Trust: The revolution in schools

Jeanie Davies, Head of Learning and Organisational Development, Oasis Community Learning, UK; Co-Founder, Schoolgenie, UK Georgina Newton, Associate Professor, Centre for Teacher Education, University of Warwick, UK; Co-Founder, Schoolgenie, UK Imagine a school day with no fear and anxiety, where staff are enabled and empowered to take risks, learn, feed back and grow, where everyone is performing at their best and for the best of all. This is the kind of environment that arises when trust is the bedrock of a culture. Research from Harvard business school calls this a ‘psychologically safe’ workplace (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2011). In 2020, the DfE recommended that wellbeing be ‘designed-in’ to schools (Gibb, 2020). Following the COVID-19 pandemic and the extreme levels of pressure felt by teachers and leaders, it’s now a matter of national recovery that teachers are enabled to flourish. A psychologically safe working environment in schools results in open, curious th