Frank Field Education Trust (FFET) is a multi-academy trust (MAT) founded in 2016 by The Rt Hon. the Lord Field of Birkenhead CH DL, working with schools in the North West of England and West Midlands regions.  The aim of the Trust is to establish academies that enable all pupils to achieve social justice through excellence in education delivering improved pupil outcomes.

The schools white paper clearly sets out a policy direction that will see MAT growth stimulated through the integration of further local authority-maintained schools into MATs. The proposed legislation will allow regional schools commissioners (RSCs) to issue mandatory conversion notices to those schools with more than one successive ‘Requires Improvement’ judgment from Ofsted, but what positive incentives are there for all the other schools?

The Department for Education (DfE) has recognised that MATs face significantly increased energy costs along with other increased cost pressures this year. As a result, school funding will increase by 4.2% per pupil in 2022/23. However, a large portion of this additional funding will be needed by MATs to meet the increasing costs, especially the sky high energy prices that we are all facing.

The Secretary of State for Education has clearly stated that the future for every Local Authority (LA) maintained school is being part of a ‘family of schools in a strong multi-academy Trust’ due to the strong governance, across groups of schools. However, the specific details on how this will be delivered, and over what timeframe, is rather lacking at the moment, so I have provided some food for thought below on this.

Due diligence is a peculiar business process that a MAT uses to assess a school but the information obtained makes or breaks the final decision making.

Historically, a MAT is expected to come to a school, present their credentials, make promises on ‘life after joining the MAT’ and then stand back so school governors can make a decision on whether to join. Whilst a school can review the publicly available information, there is no requirement for the MAT to open themselves up to any detailed scrutiny.

Information Technology (IT) has always been an effective school support system particularly in back office operations. However, over the last couple of years IT has become adopted in other areas of a school including providing teachers with the ability to deliver lessons online which was a necessity when Covid-19 lockdowns applied and even now when pupils are following COVID regulations and isolating at home.

Each school Trust CEO is responsible for leading the Executive Team of the Trust that enables all the schools within the Trust to deliver the best possible pupil outcomes regardless of ability so each pupil is ready to become a model citizen contributing positively to the society in which we live. The CEO does this through providing high level inspirational strategic leadership and management across all aspects of the Trust's activities.

The former Secretary of State, Gavin Williamson, stated that MATs ‘are powerful vehicles for improving schools by sharing expertise, working collaboratively and driving improvements’. This concept is also referred to as school improvement support and covers a range of services provided across schools in MATs but also between a MAT and a Local Authority (LA) maintained school. Alternative words to school improvement support, such as collaboration are also used. But what do these words really mean in practice?