped within individual schools, teams or roles. And it is about creating deliberate connections between the people responsible for education, operations, finance, people, data and technology.

Digital maturity increasingly depends upon this.

A trust can have excellent systems and still struggle if the relationships between those systems, teams and decisions are weak. Equally, strong networks can help organisations adapt more quickly, share practice more effectively and make better use of the expertise that already exists within them.

Perhaps the most useful question is this:

If we removed every formal reporting line from the organisation chart and instead mapped where knowledge, trust and influence actually flowed, what would our organisation look like?

And, more importantly, is that the organisation we intended to build?

Jonny Wathen
CEO, TransforMATive

TransforMATive Insights brings together learning from our work with multi-academy trusts, sector leaders and partners, informed by the latest research and emerging evidence, to explore the issues, opportunities and practical choices shaping digital leadership across education.

Connect Before You Automate

For several years, one of the promises of digital transformation has been that technology will give us time back.

AI makes that promise feel more achievable than ever. Reports can be drafted in minutes. Information can be synthesised almost instantly. Analysis that once required hours can happen before the next meeting begins.

But for leaders, there is a more important question:

What happens to the time we save?

Across our work with multi-academy trusts, we are increasingly seeing a tension between efficiency and intensity. When technology makes something quicker, the natural response can be to do more of it. Another report. Another scenario. Another analysis. Another meeting.

The risk is that we use technology to accelerate an operating model that was already too busy.

Efficiency can very quickly become intensity.

This matters because digital leadership is not simply about introducing better tools. It is about creating the organisational conditions in which technology genuinely improves the experience of pupils, staff and communities.

If AI reduces the production of a board report from three hours to thirty minutes, do we consciously return some of that capacity to colleagues? Do we create space for professional judgement, relationships and reflection? Or do we simply commission more activity because the capacity now exists?

That is why the theme of this year’s TransforMATive Digital Leadership Summit begins with Connect, before we move to Enable and ultimately Lead.

Connect is about more than technology.

It is about connecting digital investment to organisational purpose. Connecting strategy to the realities of delivery. Connecting leaders across education, operations, finance, people, data and technology. And, increasingly, connecting trusts with one another so that learning, challenge and innovation can be shared across the system.

Before we automate a process, we should ask whether the process still needs to exist.

Before we introduce another platform, we should understand the problem we are trying to solve.

Before we use AI to increase capacity, we should decide deliberately what we want to do with the capacity it creates.

And before we pursue the next technology opportunity, we should be clear about what should remain distinctly human.

For MAT leaders, the opportunity is not simply to make an already busy organisation move faster.

It is to redesign the organisation around what matters.

That requires connection first.

TransforMATive Insights draws upon our ongoing work with multi-academy trusts, sector leaders and partners, alongside the latest research and emerging evidence, to identify the themes, challenges and opportunities shaping digital leadership across education.

The current debate around devolution, technical education, accountability and funding points to a wider challenge for school trusts.

How do we build organisations that can continue to deliver purposeful outcomes when policy, structures and expectations continue to change?

Governments will change. Policy will change. Funding models will change.

The purpose of a school trust should not.

Our role is to create the conditions in which children, communities and the people who serve them can thrive.

That means the next phase of digital transformation cannot simply be about infrastructure, devices, systems or standalone AI tools. It has to be about the operating model.

From digital strategy to an AI-enabled operating model

Over the past decade, much of the digital transformation agenda has rightly focused on infrastructure, cloud platforms, cyber security, devices and data.

Those foundations remain essential.

The opportunity now is to think more fundamentally about how work gets done across a trust.

An AI-enabled trust should not be a traditional organisation with an AI product layered over the top.

It should be an organisation designed around better information flow, clearer decision making, reduced duplication and stronger organisational intelligence.

Finance, HR, education, estates, governance and IT should not operate as disconnected functions linked together by spreadsheets and meetings.

The goal should be a more connected operating model where leaders can access the information they need, routine work is simplified or automated, and people have more capacity to focus on the work that requires judgement, relationships and leadership.

The outcome is not fewer people.

It is better use of people’s time.

People

Technology should enable people.

