Mark Wilson is the CEO and accounting officer at the Wellspring Academy Trust, which has 32 schools across Yorkshire and the Humber.

He has worked in the trust for over a decade, after spending a similar amount of time as a primary headteacher in Leeds.

He speaks with Tes about what his job entails and what he does during a typical week.

Operational tasks: governance, meetings, reviewing documents

Schools are fast-paced, dynamic environments. When schools are in session, 80 per cent of my time will focus on the operational needs of our 32 schools, which span across seven local authority areas.

I see my role as being about creating the conditions for the most efficient use of public funds possible, which enables us to achieve good outcomes for children.

This aim is achieved by knitting the various parts of the organisation together to ensure a common and consistent viewpoint that is rooted in longer-term thinking.

On a day-to-day basis, this will include reviewing documents, ensuring the governance process is as streamlined as possible, and meetings with those with key responsibilities in trust, such as our chief finance officer and chief education officer.

As a former headteacher, I still take every opportunity I can to teach - however now, it is more about teaching other colleagues about our culture and how we address matters within the trust.

Strategy is crucial

I often have to fight to preserve 20 per cent of my time for strategy, which I define as forward planning and keeping the horizon in view. Strategy is crucial.

This will include sketching out the long term. Some of the work that I’m doing now will see the light of day a month from now, maybe six months from now, or even up to four or five years away.

It is the strategy that gives us clarity on where the trust is going and why, and acts to unite our stakeholders.

Without that strategy time, the job becomes servicing: servicing the job, servicing the noise. Well, then where’s the plan? Where are we going? I believe that schools and organisations can become stuck with that.

If 100 per cent of the effort is employed on the here and now, the bigger picture becomes lost.

Avoiding ‘noise’

I try to give as little time as possible to “noise”, which I characterise as those things that can take up lots of time and can seem like work, but do not contribute to the actual work getting done.

For instance, emails: I’m deliberately very bad at emails to discourage people from sending them to me, because they can become the work.

Other examples of noise include meetings with limited purpose, administrative matters that are far more complicated than their function warrants, and urgent information requests that are not urgent at all.

I am as intolerant of noise as good manners allows. Leadership is an ongoing struggle to stay above the moment for long enough to give sufficient thought to what is over the horizon.

What would you like to do more or less of in your role?

Under the former administration, I wanted a clearer message from the central government. We now have clearer messaging from the new government about its direction of travel. If we’ve got that, then we have what we need.

People will always call for more capacity and more money. I believe that there is enough money in education and the opportunity for enough capacity. It is about how you prioritise.

Mark Wilson was talking to Cerys Turner

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