The Diocese of Bath and Wells 2026 School Leaders and Parish Partner Conference, Flourishing Together: Seeking Justice, Sharing Hope, takes place 12 and 13 March 2026. This exciting conference brings together school leaders and parish partners from across the diocese. Together, we will explore how we transform unjust structures in society as we consider poverty, disadvantage and the role of churches and schools. Why not join us and sign up today.
If you are a parish partner and you have a school in your benefice, please do consider inviting your head teacher and coming with them (whether it's a church school or not).
We have the brilliant Sean Harris FCCT, from Tees Valley Education as our key note speaker.
Below is Sean's blog post, in which he shares his thoughts about the sessions.
Living the story, serving place
I’m genuinely delighted to be working with colleagues across the Diocese of Bath and Wells in 2026. Flourishing Together: Seeking Justice and Sharing Hope will bring together school leaders, parish partners and community practitioners from across the Diocese for a day of learning, challenge and hope.
It’s a long way from home for me and the communities that I serve. But there’s many reasons why I’m making a 600-mile roundtrip to be with colleagues over the two-days.
Why it matters
Child poverty and inequality continue to rise across the UK. The recent announcement to remove the two-child benefit cap is a significant milestone, proof that when political will aligns with social justice, meaningful change is possible. Yet the living reality of hardship is rarely captured by headline statistics or fiscal analysis. It shows up in quieter, harder-to-measure ways. Educators all too familiar with the pupil who arrives hungry and struggling to learn; the family missing school because a poor night’s sleep on inadequate bedding has derailed their routine. In our churches, the repurposing of parish halls to meet the growing demand for food, baby banks and emergency provision, spaces once filled with coffee mornings, toddler groups and community celebrations.
(Source: End Child Poverty, 2025)
Knowing the story of place
At Tees Valley Education, a multi-academy trust serving communities in the Tees Valley, we often speak about the need to be ‘furiously curious’ about inequality. Righteous anger has its place, but anger and frustration alone will not shift the deep, structural patterns of inequality that communities see every day. What matters is our willingness to understand the nuance of poverty in each community that we serve. Place and context matters. The role of educators, clergy and community leaders is not simply to dispense knowledge or hope, it is to act as civic architects, helping communities navigate complexity with insight, compassion and courage.
My contribution to the two-days will focus on how we can use problem-analysis tools to get under the skin of inequality and better understand how disadvantage shapes the day-to-day lives of children, families and neighbourhoods. We will also explore what it means to work collectively. No single church, school or charity can be the heartbeat of a community on its own. At Tees Valley Education, we often say that there is a need to “Gang up on the problem, not on each other.” Flourishing communities rely on shared effort, shared purpose and shared leadership. This isn’t just about knowing the story of the places that we serve, but being in the story and shaping the story.
(Children, staff and community leaders at Tees Valley Education)
As iron sharpens iron…
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17) This ancient proverb is also a contemporary truth for communities today facing entrenched inequality. Strong partnerships help us see more clearly and act more effectively. I’ll share how we are building such partnerships across the Tees Valley, drawing on insights featured in our book, Tackling Poverty & Disadvantage in Schools, and on learning from schools, parishes and charities across the UK. We’ll look particularly at how place-based collaboration such as that between Zarach (the bed poverty charity), Tees Valley Education and the Sleep Charity is helping to not only uncover patterns of sleep inequality but respond to them at scale, with practical and hopeful solutions.
(Zarach staff preparing to deliver bed resources to families in need)
I’d like to think we stepped into our roles because we wanted to make a credible difference; not for recognition, but to leave our communities stronger than we found them. Maybe you even felt a sense of calling to do this work. The opportunity to make a credible impact is here and, arguably, the need has never been greater.
If you are looking for silver bullets or quick fixes, this probably isn’t the conference for you. But if you believe in a commitment to deep social justice, long-term change and rigorous conversations about justice, hope and community, then this is absolutely the space for you. We don’t have all the answers, but I am confident that some will surface across the breadth of the two days.
I’m grateful to be able to serve alongside you. We may serve different places, but our purpose is shared and our commitment to children, families and communities is collective.
Seek justice and hope with us
If you’re ready to be furiously curious about inequality, and to explore practical, hopeful ways to create flourishing communities, register now for the Flourishing Together Conference. Your insight, your leadership and your voice will help shape the movement for justice across the Diocese of Bath and Wells and beyond.
Sean Harris
Sean is an internationally recognised education leader committed to tackling social disadvantage. With a background across the charity and public sectors, he focuses on reducing educational inequality, advancing teacher education, and embedding research in practice. A doctoral researcher at Teesside University, Sean explores how co-production can inform place-based approaches in schools. He co-authored Tackling Poverty and Disadvantage in Schools and has conducted a systematic review of pupil premium policy. A regular contributor to SecEd, TES, and Headteacher Update, Sean is a published author, speaker, and Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching. He supports system leadership, partnership development, and talent mapping across multi-academy trusts. Sean contributes to research with Child of the North, the N8 Research Partnership, and the Centre for Young Lives, and was appointed to the Department for Education’s Edtech Evidence Board Advisory Group. His Substack, followed by over 11,000 readers, explores child poverty, policy, and systemic reform to improve outcomes for low-income communities.