Across school trusts, talented leaders and teams still spend too much time moving information between systems, reconciling spreadsheets, producing reports and completing repetitive administrative processes.

That is an operating model problem.

The starting point should be the work.

What decisions need to be made?

What information is required?

Which activities genuinely need professional judgement?

Which processes exist because systems do not connect effectively?

AI and automation should be used where they reduce friction and release capacity.

They should not replace the human contribution that matters most.

Judgement, creativity, empathy, relationships and leadership remain central to how successful trusts operate.

Place

Place matters.

A rural trust in Lincolnshire will operate in a very different context from a large urban trust in Greater Manchester.

A trust working across several local authorities may experience different approaches to SEND, funding, employer engagement, transport and public services.

That difference should be recognised.

It should not, however, lead to fragmentation.

Trusts should not have to choose between complete centralisation and complete localisation.

A mature operating model can establish common standards for data, identity, cyber security, platforms and governance while still allowing schools and communities to respond to their own context.

There is a simple principle here.

Standardise what should be common. Contextualise what should be different.

Technology can make that balance easier to achieve.

Partnership

The same applies beyond the boundaries of the trust.

If school trusts are expected to act as civic institutions, our operating models need to support genuine partnership.

Education does not sit separately from health, employment, housing, transport, universities, local authorities or employers.

This becomes particularly important when we consider young people who are not in education, employment or training.

Schools can provide excellent education and strong qualifications.

But education cannot create jobs.

If routes into employment are limited, or young people cannot access the opportunities available to them, schools cannot solve that challenge alone.

This is where partnership matters.

Trusts, colleges, universities, employers, local authorities and wider public services need better ways to share insight, understand need and coordinate action.

Technology should help make that easier.

It should support a shift from disconnected systems of record towards better connected systems of intelligence.

Local relevance without local limitation

There is an important distinction to make.

Local employer engagement matters, but vocational education cannot be shaped solely by immediate local labour market needs.

Young people need to be prepared for a much wider economy.

That means developing transferable knowledge and skills, digital capability, adaptability and the confidence to move between sectors, places and opportunities.

The jobs available locally today may not be the jobs available in ten years.

The same principle should apply to how trusts design their operating models.

They should respond to place without becoming constrained by place.

Purpose before politics

Education operates within a political environment.

Different governments will have different priorities, different policies and different views about how public services should work.

Trusts need to be capable of responding to that change without constantly redesigning the organisation around the latest policy announcement.

That requires organisational capability.

Strong governance.

Clear data.

Secure and interoperable systems.

Distributed leadership.

Trusted partnerships.

Responsible use of AI and automation.

These are not political positions.

They are the foundations of a resilient organisation.

A strong operating model should allow a trust to absorb change without destabilising the organisation responsible for delivering it.

The opportunity for school trusts

The future trust operating model should be more connected.

People connected to information.

Schools connected to communities.

Trusts connected to partners.

Leaders connected to the insight they need to make better decisions.

Technology should sit underneath that model, enabling it rather than defining it.

AI has a role to play, but it is not the strategy.

The strategy is to build organisations that are more connected, more responsive and better able to turn information into action.

Digital transformation should therefore be judged by more than whether systems have been modernised.

It should be judged by whether the organisation is better able to deliver purposeful outcomes through people, place and partnership, regardless of the politics of the day.

At the recent CST Data and Digital Transformation Conference, I had the privilege of chairing a discussion with Ather Abbas, Director of Strategy and Transformation at E-ACT, and Tricia Slater, COO at Empower Multi-Academy Trust, exploring a challenge that will be familiar to almost every trust leader: how do we deliver meaningful, sustainable transformation when ambition exceeds the capacity and funding available to us?

A key takeaway for me was that, despite E-ACT and Empower operating at very different scales, many of the fundamentals of successful transformation were remarkably consistent.

The discussion reinforced something I have seen repeatedly through our work with trusts at TransforMATive: transformation rarely fails because organisations lack ambition or ideas. The greater challenge is creating the organisational conditions that allow those ambitions to become reality.

Transformation has to start with people

One of the strongest messages from Ather’s contribution was that strategic transformation cannot simply become another technology programme.

