Most MAT chiefs are lucky if they get to open one free school in their lifetime. Wesley Davies has opened three, all of which are now rated ‘outstanding’.
Davies spent the first 20 years of his career at Dixons Academies Trust, where he got first-hand experience of the emergence of the modern MAT system. As well as being instrumental in the setting up of the three academies – Dixons Trinity, Dixons McMillan and Dixons Sixth Form – he was executive principal of the latter two, as well as Dixons Marchbank Primary.
It taught him how to build a school culture from scratch, and he is now using that knowledge to expand and unite the Two Counties Trust, the nine-secondary MAT he leads in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Davies recalls “feeling nervous” on his first day at Two Counties, having spent 20 years with the same trust. And things did not go according to plan.
