SAVE THE DATE! Summit 2026
St James' Park, Newcastle
Save the date for the The Schools North East Summit 2026 the North East’s must-attend school leadership event.
The Annual Summit stands as the largest regional gathering of Trust CEOs, Head Teachers, and senior school leaders in the UK. As it approaches its eighteenth anniversary, this flagship event continues to draw over 500 of the region’s most influential education leaders each year. Attendees benefit from the insights of internationally renowned speakers from government, academia, business, and education, making it an unparalleled platform for inspiration, innovation, and collaboration.
The event brings together the North East’s school leaders, educational experts, and decision-makers to explore the key issues, best practices, challenges, and opportunities that will shape the future of education in our region, both now and in the years ahead.
At the 2025 Annual Summit, (themed “Rebooting Education: The Future of Our Region is in School”) 500 Head Teachers, trust leaders, policymakers, and education partners gathered to explore what a strategic “reboot” of education should look like for the North East.
The event concluded with an address from Lee Owston HMI (Ofsted), “Inclusion at the Heart: The Future of Education Inspection,” offering insights into the evolving landscape of inspection, equity, and accountability.
Previous speakers have included:
- Catherine McKinnell MP – delivering her inaugural address as Minister for School Standards.
- Education Secretaries Gillian Keegan and Justine Greening;
- Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza;
- Former HMCIs Amanda Spielman and Sir Michael Wilshaw; and
- Prominent education leaders such as Sir Kevan Collins, Lord Agnew, and Sir David Carter.
Their insights have made the Summit an unmissable event for shaping education policy and practice.
Save the date and keep an eye out for more exciting updates as we gather the leading voices in education for this unmissable event!
Bookings open soon!Event Overview
Chris Zarraga
Director, Schools North East
Chris is the Director of School North East. He has been part of the Schools North East team since its operational inception in 2008 and in 2019 he was appointed Director. Chris works with senior leaders across the North East and nationally in the education and charity sectors, to represent the voice of North East schools. A central part of his work is to lobby politicians, policy makers, and the media to put a strong ‘regional accent’ on the education debate, so that North East schools are not left behind when it comes to education policy.
Under Chris, Schools North East launched the ‘Manifesto for North East Education’. The manifesto sets out the perennial challenges that impact educational opportunities in the North East and the principles needed to inform any educational policy wanting to address them.
Chris works with hundreds of schools across the North East and various organisations including Ofsted, the DfE, the North East’s universities, Local Authorities and various regional/ national businesses. Prior to joining Schools North East, he led a £1.4 million culture change project in education across the North East for the Treasury and DfE and was responsible for setting up a multi-million pound Enterprise Education Network.
Chris sits on various advisory boards including the NHS Integrated Care Boards, various Combined Authority advisory boards, and was a member of the DfE’s Opportunity North East strategic board. He has also sat on various boards for North East Universities. As well as being a Director of two North East multi academy trusts, Chris has been Chair of a 3 school Trust, Vice Chair of a large maintained secondary school and Vice Chair of a primary foundation school.
In a variety of roles from Regional Manager to Chief Executive to Board member, Chris has led large scale change management projects in education and has over 20 years’ experience of strategic management, consultancy, and client development experience at a ‘Big Four’ firm and various financial institutions.
Chris holds an MBA with distinction from Durham University Business School.
Summit 2023: Great North Schools – A Manifesto for Change
Event Date: 19 October 2023
Location: St James Park
Similar Events
The Education Business Conference 2026
Event Date: 11 June 2026
Event Time: 09:00
Location: Vertu Motors Arena
