Author: jtmatrsnary

The end of last week, saw colleagues from fourteen of our schools join together with members of our Trust’s central team and our Chair of Trustees for a celebration event.  The individuals recognised ranged in role from teachers and leaders to administrators and classroom support staff.  Some serve primary phase schools, others secondary, and two colleagues were from our own central team.  Some had been with John Taylor MAT for many years, others were relatively new employees of the Trust.  What they all have in common is that they were nominated by their peers to become Values Champions under the Trust’s “Cheers for Peers” scheme in 2025-26 (referred to in my January 2026 Blog also). 

The celebration, which centred on a traditional afternoon tea, was formally opened by our Chair, Colin Hopkins MBE, who spoke with great passion and sincerity about his own journey through education and the profound difference made by an individual who went above and beyond what would typically be expected of them.  Without their interest in him, and their input, his journey would have been markedly different.  He emphasised that we all can, and do, make such differences in the lives of the children and young people we serve.

Our colleagues had some time to talk with one another and share their experiences, their roles and how their professional growth before I closed the formalities with some words of my own.  As you would anticipate, I expressed my pride in working with them, and thanked them for their continued contribution – and the sacrifices they make as a result of their commitment to the service of others and the delivery of our mission.  They are truly remarkable people, and our schools are populated by many, many other colleagues who epitomise our values day-in, day-out to the benefit of all that work and learn alongside them. 

I closed by sharing with them my own views of JTMAT as a values-driven organisation.  It’s very easy, and throwaway, to refer to the institution to which one is associated as being “values-driven”.  After all, who is likely to openly profess that they belong to a body that’s driven by something else?  And yet, many people do belong to such organisations.  Those organisations that put naked ambition above their existential purpose.  Those where the pragmatism of the quick fix is valued above the hard work that is required of a lasting and sustainable solution.  Those that see growth as a thing that they feel compelled to generate, as opposed to something that occurs naturally when conditions are right. 

In her highly influential work, the Seven Signs of Ethical Collapse, Marianne Jennings cites the following as the “red flags” we all need to be aware of:

• Pressure to maintain the numbers: An obsessive, relentless focus on hitting financial targets, double-digit growth, or high returns, which drives employees to bend rules and rationalize unethical behaviour.
• Fear and silence: A stifling workplace culture where employees are afraid to raise concerns, reporting mechanisms are ignored or punished, and dissent is systematically silenced.
• Young ‘uns and a bigger-than-life CEO: An iconic, charismatic leader who demands absolute awe, surrounded by inexperienced or sycophantic direct reports who refuse to challenge authority.
• Weak board of directors: A passive or compliant board that fails in its oversight duties, lacking independence or the willingness to ask hard questions.
• Conflicts of interest overlooked or unaddressed: A normalization of personal or financial conflicts where individual gain supersedes the duty owed to the organization and its stakeholders.
• Innovation like no other company: An arrogant belief that the organization is so uniquely innovative or successful that standard rules, regulations, or basic gravity do not apply to them.
• Goodness in some areas atones for evil in others: The flawed rationalization that corporate philanthropy, public community service, or high religious/social standing excuses unethical treatment of employees or internal wrongdoing.

The list makes for uncomfortable reading.  Our trusts and our sector, and especially our schools, their children and communities deserve so much.  Our amazing “Cheers for Peers” Champions and the values they espouse are at the polar opposite to Jennings’ seven signs.  For that, I am very grateful.  Jennings’ book was recommended to me by our Trust Chair.  I’m also grateful in knowing Colin is conscious of these signs too.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mike.

I attended a conference (which I rarely do these days) up in Manchester last month, and one of the keynote speakers was a very distinguished and highly-regarded Mancunian CEO from a trust based in the North West.  He opened his talk by stating that he increasingly thought of himself at events such as this as “a 60 year-old grumpy uncle at a 21^st birthday party”. What he then spoke about was his world-weariness and cynicism, but also his sense of mild disapproval with the direction of travel he witnesses in so many areas. 

This is a sentiment that I can, at least sometimes, sympathise with and share.  It only takes around 30 seconds of exposure to “Love Island” or similar on television for me to feel a little disconnected, and irritated.  Far from being particularly “high brow” in my cultural leanings, I just think we can do better – and perhaps we should seek better for the young people in our lives too.

I’ve expressed the above not out of a need for catharsis or an attempt to judge, but as a way of framing something that I want to share in this month’s blog.