E-ACT describes transformation as cross-functional, distinguishes it from business as usual, and places the creation of the right conditions for innovation at its heart. Perhaps most significantly, its thinking follows the sequence human behaviour > digital > data > AI, alongside an emphasis on collective intelligence and people.

That ordering matters.

It is tempting, particularly as AI develops at such pace, to begin conversations with platforms, tools and emerging technologies. But organisations do not transform because they have purchased better technology. They transform because people change how they work, collaborate, make decisions and solve problems.

Technology can enable that change. It cannot substitute for it.

For leaders, this means creating space for staff to understand why something is changing, contribute to how it develops and build the confidence required to adopt new practices.

Capacity is a strategic consideration, not an implementation problem

Tricia’s reflections from Empower brought this issue into particularly sharp focus.

As a smaller trust, Empower has had to make deliberate decisions about where to focus its resources. Its digital strategy runs from 2025 to 2030 and considers infrastructure, data, cyber security and innovation as part of a coherent approach rather than a series of isolated technology projects.

But having a strategy is only one part of the equation.

Empower explicitly recognises that limited organisational capacity requires initiatives to be prioritised and carefully phased, allowing progress without overextending the organisation.

This was perhaps my biggest reflection from the session.

We often talk about roadmaps in terms of what will happen and when. But a credible roadmap also needs to answer:

Who is going to deliver this, what capacity will they require, and what are we prepared to stop, delay or sequence differently to make it achievable?

Adding another programme to an already overloaded organisation isn’t transformation. In many cases, it simply creates another layer of pressure.

Capacity therefore needs to become part of the strategic conversation from the beginning rather than something we discover halfway through implementation.

Prioritisation doesn’t mean lowering ambition

One of the most useful examples from Empower was how it has approached investment.

The trust pooled Devolved Formula Capital funding to enable collective investment across its schools, making better use of the resources available to it. It also chose to prioritise high-quality devices for teachers before progressing further with student-facing technology.

There is an important principle here.

Transformation doesn’t always require doing more. Often it requires being clearer about what needs to happen first.

Getting the foundations right may feel less exciting than introducing the newest platform or innovation, but infrastructure, security, devices, skills, governance and data capability determine whether the next stage of transformation will succeed.

Good sequencing creates momentum.

Build change with the organisation, not to the organisation

Empower’s approach to digital champions was another example that resonated with me. Rather than selecting technology specialists, the trust identified strong teachers to lead peer-to-peer change, helping create credibility and adoption amongst colleagues.

That reflects a much broader lesson about organisational change.

Transformation becomes sustainable when capability spreads beyond the central team responsible for initiating it.

Digital transformation therefore shouldn’t create greater dependency on a small number of specialists. Done well, it should increase the confidence and capability of the wider organisation.

Empower similarly identifies active staff involvement, confidence-building and collaborative changes in practice as essential to cultural change.

That feels particularly important as trusts consider AI. The organisations that benefit most are unlikely to be those that simply provide access to the greatest number of AI tools. They will be those that develop the judgement, confidence and shared understanding required to use them effectively.

Governance has to connect ambition with reality

The final theme running through our discussion was governance.

Empower positions governance as central to oversight, accountability and ensuring that digital strategy remains aligned with wider organisational priorities.

For me, good governance should continually test the relationship between ambition, investment, capacity and impact.

Are we still solving the right problem?

Do we have sufficient capacity to deliver the next phase?

What evidence tells us the change is having the intended effect?

What have we learned that should influence the roadmap?

And, importantly, should something that appeared important twelve months ago still be a priority today?

A roadmap should provide direction without becoming a constraint. Sustainable transformation needs enough governance to maintain purpose and accountability, while retaining enough flexibility to respond to what the organisation learns along the way.

A reflection for autumn planning

The session reinforced that sustainable transformation is rarely about finding a single breakthrough technology or launching a huge programme of change.

It is about making deliberate choices.

Prioritising investment. Building strong foundations. Sequencing implementation. Creating organisational capacity. Engaging people. Developing capability. And ensuring governance continually connects activity back to organisational purpose.

