Meet the Team

Douglas Archibald leads the growth and development of the D6 Network, supporting schools and trusts across England to learn about, implement and continually improve the D6 model. His focus is not simply on spreading innovation, but on ensuring it spreads with quality, integrity and impact.

Douglas has spent more than twenty years helping organisations harness the power of networks, collaboration and shared learning to improve performance and accelerate improvement. His career has spanned consultancy, higher education, national education organisations and system leadership, all centred on one fundamental question: how can people and organisations learn more effectively from one another?

He began his career with Accenture's Human Performance practice before joining Warwick Business School, where he helped establish the internationally recognised Knowledge and Innovation Network (KIN). His work on organisational networks led to the publication of Harnessing Your Staff's Informal Networks in Harvard Business Review, later selected as one of Harvard Business Review's 10 Must Reads on Collaboration.

Douglas subsequently founded and led Whole Education, building one of England's largest collaborative networks of schools and multi-academy trusts. Under his leadership, Whole Education supported more than 100 trusts and thousands of school leaders through programmes focused on curriculum, inclusion, organisational development, SEND and system leadership. The organisation's work was recognised by both the OECD's Innovative Learning Environments programme and the House of Commons Education Select Committee.

Douglas joined the D6 team because he believes it represents one of the most promising innovations in English education: a simple, evidence-informed model that rethinks how schools create opportunity by combining learner agency, peer coaching and cross-phase collaboration. His role is to build the national D6 Network, enabling schools to learn from one another, avoid common implementation pitfalls and adapt the model successfully while remaining faithful to its core design principles.

Alongside his work with D6, Douglas continues to explore how networks can improve education systems at scale through research, leadership development and international collaboration. His particular interests include implementation, communities of practice, organisational learning and the role of networks in creating sustainable educational improvement.