The multi-academy trust landscape started to take shape in 2010 when the early MATs emerged, mostly from successful schools that felt strong enough to branch out into the relatively uncharted world of “independence” from local authority (LA) control.
Over the intervening 13 years, many more schools have followed this path, and several patterns of MAT growth have appeared.
Some schools went into standalone trusts, or sometimes a combination of near neighbours or friends “got in first” to prevent being “taken over”.
Academy trust growth
There were, however, a number of school leaders who went for growth - “large is best” was their view, as leaders equated the size of the MAT to their influence within the system.
Through all of this the general trend was for secondary schools to lead the way. When primary and secondary schools came together, it was often seen as natural for the secondary school to take the lead.
This was often with the agreement of primary schools, which felt protected by secondaries. Academisation was seen as the management of diverse aspects of school life previously organised by the LA, and so secondaries seemed more naturally suited to manage this.
However, not all primary schools took this approach.
Staying small
South Farnham Educational Trust (SFET) came into existence in 2011 as a standalone trust, formed of the infant and junior South Farnham School.
Myself, as CEO, and my trustees were not driven to grow rapidly but instead focused on developing an educational philosophy and an “institutional memory” to ensure that this philosophy was fully understood so it could be sustained.
This ethos helped us to appeal to five more primary schools that were interested in aligning with the philosophy that they saw being established.
Building on this, SFET expanded to develop its long-standing school-centred initial teacher training SCITT to support many schools beyond the MAT.
In this endeavour it soon became apparent that in the world of teacher training, size certainly matters. Through close local friendships the SCITT merged with other local providers and extended its range to include both primary and secondary trainees.
This process developed naturally through the merging of skillsets between primary and secondary leaders - and was driven by an understanding that the system’s needs stand higher than those of schools alone.
An expanding trust
We started being approached by secondary schools keen to find out more and join a trust that they saw as the right fit, rather than them simply attaching themselves to other trusts that also contained secondary schools.
We, too, wanted to ensure that any new secondary school that joined was the right fit and would help to broaden and extend our influence.
In 2020 we were blessed with finding a secondary colleague who shared this vision in the form of Chris Edwards, the head of Brighton Hill Community School in Basingstoke. Now, as of June 2023, the school is part of our trust.
For some, this move - a secondary joining a primary-only MAT - may sound puzzling. After all, as noted earlier, the traditional MAT model was secondaries leading primaries.
But for us this was never an issue. We have never seen SFET as a primary-only vehicle. What we were always clear about was that we had a great deal of primary expertise and that was, and is, a very strong base for any educational venture.
Shared vision
As such, when we met discussions were never about arbitrary primary/secondary divides or asking “can a primary school support a secondary school?” but about asking “what can the trust do and who is best placed to support?”.
This mean focusing on capacity, on great teaching and learning from age 3 to 16 and how our teacher training can ensure that pupils, teachers and families have access to great schools and educational opportunities that have their philosophical basis rooted in non-partisan concepts of education.
This is key - the concept of a trust lies with the verb not the noun. In education we have a strong sense of social justice and a common purpose. It should never be about one phase being better or dominant over the other but about common understanding, reliability and belief in one another..
As MATs continue to evolve, we should aim to blur the artificial boundaries between primary and secondary education and instead look at ensuring that strong trusts are developed that focus on the whole child, whatever their age or key stage.
Sir Andrew Carter is CEO of the South Farnham Educational Trust (SFET)