Empower describes the challenge as balancing immediate operational requirements while building the foundations for scalable, pedagogy-first transformation. That balance is something every trust, regardless of size, has to navigate.

As leadership teams move into autumn planning, my reflection from the conversation is therefore a simple one:

A credible roadmap needs to explain not only what will change, but how the organisation will have the capacity to deliver it.

Because sustainable transformation isn’t measured by how much change we start.

It is measured by how much meaningful change we are actually able to embed.

Jonny Wathen, CEO of TransforMATive, said:

“Over the past four years, we have collaborated with CST and leaders across the education sector to deliver masterclass programmes in digital strategy, artificial intelligence, cyber security and privacy. We have also been proud to support CST’s CEO Network, Data and Digital Transformation Community and Annual Conference, bringing trust leaders together to share expertise, challenge thinking and learn from one another.

“Becoming a Platinum Partner formalises our strategic relationship and provides a strong foundation for the next chapter of our work together. We look forward to welcoming more CST members to our free-to-attend thought leadership events and showcasing how our products and services can help trusts address their priorities, improve efficiency and build lasting digital capability.”

We look forward to seeing you in person at the upcoming CST Annual Conference in Birmingham. Come and say hello to the TransforMATive team, share your trust’s priorities and explore how we can support your next steps.

Over the past few years, I’ve sat in countless conversations with trust leaders discussing digital transformation, AI, accountability, governance and school improvement. Whilst the headlines often focus on the latest technology or the next inspection framework, the reality is usually far more nuanced.

Recently, I had the privilege of joining a group of Multi-Academy Trust CEOs and senior leaders at the Red Kite Connect CEO Roundtable. The conversation covered everything from digital maturity and artificial intelligence to Ofsted reform, MAT inspection and trust assurance. My key takeaway wasn’t the diversity of topics, it was the consistency of the message.

Despite the pace of change, trust leaders are remarkably aligned on one thing:

Technology is not the starting point. Governance is.

Digital Transformation Isn’t Really About Technology

We often talk about digital transformation as though it’s a technology challenge. In reality, the most successful trusts aren’t defined by the software they buy or the AI tools they deploy. They’re defined by how clearly they govern them.

The trusts making the greatest progress are those with strong executive ownership, clear decision-making processes, robust information governance and a direct link between digital investment and organisational strategy. They understand that technology should serve the trust’s mission, not become a distraction from it.

Conversely, many of the challenges we encounter when working with trusts stem from fragmented decision-making, duplicated systems, underutilised software and a lack of visibility over what is actually being used across the organisation.

The lesson is simple: digital maturity starts with organisational maturity.

AI Is Exposing Existing Weaknesses

Artificial intelligence is accelerating a conversation that many trusts were already struggling to have.

Questions around data governance, supplier management, risk, compliance and accountability are no longer theoretical. AI is forcing leaders to revisit assumptions about how technology is adopted, monitored and governed.

What’s becoming increasingly clear is that AI governance cannot sit solely with ICT teams or Data Protection Officers. It requires leadership involvement, board oversight and organisational understanding. The trusts that thrive will be those that develop a balanced approach, encouraging innovation whilst maintaining appropriate safeguards.

The challenge isn’t whether AI will become part of education.

The challenge is whether our governance models are evolving quickly enough to manage it responsibly.

Accountability Is Changing

Alongside the digital conversation sits another significant shift: accountability.

Leaders around the table broadly accepted the principle that MATs should be accountable for decisions made at trust level. Given the strategic influence trusts now have over curriculum, workforce, finance, estates, inclusion and digital infrastructure, trust-level inspection feels like a logical next step.

Yet significant questions remain unanswered.

What exactly will MAT inspections evaluate? Organisational effectiveness? Educational outcomes? Governance? Financial stewardship? Improvement capacity?

Perhaps most importantly, how do we ensure that trusts serving the most challenging communities are evaluated fairly and contextually?

The strongest message from trust leaders was not resistance to accountability. It was a desire for accountability systems that recognise complexity, context and long-term improvement rather than reducing effectiveness to a set of performance metrics.

The Rise of Assurance

If there was one theme that connected every discussion, it was assurance.

