Tomas Thurogood-Hyde is director of corporate services at Astrea Academy Trust, a role he has held since November 2024, having served as assistant CEO for the previous four years.

In this role, he oversees a raft of key functions for the trust, such as safeguarding, health and safety, HR, IT, legal affairs and governance and strategy assurance. He previously worked at Ark Schools and the Prince’s Trust (now the King’s Trust).

He spoke to Tes about what a typical working week looks like - and why it’s often waylaid by new and unexpected problems…
 

The structure of my week

Most weeks I do three days in head office and then two in schools. Occasionally I might work from home but we’re mostly back in the office now and it’s important to be visible to the team I work with.

I think it’s really important we get into schools so we see how the things we talk about and decide on are actually having an impact. Before my current role I often prioritised schools in the Ofsted window, but now with my IT and HR areas, it’s more around schools that need support in those areas.
 

Connecting with principals and students

I’ll be in touch with most of the principals at least once a month to discuss something. I’ll often say that I’ll come to them to discuss something properly.

That means most visits are prearranged and usually last a couple of hours. Unless there is something specific to solve, usually my agenda is asking them, “How is my team working for you? Are you satisfied with what you’re getting? Are there problems we can solve?” It’s all about being led by the schools on what they want.

Sometimes I’ll join for safeguarding reviews or student voice work so we understand how students are experiencing the school too.
 

Exclusion reviews

It does not happen too often but, particularly with primary schools, if there are exclusion reviews I will chair those because I think it’s important I understand the reality of what’s happened, everything the teachers have done for them, meeting the parents and things like that.

It’s a horrible experience for the primary principal and so by chairing I can do things in a standard way that can put them at ease. And if it’s a school of which I’m the local chair, then I think it’s especially important that I’m able to bring that contextual knowledge in.
 

Tuesday meetings

Tuesday is our core office day when we have the main meetings as an executive group.

Some are more informal or happen spontaneously when you see colleagues and catch up on something; others are more formal business meetings that we have booked in.

It’s nice to have the formal business on a set day and have more flex the rest of the week.
 

Expect the unexpected

I often end up dealing with quite unexpected issues that can be interesting but also challenging.

For example, a school recently had a letter from Ofcom saying it was using a spectrum band that it was not licensed to use. That took some time to unravel and meant getting a bit of a crash course in licensing obligations.

Another incident I had to solve was a trademark situation whereby a 19-year-old had set up a clothing company with a name similar to ours.

Although it can disrupt your planned workload, it’s important that we in the executive team step in to help schools and clear the road for them so they can get on with their day-to-day job.
 

Strategic thinking

My “thinking day” starts at about 4pm once the operational stuff is done.

All the reactive and operational work starts with my commute at 7am - answering emails from the evening before, and as they come up through the day - and then into meetings and making notes on what needs to be followed up on, because you’re often straight into another one.

But towards the end of the day, when you’re a bit tired and almost a bit disinhibited it can help with the strategic thinking. Often that’s about looking back at problems and identifying what the common themes are and how we can focus on addressing those and getting ahead of them for the future.
 

What I would like to do more of

I’d like to spend more time with principals and other school leaders, talking about what opportunities we take advantage of next, rather than, “I’m sorry you have too few laptops - here’s how I’ll adjust the funding mechanism to try to help”.

I think it comes back to the reality that there is still so much that we need to know. As the organisation matures, if we can codify and systematise our experience of how we respond to and resolve certain things, then there’ll just be more resilience and I won’t get quite as many questions.

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