Possible tensions behind the departure of the Inspiration Trust’s curriculum guru

Why is Christine Counsell, the influential figure who was setting in train ambitious curriculum plans at one of England’s most well-placed academy chains, leaving her post?

The question was left dangling after it was revealed last week that Counsell is standing down as director of education at the Inspiration Trust, the Norwich-based chain which was set up by the academies minister, Lord Agnew.

The appointment of Counsell, back in 2016, had seemed something of a coup for the trust back then, bringing it some heavyweight academic credentials. Counsell’s previous role had seen her leading Cambridge University’s secondary PGCE history course, but to state this is only to scatch the surface of a packed cv in teaching, policy advice and academia.

Counsell’s arrival was followed by other high-profile appointments, with Michael Fordham and then Hywel Jones – who had been assistant headteacher and headteacher, respectively, of the West London Free School – arriving, while Summer Turner, who arrived from the East London Science School, initially as subject specialist lead for English.

As of earlier this year, Turner became head of curriculum development for the trust, a title which hints at the ambitions the IT has had in this field.

Counsell and her team were busy putting in place a “knowledge-rich” curriculum, across the trust. Its recent board minutes give a flavour of the approach, with discussions about securing “intellectual copyright” and the development of a new assessment model at key stage 3.

Some of the trust’s curriculum materials which are viewable online (see here and here) do indeed suggest a very “knowledge-rich” approach, with many factual terms set out for pupils, seemingly, to commit to memory.

Alongside the specific curriculum work, Counsell oversaw the setting-up of the trust’s new School-Centred Initial Teacher Training and continued professional development courses, while she was also involved in its Teaching School.

As I’ve reported in recent weeks, Counsell is also currently influential behind-the-scenes at Ofsted. She sits on the watchdog’s curriculum advisory group, which has fed into its current work updating its inspection framework, to put a greater emphasis on the nature of curricular provision in individual schools.

Intriguingly, and mysteriously, indeed, the minutes of a trust board meeting of May 2017 mention an "Ofsted interview". They state that “a trustee asked for the transcript of the Ofsted interview that was done by CC [Christine Counsell]. The chief executive [Rachel de Souza] advised that she would contact the chief inspector to request a copy.”

Amanda Spielman, the chief inspector, has spoken out repeatedly in recent months about trying to move schools away from the focus on teaching to the test. There is an echo of this in what one set of Inspiration Trust board minutes says, in relation to Counsell’s work.

In the May 2017 minutes, the section on Counsell’s report to the board states that there needed to be a “shifting [of] the culture to focus on every year group (and not just Year 6 [pre-Sats] and year 11 [pre-GCSE]”.

But was it this tension - between the aim of building longer-term curriculum foundations, in her view to help children long after they left school, and the short-term goal of improving each year’s exam results – which did for her? 

Board minutes for January 27^th, 2017, give a hint at these kind of pressures behind the curriculum focus.

They state that Inspiration’s chief executive, Dame Rachel de Souza, “advised that there would be a difficult balancing act for the next five years with Christine Counsell introducing her ambitious plans for educational improvement.

“It was agreed that heads must not take their eye off the ‘immediate ball’ to accommodate the new knowledge based curriculum.”

It is also possible, of course, that personalities came into play. De Souza and Lord Agnew, who chaired the trust’s board until becoming a minister and, while no longer a director, must surely still be influential behind the scenes, constitute powerful figures, with Counsell being another.

Could they all co-exist together? It has been suggested to us that a split such as this was always likely to happen. Indeed, with this match-up always having seemed a somewhat unlikely partnership, perhaps it is no surprise that Counsell has not approached that five-year landmark. It will be interesting to see where her future now lies.

Postscript: the IT seems to have wasted no time in moving on from the Counsell era. Counsell, remember, was director of education. But on the trust’s “Education” webpage, de Souza is now reported as leading its “education improvement work”, alongside a photo of her with pupils. While Fordham and Turner are mentioned, Counsell does not feature.