As trusts continue to grow in scale and complexity, boards need greater confidence that strategy is being delivered, risks are understood and impact can be demonstrated.

Assurance is no longer just about compliance.

It’s becoming a strategic capability.

Educational assurance, governance assurance, digital assurance, cultural assurance and operational assurance are increasingly converging into a single organisational view. Trust boards want visibility. Executive teams need confidence. Stakeholders expect evidence. Future inspection frameworks will almost certainly demand it.

The trusts that are investing in integrated assurance models today are likely to be the ones best prepared for whatever comes next.

What This Means for Trust Leaders

The education sector is entering a period of profound change.

Digital transformation continues to accelerate. AI is reshaping expectations. Inspection frameworks are evolving. Accountability is moving upwards towards trust-level leadership. Boards are demanding greater assurance.

Yet the foundations remain remarkably consistent.

Strong governance.

Clear strategy.

Effective leadership.

Thoughtful use of technology.

Relentless focus on improving outcomes for children and young people.

The trusts that succeed won’t necessarily be those with the newest tools or the biggest budgets. They’ll be the organisations that create clarity amidst complexity and build systems capable of supporting sustainable improvement.

How We Can Help

At TransforMATive, these are exactly the conversations we’re having with trust leaders every day.

Whether you’re looking to strengthen Trust assurance, digital governance, review your software estate, develop an AI strategy, prepare for future inspection frameworks or simply create greater organisational clarity, we’d love to help.

The challenges facing MAT leaders are becoming increasingly interconnected. The solutions need to be as well.

If you’d like to explore how your trust can build stronger foundations for the future, get in touch with our team. We’d be delighted to share what we’re seeing across the sector and discuss how we can support your journey.

Because successful transformation doesn’t start with technology.

It starts with leadership.

Hearing Ash Mudaliar reflect on Creative Education Trust’s AI journey was both encouraging and reassuring. In a sector often pulled between hype and hesitation, what stood out most was the clarity, pragmatism and maturity of CET’s approach.

What Ash described was not a story about chasing the latest technology trend. It was a story about thoughtful leadership, organisational alignment and creating the conditions for innovation to genuinely improve outcomes for staff and pupils alike.

There were five themes in particular that I believe will help other trusts and school leaders navigating their own AI journey.

1. Begin with the problem, not the technology

One of the strongest reflections from the session was that AI should sit within a wider technology and organisational strategy, not alongside it.

Throughout the discussion, the focus remained on practical problems: reducing administrative burden, improving operational efficiency and supporting staff capacity. Whether it was AI-supported attendance workflows, meeting summaries or adaptive teaching support, the starting point was always a clear organisational need.

That discipline matters. Too often, schools risk implementing technology because it is available rather than because it is necessary.

2. Governance enables innovation

Another important takeaway was the role that governance plays in building confidence.

CET have clearly invested significant time in developing policy, approved toolsets, safeguarding considerations and structured processes for reviewing emerging technologies. Crucially, this was not positioned as a barrier to innovation, but as the foundation that allows innovation to happen safely and sustainably.

In reality, many staff are already experimenting with AI tools. The challenge for leadership is not whether AI will appear in schools (it already has) but whether there is sufficient clarity, guidance and oversight around its use.

3. Staff voice must shape the journey

Ash shared an interesting reflection from their staff surveys: colleagues often sit at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to AI. Some are enthusiastic daily users who already see tangible benefits, whilst others remain sceptical or deeply cautious.

That feels familiar across the sector.

What CET appears to have done particularly well is listen carefully to those perspectives and allow them to shape implementation. Their evolving training, prompt libraries and policy development were all informed by staff feedback and practical realities from schools.

That approach builds trust and trust is essential if meaningful adoption is going to happen.

4. Human judgement remains central

One phrase from the session stayed with me: “Don’t prompt beyond your expertise.”

It is an important reminder that whilst AI can accelerate thinking, support planning and improve efficiency, it does not replace professional accountability or expertise. The human remains responsible for the outcome.

As schools continue exploring AI, maintaining that balance between opportunity and professional judgement will become increasingly important.

