Joining SW100—Cohort 5

For a September 2025 start

Thank you for your interest in joining the fifth and final cohort of SW100 leaders.

Hopefully, by now, you've had a bit of time to learn more about our movement's ethos and been able to reflect on how well-placed you might be to move us towards our shared purpose of eradicating educational inequality in the South West.

This form represents an opportunity for you to introduce yourself and your motivations for applying to join the programme.

But before we delve in, we want to acknowledge an immutable limitation of the humble application form: no matter how much time we spend designing its questions or you spend responding to them, it'll never capture the 'full picture' of who you are, where you've been, what you've done, why you did it, and what you've learnt along the way.

As such, we'd like you to think of this form as less a full presentation and more as an introduction. So, it's relatively short—in as much as application forms ever can be, at least.

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We've got two aims in mind.

First, to check for alignment. We've tried to be as clear as we can about who the programme's for and how it works; this form represents an opportunity to check that sits well with you.

Second, of course, we also want to check that your skills, qualities, and attributes match those detailed in previous correspondence. We'll have plenty of time to unpack the finer details with successful applicants during the assessment stage.

So, this form is broken up into three sections:

1. We'll ask for some personal details and contact information (for you, your sponsor and your referee).

2. We'll ask for some information about your recent career history.

3. We'll pose three big questions and ask for three pithy answers—

   1. Why do you want to be a headteacher in the South West? (300 words max.);

   2. How have you worked to close the disadvantage gap in your career to date? (300 words max.); and,

   3. What would most help you now to become the headteacher that you want to be? (300 words max.)

So, without further ado, let's begin.

If you have any questions along the way, please don't hesitate to drop us an email. We'll get back to you within 24 hours.

Good luck!

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P.S. With Google Forms, there's no option to save your work and return to the form at a later time. We suggest, therefore, that you consider drafting your answers in a separate document before copying across when you're ready to submit.