Ambition Community Trust’s approach to Relational Inclusion is built on understanding children before intervention. Using Motional, the Trust has created a shared framework for understanding emotional wellbeing across 9 schools – enabling greater consistency, stronger collaboration and trust-wide insight while preserving the unique identity of each school.
For school leaders, this has created greater consistency in how support is planned, implemented and reviewed. For Trust leaders, it provides a clearer understanding of both the needs emerging across schools and the actions being taken in response, helping to ensure support is targeted where it can have the greatest impact.
At a glance:
Trust: Ambition Community Trust Schools: 9 Focus: Relational Inclusion Using Motional For: Shared understanding of emotional wellbeing Outcome: Trust-wide insight while preserving local context.
Supporting Relational Inclusion at Scale
Relational Inclusion is ultimately about creating systems and cultures that help every child feel seen, understood and supported. While that principle is simple, maintaining it consistently across a growing organisation is far more complex. As trusts expand, leaders need visibility without becoming disconnected from individual schools, schools need support without feeling directed, and staff need practical tools that strengthen practice rather than add to workload.
For us, one of the strengths of Motional has been its ability to support these different needs simultaneously. The platform provides a shared framework that enables us to maintain a coherent understanding of emotional wellbeing across the Trust, while ensuring that conversations remain rooted in relationships, professional judgement and the unique context of each school.
Importantly, the information generated through Motional is not used to compare schools or hold them to account in isolation. Instead, it provides a starting point for professional dialogue. The purpose is not judgement, but understanding – helping Trust leaders identify emerging needs, recognise effective practice and direct support where it can have the greatest impact. By making patterns more visible and conversations more informed, Motional has helped strengthen collaboration across our schools while preserving local ownership and autonomy.
The Thinking Behind the Approach
The principles underpinning this work are explored in Educating Everyone: An Introduction to Relational Inclusion in Schools. The book argues that meaningful change begins not with programmes or interventions, but with a deeper understanding of children’s experiences, relationships and needs.
This philosophy has shaped our approach as a Trust. We believe that children do not need identical schools. They need adults who share a common understanding of how children develop, what influences behaviour and wellbeing, and how relationships can create the conditions for success. Creating that shared understanding across multiple schools is one of the reasons we chose to work with Motional.
Trust perspective
As a Trust, our aim has never been to make every school the same. Our aim is to ensure every child is understood through a shared set of values, principles and professional understanding. Motional is helping us create that shared language across our schools. It enables meaningful conversations about wellbeing, supports staff to move from understanding to action, and helps us maintain a clear picture of need across the Trust while preserving the unique identity of each school.
Children do not need identical schools. They need adults who share a common understanding of their needs. Motional has given us a clearer basis for professional dialogue, helping schools and Trust leaders move beyond assumptions and isolated examples towards a shared understanding of emotional wellbeing and how best to respond.
Anthony Benedict
Executive Headteacher, Ambition Community Trust
Looking Forward
At Ambition Community Trust, we see emotional wellbeing as inseparable from inclusion, learning and achievement. Our ambition is not simply to improve outcomes, but to create environments where every child experiences belonging, connection and the opportunity to flourish.
Motional has become an important part of that journey. By providing a shared language for understanding emotional wellbeing, it helps schools translate insight into action while enabling Trust leaders to maintain a coherent view of need across multiple settings. Most importantly, however, it helps us remain focused on what matters most – understanding children well enough to respond effectively.
After all, meaningful inclusion does not begin with intervention. It begins with understanding.