5. Collaboration accelerates progress

Finally, what came through strongly was the power of professional community.

CET’s trust-wide collaboration, shared learning structures and open dialogue between schools and central teams appear to have created an environment where innovation can scale responsibly. That collective approach reduces duplication, surfaces good practice and creates a safer space for experimentation.

No trust has fully solved AI implementation yet. We are all learning in real time. But journeys like this demonstrate that with clarity of purpose, strong governance and a relentless focus on people, schools can approach AI in a way that is both ambitious and grounded.

The future of work is not a distant concept. It is already here, and it is forcing us to confront a fundamental tension. Work gives people purpose. It provides identity, meaning and a sense of contribution. At the same time, the economic reality for organisations is clear. We are under constant pressure to drive efficiency, scale and productivity, increasingly through technology.

In January, I attended the Future of Work event hosted by Arbor. What stood out was not just the pace of change, but the clarity of direction. Workflow automation sat at the centre of the conversation. Not as an abstract idea, but as something organisations are actively building into their day to day operations.

AI is accelerating this shift at an extraordinary rate. The advances we are seeing are not linear. They are compounding. New capabilities are emerging continuously, unlocking new forms of value creation that were not possible even a short time ago.

This creates both opportunity and responsibility.

We are moving from static processes to what many are now calling agentic workflows. Teams are no longer just documenting how work gets done. They are designing and building systems where workflows are automated, connected and increasingly executed by AI agents. These agents can act, make decisions and coordinate across systems.

We are seeing teams invest time in mapping processes, integrating systems through connectors and experimenting with emerging protocols such as MCPs. The intent is clear. Build workflows that are not only efficient, but adaptive.

The implication is significant. Smaller, more focused teams, supported by AI agents, will be able to deliver outcomes that previously required far larger structures. This is not about doing the same work faster. It is about redefining how work is done altogether.

However, technology is only part of the story. The real shift sits in the operating model.

The models many organisations rely on today were designed for a different era. They prioritise stability, hierarchy and control. In a world of AI enabled workflows, that approach begins to break down. We need operating models that are more fluid, more modular and more responsive. Teams will need to form around problems, not sit within rigid structures. Capabilities will need to be assembled, not owned.

At the same time, complexity increases.

As organisations adopt more tools, more agents and more integrations, the surface area expands. Managing that ecosystem becomes a critical challenge. Security, data integrity and supply chain dependencies extend well beyond traditional boundaries. Governance can no longer be an afterthought.

This demands a different level of maturity. Organisations must be able to secure and safeguard their systems, understand how data flows across them and maintain clear accountability. Leadership teams need to be across this. AI is not just a technology topic. It is a core part of organisational strategy and risk management.

Alongside this sits the question of ethics.

As AI systems take on more responsibility, leaders must understand the implications. Issues such as bias, transparency, privacy and accountability are no longer theoretical. They are practical concerns that shape trust. The organisations that succeed will be those that take this seriously and embed it into how they operate.

Amid all of this, we cannot lose sight of purpose.

If technology continues to take on more of the execution, then human contribution must shift. Work becomes less about tasks and more about judgement, creativity, relationships and responsibility. This is where people find meaning. Organisations need to be deliberate about how they design roles and environments that support this.

There is also a broader responsibility, particularly in education.

How do we prepare children and young people for this world? The answer is not simply to teach them how to use tools. It is to help them understand systems, think critically and adapt continuously. They will need to work alongside AI, understand its limitations and navigate its risks.

Skills such as resilience, curiosity and ethical awareness will matter as much as technical capability.

So how do we respond now?

We start by being practical. Identify where workflow automation can create value today. Experiment with agentic approaches in a controlled way. Invest in understanding governance, risk and security. Begin to reshape teams around outcomes rather than functions.

At the same time, we need to think more fundamentally. What does good work look like in our organisations? How do we balance efficiency with meaning? What responsibilities do we carry as leaders?

The future of work is being shaped in real time. The choices we make now will define not only how our organisations perform, but how people experience work itself.

This is not about replacing people. It is about rethinking their role. If we get it right, we can create organisations that are more productive, more adaptive and more human at the same time.

That is the opportunity in front of us.