CEO Thought for the Week

Hi Everyone,

I hope the week has started well for you.

This week I want to (re)introduce our Infinity Trademarks. Some colleagues will know them well. For others, particularly those who have joined Infinity more recently, they may be completely new. The idea behind them is actually very simple. Our values describe what matters to us. Our Trademarks describe some of the things we should therefore see happening every day.

They are deliberately practical: supporting a colleague, meeting our commitments, asking for help when we need it, continuing to develop professionally and taking pride in our schools. They also describe what children should experience from us: adults who explain things properly, ask great questions, let them try again, tell them how they are doing and make learning interesting. They remind us that every subject matters, and that safeguarding, behaviour and welfare belong to all of us.

I think that practicality is important. As Infinity grows and welcomes new colleagues and schools, we do not want being part of Infinity to mean everybody becoming the same. Our schools have their own histories, identities and communities, and that matters. But there should be things that mark us out. Things that a child, colleague, parent or visitor experiences and thinks, yes, that's how people do things here. That is where the Trademarks come in.

And they are not just for those working in classrooms. If you work in HR, finance, administration, estates, governance, school improvement or anywhere else across the Trust, they apply just as much. There is not a version for schools and a different version for everyone else.

One of the lines I particularly like is "It starts with us."

None of this happens because there is a poster on a wall. It happens in hundreds of ordinary moments: whether we help or walk past, whether we follow through on a promise, whether we ask when we are not sure, whether we deal with something or leave it for somebody else, whether we keep learning, and whether the standard we accept today is one we would be proud to see repeated tomorrow. So my ask this week is a straightforward one: please take ten minutes to read the attached Trademarks, even if you have read them before.

Rather than treating them as a checklist, choose one or two and ask yourself: would the people I work with see this Trademark in the way I work? If the answer is yes, great. Keep doing it and help others to do the same. If the honest answer is "not always", there is something useful for each of us to work on. That is how these stay alive. Not through posters, launches or slogans, but through all of us choosing to live them in the small things, consistently.

It starts with us.

Thank you for everything you do.

Best Wishes

Gavin