Almost five years ago, I featured in my blog the writings of Carl Sagan (“Pale Blue Dot” – July 2021), and I return to his work here. I stumbled across a classroom discussion between him and some American college students which, from the hair styles and the fashions, I would date at around the late 1980s.  It was a film clip short enough for me to transcribe its contents here below:

“How much science and technology, for example, do we see in the mass media? Every newspaper in America has a daily astrology column.  How many have even a weekly science column? Why is this? 

How much science do you see on television?  When somebody wins a Nobel Prize, do we ever get a coherent explanation of what he won it for?  What was this discovery that was important enough to win a Nobel Prize?  Well, the basic sense of television is that the American people are too stupid to understand. That it takes concentration, and therefore in the quest for small differential advantage in the competition between the networks, that it will be a means of losing ratings to spend time explaining what science is about. 

Short term advantage for the network company – long term disaster for the country.”

(Carl Sagan calls out mainstream media)

Sagan made those comments when the United States, like the United Kingdom, had a comparatively modest number of national networks, all of which could expect millions of viewers to tune in and all of whom (unlike the UK) relied on advertising revenue to survive and prosper.  He himself hosted the most popular science-based TV show in America (“Cosmos”, 1980) that brought astronomy and cosmology to the masses through stunning visuals at the cutting edge of what was possible at the time combined with Sagan’s man-in-the-street style of clear and engaging delivery.  The original thirteen-episode series can still be streamed, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. 

Today, the clamour for viewers’ attention is even more manic, with mainstream media competing with each other, with cable and internet channels and social media formats such as TikTok and Instagram for the time, and marketing potential, of a global audience.  In such a world, is there still a place for the hour-long science show?  In an age where composers of new music are advised that their introductory “hook” should be no more than five seconds long to avoid Spotify listeners skipping to the next track, is there still space in our attention for the next “Money for Nothing” (intro time: 2 minutes 4 seconds) or “Bat Out of Hell” (intro time: 1 minute 55 seconds)? 

We do still see the occasional documentary make it big in the ratings.  As national treasure Sir David Attenborough celebrated his 100^th birthday last month, his work can still command millions of viewers in Britain and beyond.  Programmes such as Life on Earth and Blue Planet remain popular, thanks to a combination of public broadcasting and the engagement and photogenic magic that worked also for Carl Sagan.  However, even though broadcast at peak viewing times Planet Earth III had fewer viewers than I’m a Celebrity….

As I look to what our children and young people will be watching and listening to, I have the excitement of knowing that there are new discoveries to share with them via new media channels and with amazing new filming techniques (drone footage, microscope cameras etc.) tempered with a concern that the plethora of alternatives will turn their heads, their attention, and their wallets toward other, more easily consumable media product. 

The removal of access to mobile phones in schools may help young people to embrace and concentrate upon the world immediately around them and, in so doing, should help kindle the spark of curiosity for our understanding world and our universe that is inherent in every child.  Of course, beyond school we all can play our part in supporting our young people to navigate between the real and the deep fake, the substantial and the froth, the beneficial and the harmful. 

Carl Sagan died in 1996.  I’m sure he would have been astonished at the inventions, innovations and discoveries humanity has accomplished in the last thirty years.  However, were he alive today, I’m not convinced that he would retract a single word he said to those American students back then.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Mike.

I am intending to keep this month’s blog about Mental Health Awareness Week relatively brief.  There are two reasons for this.  First, I claim no authority or expertise on mental health, how to maintain a positive state, how to diagnose, treat or support mental health challenges clinically or otherwise.  Second, I would much rather any readers here spend their time clicking on the link below to discover and engage with the truly outstanding resources and features produced by the Mental Health Foundation and updated for this week:

Mental Health Awareness Week | Mental Health Foundation

At John Taylor MAT, we have supported Mental Health Awareness Week for several years, and 2026 has been no exception.  Yesterday saw colleagues in our central team taking part in the “Wear it Green” campaign, and many of our schools are doing likewise during the course of the week. 

In previous years our promotion of this campaign, and our dissemination of the materials available as a result of it, has generated some very positive and profoundly personal feedback.  We can be confident that the role we feel obligated to play to support children and young people, their communities, and our colleagues does make a difference. 

I will close with a quotation from the truly remarkable Blaise Pascal.  A mathematician and physicist of true genius, and an individual who cared deeply about the suffering of those around him, wrote this his Pensées (“Thoughts” – a series of notes and entries into his journals only published after his death):

“The heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of”. 

Despite his incredible intellect and powers of rationality and critical thought, he appreciated that we are more than emotional and intuitive.  Not random or chaotic – but, at least in part, unmeasurable.  For me, our mental health and that of those around us is best seen as a facet of our innate humanity – and, as such, is to be cherished.

Thanks, as always, for reading – and take care.

Mike.