To join a trust or not to join a trust?

That was the overarching question that arose from an in-depth panel discussion at the Schools and Academies Show in Birmingham last week, which brought together a cross-section of experts to discuss the “transformation journey” that the government wants the schools’ sector to go through - most notably with the grand aim for all schools to be in an academy trust by 2030.

This ambition, the panel seemed to conclude through its discussion, is unlikely to be achieved.

“They’ll have to academise 25 schools a week, which is pretty quick,” noted Jude Hillary, head of UK policy and practice research at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).

The target for academy trust expansion

One of the biggest hurdles to overcome in achieving the government’s target is that, whereas eight months ago the question of whether to join a multi-academy trust might have been in school leaders’ minds, the reality is that, now, according to Paul Gosling, president of the NAHT school leaders’ union, they are simply focused on their school “just staying open”.

“The sole worry at the moment is how to deal with the funding situation. All those strategic ideas and plans are really taking second place,” he said, explaining that this opinion was formed after engaging with over 4,000 members of his union across the country over the past few months.

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Where the question was still being raised, he said, it was often being discussed with an eye on money.

“Some people have been talking to me about becoming a trust, or, ‘Will going into a trust help us financially?’ And that’s unclear, apart from, obviously, when you’re talking about economies of scale at certain sizes. But at the moment the overwhelming concern among leaders is just keeping afloat,” Mr Gosling said.

Speaking before the chancellor’s Autumn Statement last Thursday, he noted that if the government found more money for the sector then “maybe there’ll be some time to devote to thinking more strategically about the system”.

As it turned out, the government did find more money for schools - £2.3 billion per year for the next two years.

However, the sense is that, although this extra funding is welcome, it is unlikely to make the financial headaches for schools disappear. Nevertheless, could it ease the pressure on school leaders to the extent that they might start thinking about academisation again?

Steve Rollett, deputy CEO of the Confederation of Schools Trust (CST), which advocates for academy trusts, will certainly be hoping so. At the Schools and Academies Show, he argued that although the economic reality was “a really difficult situation” for schools, considerations about the future will still be part of many leadership discussions.

“What organisations will be doing, inevitably, is thinking about the future, not only about the slightly arbitrary number of 2030 but they will be thinking about what’s the future for their organisation and their place in the school system,” he said.

Have we passed the ‘tipping point’?

Mr Rollett argued, too, that with over 50 per cent of children now being educated in schools run by academy trusts, the sector has passed a “tipping point”, meaning that “the direction is clear” towards a trust-led system.

That sentiment might serve to sharpen a few minds, and the view that a “tipping point” has been passed was voiced, too, by Lord Knight, chair of the board of trustees at E-Act academy trust and a former minister of state for schools. He said that the relative financial strength of trusts in the current climate might seem attractive to schools.

“When you look at the amount of funding that goes into the local government department, it’s been cut by about 60 per cent in real terms in the last 10 years compared to the Department for Education, which has largely stood still,” he said.

“[So] the financial future and the amount of support you can get feels like it’s much stronger in the trust than the local authorities, with local authorities now going bust. Even Hampshire and Kent are talking about not having enough money to keep going, the way they work.”

Lord Knight admitted that these were “negative reasons” for academy trusts to grow - but said that they could help policymakers pushing for a trust-led schools’ system.

“Let’s just get on with an all-trust system and try and design it so it works really well for every child in every part of the country,” he said.

The chair of one of the biggest MATs calling for an all-trust system may not be surprising, but Lord Knight was also willing to acknowledge that some trusts will likely struggle in the months and years ahead.

“I fear that some trusts will go under, and growth of trusts will happen just because they have to be rescued,” he said. “That’s not the right way to start a partnership.”

What makes a ‘strong’ trust?

That sort of reality, though, may be exactly why schools are holding off joining trusts. After all, what if the trust you join, which seems to align with your ethos and ideals, goes under and you are then subsumed into a big beast with a very different set of values?

Ah, but, of course, to avoid this fate you simply have to join a “strong” trust - something the government has been promising to define for some time.

DfE minister Baroness Barran had earlier taken to the stage at the show, setting out some nice-sounding platitudes for strong trusts, around areas such as “a clear strategy for quality across all their schools” and having “great curriculums”.

What trusts won’t say they have that, though?

The lack of clarity on what defines a “strong” trust was made plain by Mr Hillary, who noted that many schools will be wary of joining a trust if they don’t know whether it would satisfy whatever definition of a strong trust the government draws up.

“As vice chair of governors at a local authority-maintained school, I would like to know [how a strong trust is defined] before I commit our school,” he said.

“I can’t think of anything worse than joining a trust and then finding out it is not a ‘strong’ trust in a couple of years’ time, according to government definitions.”

