Following a successful tenure, former Mercia Learning Trust CEO Chris French retired at the end of the previous school year, with Neil Miley officially taking over as CEO this month.
The trust, formed in 2012, includes primary schools Woodlands, Totley, Nether Edge and Anns Grove, as well as secondary schools King Ecgbert, Newfield and Mercia. Under Chris French’s leadership since 2018, the trust launched Mercia School, a new ‘free school’ in the southwest of Sheffield, which became the number one school in the country for the progress of disadvantaged pupils in 2023.
With Chris’s retirement, Neil Miley takes over following a seven-week handover process. Neil expressed gratitude to Chris for his openness during the transition, saying: “Chris doesn’t like to blow his own trumpet, but not many outgoing CEOs would be happy to have the incoming CEO spend seven weeks in their office asking open questions, listening to them, and being open and honest. It’s a testament to Chris’s leadership and character.”
Reflecting on the smooth transition, Neil added: “It’s been a great opportunity to get a real understanding of the organisation and allows me to make a great start without losing time or momentum.
“It speaks to the type of trust we are and Chris’s humility, and it’s allowed me to start developing a strategic plan. Hopefully, we’ll have a seamless transition.”
Neil, who spent 14 years in his previous role, is looking forward to the challenge, stating: “I’m really excited. Obviously, there’s a level of trepidation when starting any new role, but it feels like in September I can hit the ground running and continue the great work that’s already been done.”
Chris praised Neil’s approach, noting: “Neil has handled the transition extremely sensibly, sensitively and coherently. That’s meant people have been reassured and are excited about what comes next. We’ve taken the trust on a journey, and Neil’s thinking on continuity and where he takes the trust are absolutely in the right place.”
Reflecting on his legacy, Chris said: “The point of the trust is that it runs exceptional schools for every child, irrespective of their background, and we’re uncompromising on that because the reality is that quality education will be the passport to opportunities.
“Ripples of what we do, if we do it well or if we do it badly, are profound.”
The ripples of Chris’s achievements will certainly be felt in our region. Having been in senior educational roles since 1999, he was responsible for setting up the first multi-academy trust in the North of Sheffield before joining Mercia Learning Trust in 2018.
“I inherited a trust that was doing well but was a loose federation of schools,” explains Chris, “so I set to work on our identity, vision, and values, and a lot of work around school effectiveness. We also pursued growth over that time. All the schools are now oversubscribed. Ann’s Grove joined the trust last year, Totley has doubled in size, King Ecgbert School increased substantially, and we created a beautiful new sixth form building, and Mercia School was launched from a standing start.”
Mercia School, perhaps the most well-known and controversial of the trust’s portfolio, received national attention when it was labelled the ‘UK’s strictest school.’ Chris told unLTD: “To take a school from new and have it be the most oversubscribed in the city, the only school graded ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted, rated the number one school in the country for the progress of disadvantaged pupils in 2023 and third overall, with attainment higher than any school in Yorkshire, and higher than many private schools, has been an incredible journey.
“Parents, who we’re accountable to, want the offer. If there were any issues with the offer, parents would say something, and they don’t because the offer is exceptional. The sector has been slow to realise that something is going on here that is different and people need to understand it. Mercia School doesn’t represent the whole of the trust – it’s one school within the trust and we’re a broad church.”
Chris emphasised the impact on children, saying: “Schools are for children, and children at Mercia School have more options than any child across the region, and disadvantaged children have done better than any school in the country, and surely that should be the agenda. People need to wake up to the fact that there’s a revolution going on here, and that people have taken things to the next level, and instead of throwing bricks at it, they might want to be curious about what’s happening and how they can provide that for their own kids.”
Chris continued: “Mercia School had to be something that was different and better. It’s a bit like buying a car; you’re not going to buy a new car that’s exactly the same as the one you’ve got. It had to be differentiated, and in that process, that might have set it up in opposition to other schools. If it had fallen on its face, that would have been different, but it hasn’t. We’re an organisation trying to run great schools for kids, and the community and parental confidence is pretty high across all seven schools. We’re not richer than any school; that’s one of the misconceptions that we battle with.”
There are many misconceptions about multi-academy trusts, particularly around the idea that they are part of a privatisation of education. In reality, academies are free, state-funded schools run by charitable trusts. They cannot be run for profit, and there are strict rules preventing individuals and companies from profiting from their relationship with an academy. Like local authority schools, academies cannot sell or change the use of publicly funded school land without government approval.
Chris used this analogy to explain further why he believes the model works: “If you want to go for a nice meal, you probably don’t go and consume it in a multi-national chain, you probably go to a small, high-quality independent. And that’s what we are.
“We are local. We’re very close to the action in terms of accountability, but also live in terms of how we deploy our resources, and how we focus on partnership and improvement. We’re funded in exactly the same way; we’re accountable in the same way, but actually more so. The governance structures are entirely led by volunteers; and we use our resources, hopefully, effectively, to drive standards within a very local context, for children from ages two to eighteen.”
Heading into retirement, Chris remains focused on the educational outcomes he has pioneered for but is also cautiously looking forward to taking a step back. He said: “We’ve kind of got to the end of Phase Two and if this was about maturing an organisation and creating an identity, the next one is to what extent can we be even more aligned without losing the essential elements of the schools and communities we serve.
“It felt like the right time, and I feel like organisations are better when they’re refreshed, and Neil will bring new energy and new impetus and build on what we’ve created so far. I believe in another six years’ time, the organisation will be significantly better than it is now.”
The Trust is set to open three specialist resource provisions in three of their schools to meet the needs of their special educational needs students, and Neil has plans to progress the trust in both the long and short term. Neil said: “We’ve already talked about moving from a traditional model of appraisal into a more coaching approach for our staff and making sure that our staff understand they are critical to the organisation in order to make sure our children are successful.
“I think we already have a great model of aligned autonomy, but it’s now about giving that a bit more codification, so our families, staff, and pupils know exactly what we mean. We can then optimise use of resources, so we’re not sub-optimizing and people aren’t doing their own thing in their own settings. If we can all coalesce around a really strong model for a particular element of our schools, and get the best minds around it, we can use that collective wisdom and intelligence to create a really fantastic model.”
Neil emphasised the importance of maintaining the trust’s core purpose, stating: “For me, the critical thing is to make sure that kids get the best possible education and go on to be successful. Ultimately, we want to be a part of our local community and be an anchor institution in our local community. We want to be at a point where our parents know they can go to get access to the services and support they need, not just for education.
“Something that’s going to be the future move for our current government is that schools become the places where people will go to get the social support they might need or mental health services. We want to be sector-leading in that. We want to be, in Sheffield, the trust that is actually pioneering that approach and making sure that our local families and communities do have access to the services they need through us.”
Mercia Learning Trust is looking for new trustees to join their dynamic board and contribute to their mission of providing outstanding educational opportunities for every child. They are seeking applicants from all walks of life and backgrounds in order to best reflect the diversity of experience that already exists within their school setting. For more details head to their website here.
