As part of our intentional, strategic pause, our newly formed network committee met in-person with our founder to plan our future.

Just over a week ago, our team of committed volunteers came together in the UK’s second city, Birmingham for a day of reflection, review and revision of our plans.

Some of us started the day with a breakfast and social catch up before meeting the other members of our team at our strategy day location just a stone’s throw away from Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter. Whilst we have all met on a screen before, it was great to put faces to names and find out more about one another.

Our first part of the morning was dedicated to research. We have always been an evidence-informed and engaged organisation; we used research from Teach First, our networks and our own data that we collected. This enabled us to all have a clear understanding of the rationale of our offer and structure of our network.

Over a working lunch, we discussed and debated various educational issues and those that affect our community. After lunch, we went onto map out ‘a year in the life of a Step Up member’ to build a new and affordable membership offer that will provide great value to developing leaders in education.

After this it was time for us to pack up. We are meeting tomorrow to finalise our next steps and our individual committee roles – we cannot wait to share with you what we’re planning so watch this space…

A huge thank you to the Institute of Leadership’s Leadership Grant Fund for enabling us to host this event and for Teach First in providing fantastic research and guidance into network development and growth.