Thank you!
Thank you for joining us for our first ever Flourishing Leaders residential. Our networks and partnerships have gone from strength to strength over the last year and it has been wonderful to see the connections that have grown as a result. We hope this residential was an opportunity to deepen connections, to hear from some amazing and inspirational speakers and to take some time out with your teams to reflect, think and plan for the future of your schools, trusts and dioceses – with the class of 2040 in mind.
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Speaker Slides
Day 1
Day 2
Day 2 Programme
Keynote Speakers
Nigel Genders, Chief Education Officer, The National Society for Education
The Revd Canon Nigel Genders is the Church of England's Chief Education Officer and Chief Executive of the National Society. Nigel leads the work of the Church of England Education Office which serves the church’s ministry with children and young people in churches, schools, colleges and universities. The Church of England provides 4,700 schools educating over a million children and is committed to a vision for education which is deeply Christian, serving the common good. Nigel’s role in education has developed throughout 31 years of ordained ministry working in a variety of roles, including: vicar, school chaplain, governor of a university, chair of governors in primary and secondary school, Director of Education for Canterbury Diocese, Head of School Policy for the Church of England and he has been Chief Education Officer since 2014.Nigel was awarded the honour of CBE in the King’s birthday honours list in June 2023.
Leora Cruddas, founding Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts
Leora Cruddas is the founding Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts – the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England. She has advised successive governments and sits on several DfE advisory and partnership bodies. She also sits on the advisory board for Evidence Based Education and is a fellow of the RSA. She is an English teacher and has spent many years working in local government, latterly as a Director of Education in two London Local Authorities. She is Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of Education. Leora was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours, 2022. She has recently published a book, New Domains of Educational Leadership
Andy Wolfe, Executive Director of Education, The National Society for Education
Andy Wolfe is Executive Director of Education for the Church of England and oversees the programmes, networks and research of the Church of England Foundation for Educational Leadership – www.cefel.org.uk working with thousands of school leaders across the UK. He is committed to combining rich theological reflection with evidence-informed approaches to improving teaching, learning and leadership in schools. He has authored many of the Church of England’s educational leadership resources, including pioneering the ‘Called, Connected, Committed’ leadership framework co-written with Professor David Ford – www.cefel.org.uk/ccc – which has led to similar international frameworks in Australia (with CSA) and Canada (with Christian Schools Canada). He has also co-written ‘Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators and Schools’ with Dr Lynn Swaner from ACSI. Andy also oversees the Church of England’s ‘Growing Faith’ national work in relation to faith development in schools, churches and households, the Archbishops’ Young Leaders Award, a range of national policy briefs and the SIAMS national inspection framework for the 4674 Church of England schools.
Professor Matt Lee, Research Associate, Harvard Flourishing Program
Matthew T. Lee, Ph.D., is Professor of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He is also Director of the Flourishing Network at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, where he is appointed as a Research Associate. In addition, he is a member of the Global Study of Human Flourishing research team, a Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Health, Flourishing, and Positive Psychology at Stony Brook University’s Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics, and also as a Visiting Scholar at the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Humanistic Management at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University.
Dr. Lynn Swaner, President, US at Cardus
The Dr. Lynn Swaner is the President, US at Cardus, a non-partisan think tank dedicated to clarifying and strengthening, through research and dialogue, the ways in which society’s institutions can work together for the common good. Dr. Swaner is the editor or lead author of numerous books, including Flourishing Together: A Christian Vision for Students, Educators, and Schools (Eerdmans, 2021), and is the architect of the Flourishing Schools research underlying the five-domain model of educational flourishing. Dr. Swaner holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University and a diploma in strategy and innovation from University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School. She previously served as a professor of education and a school leader in New York.
Kathryn Morgan, Senior Capacity Improvement Advisor at the Teaching School Hubs Council
Kathryn was the Senior Capacity Improvement Advisor at the Teaching School Hubs Council (TSHC), contributing to the workforce development policy in England, and supporting TSHs to deliver high-quality professional development (PD) at scale. She has held a variety of senior school and trust positions and has designed and delivered national PD at scale. Kathryn now assists on international workforce development through Crehan & Associates and also works with a range of professional development providers and charities. She was a research associate at the University of Gloucester, where she has an MA in Educational Leadership, and is supporting the research into Sustainable School Leadership with Professor Toby Greany at the University of Nottingham. Kathryn is a Trustee at Greenshaw Learning Trust.
Paul Miller, PhD, Professor of Educational Leadership & Social Justice, and Director of the Institute for Educational & Social Equity
Paul Miller, PhD, is Professor of Educational Leadership & Social Justice, and Director of the Institute for Educational & Social Equity. He is a respected researcher with over 150 peer reviewed publications. In 2023 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the British Educational Leadership Management Administration Society (BELMAS) for his contribution to the development of the field of educational leadership in the UK. Between 2018-2022 he was President of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management (CCEAM).
Katie Fitzsimmons, CEO of Salisbury Diocese Board of Education (SDBE) and Diocesan Director of Education
Katie Fitzsimmons is the CEO of Salisbury Diocese Board of Education (SDBE) and Diocesan Director Education, overseeing 192 Church of England schools with trusts, local authorities, and the DfE Regions Group. I am a member of the Bishop’s Leadership Team and sit on the diocesan safeguarding panel. I am chair of the national Association of Anglican Directors of Education. After working in industry, I trained to teach languages before moving into school leadership across Kent, Cornwall, Worcestershire and London. I supported Voice 21, developing oracy skills in young people, before joining the Diocese of Truro.I am a mum of a blended six, aged from 11 to 32, and a nana to four grandsons!.
Andy Spens
Andy Spens is the Head of Professional Learning at the National Society for Education (NSE). His is based in Bristol, where his experience has been in primary teaching and leading. He has been a primary Headteacher and most recently an Executive Leader. Andy is responsible for teacher development and leadership development programmes at the NSE, including the NPQs and Flourishing Leader and Flourishing Teacher programmes
Resources and Information
Flourishing Together (2024): A joint publication with CST and CES. What can we only achieve in the long term, by taking a long-term view of our education system now?
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