Education is our greatest lever for human, social and economic change. At a time when our society faces poor social mobility, unacceptable gaps in attainment, rising mental health issues and a lack of the skills needed for 21st century careers, we must question whether the education systems we’ve created are meeting our needs. If they fit our purpose.

With the help of a range of global experts and their networks we identified an initial twenty educational pioneers who are successfully driving transformative change within their own systems. As we spoke to these pioneers of educational change, we became as interested in how change occurred as what that change could be. Shared experiences, hard-won lessons and similarities in approach to creating change emerged from around the world, regardless of whether the innovation was at a national, city or school level. Through their stories, we recognised a new model of transformative change that is human-centred and built on foundations of trust, experimentation and open conversation. This shared practice demonstrated that not only is change necessary, it is also possible. It showed us that the answer to how change happens is: together.

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