It isn’t surprising that executive leaders – whether leading 2 small rural schools, or multiple large urban schools – are dealing with many of the same problems. When coaching on NPQEL programme this year, each of my participants has outlined similar challenges in implementing an ambitious curriculum, developing high quality leadership of great pedagogy, appointing sufficient staff and managing challenging budgets. The key difference has been in the capacity available to tackle the issues, with too much of the burden in smaller organisations falling exclusively at times to the executive leader her/himself. It’s important that we build the system-wide mechanisms for smaller trusts and federations to collaborate with others to support their improvement journey.