Academies Enterprise Trust

What happens once they leave?

It was at this point that CEO Julian Drinkall invited us to come and help the leadership team frame the organisation’s vision and values for the new day.

During our first workshop, we asked the leadership team a killer question: ‘What do you want to happen once these children leave school?’ The answer that came back: ‘We want them to live remarkable lives’.

With that simple, heartfelt response the seeds were planted for the organisation’s newfound purpose. It was a process that would put the ‘Remarkable Lives’ of children at the heart of the organisation and its brand.

With the help of further workshops with leadership – and discussions with other staff and teachers within the Trust – we began to collaboratively create the vision, mission and values statements for AET moving forward.

Adding a little bit of magic

To ensure ‘Remarkable Lives’ wouldn’t just become words on a screen – but would be an inspiring and widely understood idea – we knew we would need to get creative. We enlisted the help of Matt Abbott (spoken word poet and star of the Nationwide ‘This is Home’ advert) and Ben Hodgson (filmmaker for BBC and Channel 4 documentaries). Together, we created a ‘Remarkable Lives’ spoken word poem and film, bringing together over 40 enthusiastic pupils from a school in Birmingham for an exciting day’s shoot at one of the Trust’s flagship schools in Birmingham.

The result was a piece of poetry and powerful film that captured the heartbeat of the organisation for its pupils. When we first played this at the annual gathering of Headteachers, there were few dry eyes in the room.

Unleashing a wave of creativity

The impact of the ‘Remarkable Lives’ launch to those Headteachers exceeded even our own expectations. Headteachers quickly took the message, the video and related resources back to their schools and unleashed a wave of creativity amongst teachers and pupils. Before long we were seeing poems, films, and even pieces of art – created by local schools – and each capturing the spirit of ‘Remarkable Lives’ within that community.

The impact of our work has gone deeper than an initial, emotive reaction. During a post-launch project – that involved supporting a number of schools with their embedding of the new vision, mission, and values – one of the Headteachers remarked on what the real impact of our work had been:

“With Remarkable Lives, people now feel part of something larger…and the fact that we are part of AET has become much more relevant for staff and pupils.”