In May this year Ofsted called. This was the big one: a multi-academy trust summary evaluation (MATSE).
So far just a handful of trusts have experienced a MATSE, and I hope that my description below gives you an insight into the process and reduces the pressure when you get “the call”.
For us, the call wasn’t a surprise: having had nine routine inspections between September 2022 and May 2023, we were an obvious candidate. Though not every trust will get a MATSE.
Ofsted evaluation of academy trusts: the set-up
Right now, trusts have a choice as to whether or not to proceed with a MATSE. This is because, as the guidance on MATSE currently stands, all trusts are given the option to decline the inspection.
In our case, in spite of inspectors’ assurances that it was the multi-academy trust, not the schools, being evaluated, we knew that our school leaders would inevitably feel under scrutiny, and we thought long and hard about the impact on staff wellbeing.
However, we made the choice to proceed with care, treating it as a chance to showcase our journey of transformation.
At a practical level, we were well-prepared and ready to go, with a trust self evaluation form (SEF) largely in place and a central team ready to respond. We had time to put together case studies to exemplify our work.
Preparations were smooth, too; the process for determining the timeline was more flexible than on a standard inspection.
For example, where we wanted to spend more time discussing an issue in detail, the inspectors were responsive to this and built more time into the schedule. This was an adaptation you would never expect in a routine Ofsted school inspection.
The visit
Because nine of our schools had been inspected fairly recently, Ofsted already had an array of insights on the MAT and a portion of its schools.
It refers to these schools as “The Batch”, and it’s a term that appears in the final MATSE report.
Although these schools have been visited recently, this doesn’t mean they will not be looked at again in the MATSE. In fact, inspectors visited four schools from “The Batch” in our MATSE, as well as a further seven schools from outside “The Batch”.
Within these Ofsted visits, we liaised with the lead inspector on areas that we wanted to exemplify, and they shared with us the schools that they wanted to visit or call - this was a mix of those recently inspected and those that were not in the inspection window.
Inspectors’ school-level focus varied: from reading to areas for improvement (AFIs) from recent inspections, to the impact of the trust in the transformation of the school, to a focus on how school leaders lead within a trust setting.
During the four-day inspection itself, the inspection team spent half their time on school visits and calls to principals, and the other half with trust leaders, trustees and governors. Of our 26 schools, just two were not involved in the MATSE in some form.
Inspectors also met with trustees and local governor committees, as well as central staff on safeguarding, curriculum, inclusion and governance, and our team worked hard to keep us abreast of progress and provide additional information and evidence.
The report
Our report was published on the 3 July, and we saw a draft about a month after the MATSE had concluded.
The MATSE report included comments on the trust’s impact on the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes of students, leadership and management of staff, governance and safeguarding. The report concluded with the inspectors’ recommendations for improvement.
We were pleased with the report and feel it’s a fair reflection of the journey so far and the road to come.
What’s more, we appreciated the collaborative approach taken by the inspection team, including in the early sharing of focus areas for improvement, which align with current priorities.
It is undeniable that the MATSE has created a sense of confidence, assurance and positivity, and there has been a positive cultural “bounce” following the release of the report, with staff expressing pride at the external validation of their work.
Reflections on the MATSE
Having completed the evaluation, I do wonder, though, who a MATSE is for.
True, it has offered assurance for our direction of travel, but the nine school inspections we have had since September already did this.
It made me wonder whether we are overthinking an already complex evaluation framework for trusts, recently added to with the commissioning and regulatory framework, and potentially to be added to further with a MAT inspection framework.
There could certainly be some refinements to the process, which at times revealed Ofsted’s preference to understand the trust through what it sees in schools rather than looking at the MAT as an organisational entity.
For example, Ofsted chose to visit a school rather than sitting in on a trustees’ education committee meeting that would have given it clear sight of how standards are overseen. It was also surprising that operational decisions, budgeting and financial planning and HR data got almost no airtime at all.
Was it worth doing? On balance, I think it was.
For a trust that tends to fly below the radar, the report gives Astrea’s staff, trustees and stakeholders something to shout about at an organisational level and has given us a much-needed tonic after a tough few years.
We should not, though, be blind to the increasing complexity of accountability systems that our sector is experiencing or fail to recognise the very significant impact on individuals, as well as organisations, of this high-stakes and very public accountability landscape.
Rowena Hackwood is CEO of Astrea Academy Trust
