The newspapers were ecstatic when Barry Smith, the headteacher of Great Yarmouth Charter Academy, implemented new policies regarding student behavior in the autumn of last year. Smith stated that the previous school was rampant with indiscipline, bullying, and truancy, and that he would not allow any of those things to occur in his academy. He declared that mobile phones would be confiscated for several weeks if seen or heard during school hours, and that students should only ever look at their teachers or where their teachers directed them to look. Additionally, Smith specified which boys’ hairstyles were deemed unacceptable, including the "Meet me at McDonald’s" style with a tousled mop and short sides.
Furthermore, Smith instructed students not to pretend to be sick to avoid work. He suggested that if a student was feeling ill, they should be given a bucket, and if they vomited, it was no problem since it was probably what their body needed. After the policies attracted national attention and led to multiple protests from parents, Smith made a few adjustments, specifying that some of the instructions were "tongue in cheek", and that the sick bucket comment was just a colorful turn of phrase.
For the Inspiration Trust’s founder and CEO, Dame Rachel de Souza, the media frenzy was nothing extraordinary. Though the trust is small, with only 14 schools, it seems to attract an inordinate amount of attention- some of it being positive. Although a few schools in the trust were required to improve before joining, Inspiration is ranked second only to a chain that includes two grammar schools in the Department for Education’s league table of multi-academy trusts’ Progress 8 scores. Additionally, a study by the Education Policy Institute rates the trust’s key stage 4 outcomes ahead of any other secondary provider in England, including local authorities. In fact, Michael Gove, a former education secretary, once claimed he would like to clone de Souza "23,000 times" because he was so impressed by her.
Yet, de Souza and the trust are always in trouble. Allegations surfaced in 2014 and 2015 that two of the trust’s schools, as well as another where de Souza was the headteacher from 2010 to 2013, had several days’ advance notice of Ofsted inspections which should have only been announced a half-day beforehand. Although two inquiries found the allegations to be baseless, the second inquiry found a few of her emails to be "troubling". Earlier this year, Ofsted permitted a second inspector’s visit to an Inspiration primary school, which lies in the bottom 10% for key stage 2 reading and math, after the initial visit resulted in a highly critical draft report. After the report underwent some changes, critics declared the situation revealed that de Souza receives special treatment due to the trust’s former chairman, Theodore Agnew, who is now an education minister (and a trustee, which has been the subject of controversy). The National Education Union claimed that the school was "given a rehearsal before the real deal."
When questioned why she attracts so much attention, de Souza hypothesized that it was possibly due to her belief that change is necessary, and that she does everything wholeheartedly. However, many of the hostile stories, she noted, are based on leaked emails, implying that she creates adversaries among her colleagues. "A few difficult relationships arose," she stated, "and perhaps some people’s noses were put out of joint."
De Souza is known to speak at a breakneck speed, with sentences that begin but never seem to conclude as she interrupts herself with fresh thoughts and stories. Before she was the CEO of the Inspiration Trust, de Souza taught at comprehensives in Luton, Oxford, and East London. Her first academy headship, also in Luton, was a school that replaced two local authority schools deemed "underperforming." The school was so challenging that de Souza told her senior team that it would probably continue to fail, and that at the end of the year "we could all walk away and get on with our lives." However, for that one year, they should give it everything they had.
After four years, she relocated to a school in Norfolk that was owned by an academy chain from Birmingham. She shared that it seemed like she was working for the local authority in Birmingham since they deducted 5% for services, which she didn’t receive. She explained that she disliked it and considered going back to London. However, the chair of her governing body introduced her to Agnew, who sponsored a small academy in the county. The two decided to create a local trust, which would offer Norfolk children their solutions. She stated that the local authority was quite unenergetic, with very few schools failing and many requiring improvement.
This birthed Inspiration Trust, which has all of its schools in Norfolk, except the one just inside Suffolk- Lowestoft. When asked about it, she explained that the Department for Education requested she give her thoughts on it and it was terrible. Nonetheless, she knew she had to take on the task and not walk away since she was unable to ignore a failing school.
She describes the trust as a family, with a sense of community showcased at the annual "great day" where all staff members come together in early September. The trust also has a central team of "brilliant subject specialists" that design a rigorous curriculum, emphasizing "core knowledge." She embraced this after meeting ED Hirsch, the curriculum’s icon, in the US. She notes that the team works closely with teachers and that "we see ourselves as a scholarly community generating new knowledge."
Born in 1968, her childhood was wonderful, colourful and interesting with her father being Irish, and her mother half-Austrian and half-Hungarian. Her step-grandfather encouraged her to learn Ukrainian at a Saturday school. She was an excellent student until she got more sociable and lost her interest in studying at 14. However, her interest was rekindled in the second year at sixth-form college after meeting her religious studies teacher, who had a degree from London University’s Heythrop College. She studied in the same college and met her future husband, now in the probation service.
With a degree in theology and philosophy, she was advised to leave her northern help-the-world attitude and make some cash by becoming a trainee accountant. After two weeks, she realized it wasn’t for her and left to obtain her teaching certificate at King’s College, London. She’s had five jobs in the past 15 years, suggesting some restlessness. In 2016, when there were rumours she was to succeed Michael Wilshaw as chief inspector, she denied ever applying for the job.
Regarding the "vomit school," she laughed and said "what Barry’s done there is amazing," noting that it’s one of the best examples of sorting out behaviour she’s ever seen and that he’s quite talented.