The decision-making process for moving schools into multi-academy trusts (MATs) has been laid out in new guidance from the Department for Education.
It includes information about how the department matches a trust to an individual school and how it plans to measure the quality and capacity of each MAT.
The department’s regional directors will use headline performance data on school improvement and whether trusts provide a high-quality and inclusive education as part of this process.
From next year, the department will also be using data on a trust’s workforce performance as part of its decision making.
The new guidance comes after the government carried out an academies regulatory and commissioning review, and amid mounting concern among both sector leaders and parent campaigners about how DfE academy decisions are currently being made.
Here is everything you need to know about the new guidance published today.
1. How will the DfE assess the quality of a MAT?
The DfE has already published a set of descriptors for what constitutes a high-quality MAT.
This included criteria for a high-quality and inclusive education, school improvement, workforce, finance and operations and governance and leadership.
The new guidance says that the quality of education will always be its primary concern. It says the emphasis it places on the other areas will depend on the strategic needs in each case.
It says: “For example, where a sponsor is sought for an educationally underperforming school, there may be a particular emphasis on the quality and consistency of the trust’s school improvement; or a financially fragile school might seek a trust with strengths in finance and operations.”
For each of its descriptions of MAT quality, the DfE says it is breaking down evidence into three categories:
- Headline metrics “to help us build our hypothesis and prompt further questions”.
- Verifiers “to provide more in-depth data for a richer understanding of the trust”.
- Qualitative evidence, which “enables us to explore areas where data is not easily available or where it does not tell the whole story”.
The DfE guidance says that no single metric will be used to determine trust quality and that it will assess a range of evidence to give a rounded picture.
It also does not yet have headline metrics in place for the school workforce - but it plans to introduce them from next year.
2. How will the DfE assess the needs of an area?
The guidance says that the DfE’s Regions Group, led by regional directors, is responsible for taking decisions on behalf of the secretary of state about the creation, consolidation and growth of academy trusts.
It adds that the group will “assess the strategic needs of the school, of the academy trust, and of the local area”.
It will also “use quantitative and qualitative evidence to consider factors relating to the quality of academy trusts and align the strategic needs of the school, the academy trust and the local area with trust quality factors to reach a recommendation”.
It has previously produced a series of development statements for the country’s education investment areas that set out the type of MAT growth the department wants to see. This revealed that the DfE wants trusts to merge, consolidate or form clusters in many of these identified areas of educational underperformance.
3. How will the DfE make decisions about which MAT takes on an underperforming school?
When the government has decided to intervene at a school, the DfE says it will “prioritise identifying trusts with the expertise and track record in delivering high-quality and inclusive education” and with the capacity to “rapidly transform”.
This guidance says this starts with developing a longlist of all trusts currently working in the area or who have shown an interest in doing so.
The trusts identified for this longlist can then be considered alongside the needs of the school in question. This could include comparing school performance data to identify trusts performing well in similar settings to the school in question.
The guidance also states that trusts will no longer need to obtain designated sponsor status as part of the process of being considered to take on a school.
4. What will happen if a maintained school wants to join an existing MAT?
The new document says that when a school has already identified a trust they wish to join, the focus is on checking whether the match is the right one and whether the trust is ready to grow.
The DfE Regions Group will look for evidence that any new school will be able to contribute “to improve and maintain the performance of schools already in the trust”.
For the incoming school, the DfE will also examine whether the trust is a good match to support the school in addressing any developmental needs identified by Regions Group, through Ofsted inspection reports or by the school itself.
5. Decisions on special schools and AP schools
The DfE says that when assessing the quality of a trust to run specialist and alternative provision schools, the Regions Group will look in particular for strong evidence of expertise in managing such specialist provision.
It adds: “We also recognise the challenges in using traditional academic performance metrics to assess the quality of education provision in specialist and AP settings. This means a wider range of metrics and intelligence will be needed to ensure decisions meet the specific needs of the pupils of the school or schools in question, for example: school Ofsted reports, post-16 destination and absence data.”
The Regions Group will also consider the strategic plans of the relevant local authorities as the body responsible for both commissioning and funding high-needs places.
6. Trust mergers and school transferring between MATs
The document notes that the Regions Group makes decisions about applications from trusts to transfer one or more of their academies to a different academy trust. A single-academy trust might also choose to join an existing or new multi-academy trust.
It says these transfers may be advantageous where geographically the school, or group of schools, would gain improved access to shared resources, teaching communities and professional development opportunities.
The guidance adds that it also makes decisions about two or more trusts wanting to amalgamate. It said this can be done to “consolidate education provision within an area in order to effect greater change”.
Academies minister Baroness Barran said: “High-quality trusts are essential for building a strong and resilient school system that delivers the best possible outcomes for all children, which is why we encourage all schools to be part of one.
“Building on from the Academies Regulatory and Commissioning Review, which set out what makes a high-quality trust, this new guidance will increase transparency around how commissioning decisions are made to support trusts to know how to grow and improve.”
