Sam Crome

Director of Education, Mission and People, Xavier Catholic Education Trust

Sam Crome is a school leader, currently a Headteacher and Director of Education for Xavier Catholic Education Trust in Surrey. He has lead in primary and secondary schools, across a range of roles in middle and senior leadership. For the last few years, Sam has studied high-performing teams, trying to better understand how teams can become more than the sum of their parts. He regularly blogs, speaks, and works with schools regarding their teams, helping educators to maximise their effectiveness, and is author of The Power of Teams: How to create and lead thriving school teams. He remains convinced that this is an area that needs more attention and exploration.

Workforce

1 Breakout sessions: Series two

How can trust teams best support modern headteachers to succeed?

The general understanding of what headteachers do hasn't changed for decades. But those who work as and with heads in school trusts recognise the evolution of the role in recent years. This discussion will explore those changes and discuss the critical role of headteachers within their schools and communities. It will ask what trust teams can do to alleviate pressure, provide support, and ensure a pipeline of potential education leaders ready to step into school leadership.

1 Workshop series two

Beyond a nod and a tick: building agency with school leaders

When working with schools, compliance is the floor, not the ceiling. The most successful trusts move beyond the monitoring trap to curate brilliance, facilitating a culture of professional partnership rather than simple oversight. This session explores the balance between trust-level strategy and the agency of the school leader, shifting the dynamic so leaders are co-architects of strategy rather than just recipients of it. We will share practical frameworks for high-challenge, high-support approaches that respect local context and professional expertise, and explore how alignment doesn’t come at the cost of leadership agency or school improvement.