Abstract

Rob Carpenter is the CEO of the Inspire Partnership in Greenwich and Medway. Foxfield Primary School moved from an Ofsted judgement of Special Measures to one of Outstanding in under two years. Rob has written an account of key and potentially replicable elements of this journey in his book ‘A Manifesto for Excellence in Schools’.

In this seminar Rob will reflect deeply on the processes of relational, professional and pupil learning that were woven together by his leadership teams in order to bring about the sustained changes at Foxfield and also on the changes that were effected within the communities of the schools. He will reflect on the dilemmas, competing priorities, complexities and moments of critical judgement-forming that he and his team experienced. He will describe the processes of decision-making – juggling the urgent, the vital and the strategic – that they evolved and undertook along the journey and the sources of information and strength they drew on in order to sustain these changes. Finally, he will reflect on the challenges of their next steps.