Frank Norris MBE FCCT
Education advisor
Six years as CEO of Coop Academies Trust, followed by senior adviser to the Coop Group on education and five years advising the Northern Powerhouse Partnership on education, including skills.
Former Independent chair of the Blackpool Education Improvement Board and former Chair of the town’s Priority Education Improvement Board.
Trustee and chair of Finance and Resources at Great Academies Education Trust
Former Vice Chair and current Board Member of Liverpool Education Board
Advisory Board member of InnovateHer
Co-Lead of the Forum Strategy’s Education Leaders’ Network
Former senior HMI manager responsible for school, early years and initial teacher education inspection delivery, including Framework Development
Ranked 26th most influential colleague making an impact on education in 2025 by Education Business.
Awarded MBE for services to education in 2019 and made a Fellow of The Chartered College of Teaching in 2021.
Joint lead of The Alternative Big Listen and The Alternative Big Consultation with Prof Colin Richards.
About me
Former Headteacher at Lower Park Primary School, Poynton and Millbank Junior School, Partington.
Seconded as an Additional Inspector to Ofsted 1995-1996
Appointed Her Majesty’s Inspector in 2001
- Led project that saw all school HMI lead inspections
- Joined small School Framework Development Team and contributed to the update in 2003 and the significant changes introduced in 2005. Responsible for development of online self evaluation form, introduction of contextual value added and creation of the term ‘Outstanding’. Something I now regret!
- In 2006, appointed Lead Manager for implementation of local authority Joint Area Reviews by nine other inspectorates and undertook review of inspection process to make it less burdensome for local authorities and inspectors
- In 2009, appointed Assistant to Director for Schools with responsibility for quality assuring national inspection programmes undertaken by outsourced inspection providers
- In 2010, appointed as Divisional Manager for Schools, Early Years and Initial Teacher Education.
- Led development and implementation of school inspection framework introduced in January 2012 by Miriam Rosen HMCI and developed revisions introduced by Sir Michael Wilshaw in September 2012
Joined Stockport MBC as Senior School Adviser in September 2012
Approached by The Co-op in March 2013 to become their Education Adviser
- Joined in September 2013 and appointed as CEO of Co-op Academies Trust in March 2014.
- Successfully merged three trusts run by The Co-op into one accountable body
- Improved academic performance so that the Trust was judged as above average for GCSE and end of Key Stage 2 performance by DfE, Sutton Trust and EPI
- Gained financial support from The Co-op for £3.6m to assist in the growth of the Trust from 6 to 40 by the end of 2022.
- Improved Ofsted outcomes with only one long-established school not judged as at least Good (Stuck at RI despite leadership and management and other areas judged as Good)
- Appointed MBE in summer of 2019 for services to education
- Stood down as CEO in September 2019
Appointed as Adviser to The Co-op on education and schools matters in September 2019
HB50 Most influential
Nominated as one of Education Business magazine’s most influential people in education.
Recent blog posts
It takes a particular sort of genius to respond to criticism of unreliable judgments by having more judgements
Let me be clear on Ofsted inspections. I am not naïve to believe that all State provision for children and young people is functioning as well as we would all expect. The reasons for this are many but there are very few professionals who go to work wanting to be...
It is all rather self-congratulatory isn’t it?
This piece summarises my reaction to Ofsted’s recently published report evaluating the impact of the focus on the curriculum within the EIF.
Some thoughts on the proposed Ofsted inspection framework
My last day working for Ofsted was early September 2012. It coincided with the start of what became known as ‘Wilshaw’s Framework. It was a Framework I had led the team in developing, trialling (a little), creating training materials and managing the plethora of departmental and political challenges associated with this sort of work. In my time I had either led or been a senior team member in the creation or revision to six inspection frameworks across a number of remits. So, I am always interested in any new Ofsted framework.