Simon Cowley is director of education at The White Horse Federation. He is responsible for the trust’s 25 primary schools (the trust has 31 schools in total).

He has worked at the trust for more than 10 years and held multiple roles in that time, including interim chief executive officer. He joined having previously worked as a headteacher of a primary school, and having spent time teaching abroad at British international schools in Istanbul and Cairo.

He spoke to Tes about what he does in his role during a typical week, his views on leadership and what it takes to reinvent yourself - and why meditation and eating well are vital to being on top of your game.
 

School visits

Typically, I spend 50 per cent of the week in schools working with heads and other trust leaders. It’s my role to make sure they are upholding standards and to support them to develop in areas that need action.

In practice, this might mean meeting with three or four heads over a week, evaluating Sats results, evaluating and developing plans, assessing the school in terms of its trajectory and any future Ofsted inspections, doing lesson visits and so on.

By doing that, we’re able to risk assess the school and work with heads to address any areas of need - for example, a school might need a maths adviser to come and support key stage 2 teachers with two-step problems.

These meetings are planned and diarised as much as possible but, of course, there can be times when a safeguarding incident occurs and you have to be flexible to go and support that school.
 

Line management

Another big part of the time on those visits is line management with staff. That’s not just sitting in meetings, but actively helping them fulfil their role, offering guidance or modelling best practice.

I think it’s really important you get out there and “sweep the sheds” and show you’re not too big to do the little stuff, too.
 

Executive meetings

About a fifth of my week is spent in senior executive meetings. These are about ensuring we are benefitting from being part of a multi-academy trust, and we have the warp and weft of everything covered.

I look to make sure the strategic plan is upheld, that we’re reflecting on it and that the operations are serving not only education delivery.

It’s also a good opportunity to check things with HR or finance as required, so we are across everything.
 

Self-development time

I try to block out around 10 per cent of my working week purely for myself as a time to think and reflect, and maybe do some CPD or networking. I don’t use this time to catch up on emails or have another meeting - it is very much about me and my role.

One thing I do a lot is read up on the latest documentation. This is because so many people look to me for answers - and I can’t always have them, but I do need to try and be across as much as possible.

I also try and use this time to network with other leaders - both within education, but also in other areas like finance or medicine. I did an MBA recently and met people from other industries, and that really expanded my mind about leadership skills and practice.
 

Time for yourself

You have to look after yourself in a role like this - you can’t be too tired or rundown when people are looking to you for answers. What’s more, you may only interact with someone once a week and they will remember that interaction, so you need to be on good form.

As such, I make time to meditate and look after myself both in terms of keeping fit and eating well.

I’ve also always tried to keep my weekends sacrosanct for family time. Education is a hard job and Monday to Thursday you often have to work late, but I try to keep Friday evening and the weekend free.

What would I like to do more or less of?

My experience of working in a trust over the last 10 years, and within international settings before that, has taught me you have to be flexible, adaptable and creative.

For me, it’s always about maintaining that mindset and being adaptable to new systems and processes - rather than reducing emails or meetings - that is key to working in this sort of role.

Simon Cowley was talking to Dan Worth

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