The other big argument he raised was that, to date, the empirical evidence is lacking to justify the government’s belief that trusts perform better than maintained schools.

“I don’t think there’s any evidence that I’ve seen which suggests academisisation improved pupil outcomes, and we’ve been doing this quite a while now,” Mr Hillary said.

The research challenge 

For Mr Rollett and Hannah Woodhouse, regional director for the South West region at the DfE, this argument made for a potentially awkward moment at the show - but they took up the challenge of countering it gamely.

“We always have this debate about what the evidence base is, how we can compare two very different sectors and the progress that has been made and how we do that effectively,” Woodhouse acknowledged.

“I think it is the case that, certainly, sponsored schools, schools that were vulnerable that have joined a MAT, have improved faster […] than they would have done previously. So we have got some data there.”

Mr Rollett, meanwhile, admitted that perhaps, in the ongoing debates about whether we should move to a full MAT system or not, not enough time has been spent delving into successful trusts to prove their successes.

“When you look at the research literature that should help us to answer some of these questions, it’s woefully insufficient because it’s been asking the wrong question,” he said,

By way of example, he said of the top 10 schools in the North East for improving their Progress 8 measures between 2019 and 2022, five were in one MAT.

“Have we had researchers in? Have they been into that trust? How do we put the funding into the system, into the research, to be curious to find out what are they doing so that we can then better understand what’s working in different localities,” he said.

“We haven’t seen enough of that. I hope that we do as we move forward.”

Woodhouse concurred: “I don’t think we can ever have enough evidence and we should continue to ask for it.”  

Mr Hillary’s response? “If funding was available to do more research in this area, then we could have a try.”

That seems an open goal for the DfE, perhaps. This research may be some time coming, though - and it is certainly unlikely to be on a scale to inspire the confidence that would compel all schools to join a MAT by 2030.

Not a decision to be rushed 

As such, if that 2030 target is to be hit, it seems likely that it’s going to come more through a mix of financial necessity, government cajoling, mergers and a general sense of a need to join a trust - all of which, Mr Gosling says, is not the right way for the system to grow.

“School leaders are thinking about their children, their communities and what it will mean for them, and in some circumstances joining a local trust in a rush to meet a target may not be the best thing,” he said.

What’s more, he worries that this could also “wreck the trusts we’ve already got” by forcing them to grow too quickly.

“By setting the target for 2030 without any real plan on how that looks, you could actually destroy the very thing you’re trying to create or jeopardise it certainly, or lead to a period of real chaos,” Mr Gosling said.

This was making some school leaders “very nervous” about joining trusts because they don’t know where it will lead or what the long-term vision is for a trust system, he added.

“The government needs a plan […] we want to know what you’re doing, what the funding is linked to, what happens to the people involved and how is going to work - we need that vision.”

This rallying cry was met with a burst of applause from the audience at the show, underlying the sentiment in the sector.

All change at the top?

Of course, the elephant in the room was that between now and 2030 there is the small matter of a general election, which could well see a change in government and, therefore, a change of direction in policy.

This could also be causing some schools to hold off on joining an academy trust.

“I don’t know what the government’s going to look like in two years’ time,” Mr Gosling said.  

Lord Knight, however, felt that change was coming in Westminster. “I think, chances are, we will have a Labour government in a couple of years’ time,” he noted.

But he did not suggest that this would stop the academies movement in its tracks. Rather, it would be about whether or not the Labour Party would try to stick to the same 2030 target.

“There’s the unanswered question as to whether or not Keir [Starmer, Labour leader] and Bridget [Phillipson, shadow education secretary] want to push ahead with that target or whether they’ll be more relaxed about it,” he said.

He added that even if they do throw their weight behind the same academisation target, the likelihood of it being hit is unlikely.

“If they do want to push ahead, […] there’s a fair chance we will get there or thereabouts. But I doubt we get to 100 per cent,” Lord Knight said.

Mr Rollett said he was confident that, eventually, all schools will be in trusts - although he also thought the deadline was unrealistic.

“I think there’s an inevitability that we will see in the future all schools in trusts. Will that target be met in 2030, though?…I think that’s harder to call at this stage.”

Woodhouse, as part of the DfE, left the audience will no uncertainty about the faith the government has in the multi-academy trust system.

“The minister [Baroness Barran] was very clear that we remain committed to high-quality multi-academy trusts, which is the best way of scaling improvement,” she said.

“I think it’s unarguable that it makes sense for schools to work in partnership - I don’t think anybody is debating that - and what we all want is for schools to be supporting each other in strong partnerships.”

Plenty of people agree but it’s clear that for some schools in the current economic and political environment, it’s going to take more than faith for them to decide to join a trust.

Dan Worth is senior editor at Tes