The South West is the most academised region on the country. As such it becomes something of a vanguard for collaborative practice and trust-to-trust engagement and support. Although this has not yet led to significantly increased performance on a national league table, there is a need to recognise that the very shape of the system is unbalanced: schools that under-perform are directed to become academies, which naturally brings weaker practice and performance into the academy sector, where it can be dismantled and effectively addressed. Strong trusts carry the responsibility and the hope for schools that have run into challenge and difficulty.

The South West Side Story has shades of Bernstein’s masterpiece, and at times can seem as cacophonous, as raw and as energetic. The Sharks and the Jets in this tale, though, are not two warring factions in my view. The Sharks and the Jets are two concurrent threats. The Jets are the existential and contextual threats: the pandemic lock-down legacy; the breaking of the social contract; a political and economic febrility that makes for a less stable system, sector and society. The Sharks are a different set of threats: our own egos, rivalries and alliances that drive our decision-making down dead ends and back roads that bring nothing of note educationally to the very young people for whom the sector exists.

These concurrent threats risk unseating us all and limiting the educational potency of the region.

Trusts exist to enable better schools and better educational experiences for all. Holding trust with young people and their families, at their best, trusts enable colleagues at all levels to make lateral connections and to coalesce around common aims and concerns – the South West Side Story needs to be one of of a regional dividend, where children can benefit disproportionately because they attend *schools*, in trusts in the South West.

One of the brilliant things about West Side Story is how it deals with conflict and identity, curating a series of flawed characters and alliances through a short but intense period of time, ultimately achieving a resolution where long-held rivalries are set aside in the pursuance of a greater goal. And of course, it’s a love story; another brilliant iteration of the Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet, which in itself is a re-telling of an earlier tale.

We love West Side Story because of its compelling narrative, its deeply emotive characterisation and its quite brilliant score. Whose story is it? Does West Side Story belong to Leonard Bernstein? To William Shakespeare? To Arthur Brooke? To any and all of us who have engaged it, been moved by it, used it for our own ends? Does West Side Story belong to me? I live and work and lead in the South West. My children are at school here, and almost all of my professional attention and capacity is invested here: is the South West Side Story mine to tell?

West Side Story deals with some messy and difficult content, and yet it leaves us humming. The South West Side Story is one we need to tell anew, recognising the threats and the opportunities, calling out ‘Shark’ behaviours that, intentionally or otherwise enable a flow of toxicity that thwarts progress, and enabling our children, families, schools and sector to navigate the ‘Jets’ that threaten us. We need to add the musical notes for ourselves – the overtures and refrains that excite, compel, drive and uplift – so that the words and the music of our South West Side Story, the most academised region with the most potential to realise, leave us humming as we walk our classrooms, our corridors, our institutions and beyond.