Seven academy trusts and schools have been awarded a combined £650,000 by the Department for Education as part of a scheme to support struggling schools.

The new regional development partners will help to oversee the department’s trust and school improvement offer in each of the nine government regions.

Under the scheme, schools receive up to 10 days of support and advice from a system leader.

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The department says this will normally be a chief executive of “a strong multi-academy trust”, supported by their wider team, or a national leader of education (NLE).

The DfE has said the seven selected trusts and schools will be responsible for the “identification of schools, matching, brokering and monitoring of system leader support of schools involved in the programme”.

The successful contractors were appointed following a competitive procurement. 

The total value of the contract is worth £646,225, according to new DfE documents.

The trust and school improvement offer is available to single schools that receive an Ofsted “requires improvement” judgement during the 2022-23 academic year.

This applies to local-authority-maintained schools and single-academy trusts.

Multi-academy trusts can also apply for support if they have at least two schools that have been part of the trust for three years or more, and they meet either of the following criteria:

• There has been an overall decline in Ofsted judgements for schools within the trust, taking into account the schools’ most recent inspection since joining the trust.
• At least 50 per cent of the schools have a current Ofsted “requires improvement” judgement, or worse, which they have received since joining the trust.