Mark Lehain is Head of Education at the Centre for Policy Studies.
I wrote recently on this site about how people can be healthier, happier, richer or live longer lives, and education is pretty much a silver bullet.
Schools play an essential part in this, and we’ve made huge strides forward in England in the last few decades. There is no doubt that the pandemic and its aftermath have made things much harder, but it would be much, much worse if we’d not had such successful reforms beforehand.
One of the most important developments has been the growth and spread of multi-academy trusts (MATs): groups of schools run by one academy trust, able to operate across multiple authorities or even regions.
You’ve probably heard of some of the bigger ones, like the Harris Federation, Ark Schools, or STAR Academies, but the MAT movement goes way beyond these. There are over 10,000 academies now, with more than 85% of these in a MAT, working closely together with others in their group.
If you don’t have a child in a MAT school or know someone who works in one, then you might not have been aware of this trend, but it is significant, and building upon it is the key to giving more children a better education in the next few years.
Why am I such a fan? The key advantage is that it allows great governors and leaders to make an impact across a whole group of schools, not just one. Phenomenal people like Dan Moynihan (Harris Federation) or Hamid Patel (Star Academies) go from running a single school to a whole family of them, transforming literally tens of thousands of lives in the process.
And they can do this for two key reasons.
First of all, unlike in an old-style Local Education Authority, accountability and money go together. I can’t name many or any councillors or Chief Education Officers who lost their job because local schools were rubbish, but I know of MAT leaders who had to walk or had schools taken off them because they weren’t doing well enough for kids. This focuses the mind and gets the best out of people.
Secondly, MATs are able to move money, people, expertise and resources around their schools to where they’re most needed. Perhaps it’s a struggling school that they’ve just taken on and needs investment. Maybe a department has lost a key member of staff to illness or promotion, and the MAT can move staff from elsewhere to fill their place. Or they’ve found an approach to teaching phonics that really works for kids, and they can embed it across all their schools.
Standalone schools or LEAs could not and cannot do this, and are less resilient as a result.
Getting schools ‘unstuck’
And there is now clear and growing evidence that MATs do better for children and teachers in a whole bunch of ways.
They’re more successful at getting ‘stuck’ schools ‘unstuck’. They’re better at staff recruitment and retention and, unlike the rest of the system, get more experienced staff into the schools with more disadvantaged pupils.
They also demonstrate better financial management, and on average get more of their money into the actual classroom.
This all adds up to better educational outcomes for pupils.
For instance, if all 11 year-olds did as well in their SATs as those who attend a school in a MAT in the top quarter of performance, 8% more would start secondary school at the expected standard. If everyone attended a primary school as good as those in the top 10% of MATs, the rise would be 14%, and 19% percentage points for disadvantaged kids.
Passing the test
Put simply: we have a way of running schools that we know is more cost effective, more responsive, and does better for teachers and pupils. The challenge is how we expand these benefits to every state school.
This is what I explore in a report out today for the Centre for Policy Studies – ‘Passing the Test: The future of the academies programme’.
In it, I propose practical and low-cost policies that focus on the schools that are most keen to join or form a MAT, reduce hurdles in the process, and make it easier for schools and trusts to find suitable matches.
Some of these are pretty technical. For example, the government should run a “Domesday Book” exercise across the maintained sector, so there is a clear record of assets, liabilities, and so on at each school ready to use when it joins a trust. We also need legislation to address land ownership issues that many church schools face upon academisation.
Others are about helping people find the right partners. Trusts should publish key information about how they work – behaviour strategies, curriculums taught, approaches to budget setting etc – so that schools can easily assess who they’d consider joining (or not).
‘Tinder for Trusts’
This could form the basis of a “Tinder for Trusts”, as part of an independent MATchmaking service to help school-to-MAT and MAT-to-MAT hookups. Left-swipe for a standardised curriculum, right-swipe for more in-school support!
Most importantly though, ministers need to find their voice and put a rocket under all of this. The government’s target had been to get every school joining a strong MAT by 2030, but earlier this year it was watered down to “over time”.
Frustratingly, they did this just as the sector had accepted that getting together in MATs was inevitable, and so were getting on with it!
The Catholic Church and Church of England are already academising their remaining 4,000-odd maintained schools, meaning that two-thirds of all schools will be an academy, teaching over 70% of pupils.
Given how effective MATs are proving to be at so many things, it would be crazy to not use the time left before the election to get as many schools as possible into one. A dash of cash and burst of energy from ministers is all it would take, then they can leave it to the sector to get right-swiping and find the right MATch for their school.
Mark Lehain is Head of Education at the Centre for Policy Studies.
I wrote recently on this site about how people can be healthier, happier, richer or live longer lives, and education is pretty much a silver bullet.
Schools play an essential part in this, and we’ve made huge strides forward in England in the last few decades. There is no doubt that the pandemic and its aftermath have made things much harder, but it would be much, much worse if we’d not had such successful reforms beforehand.
One of the most important developments has been the growth and spread of multi-academy trusts (MATs): groups of schools run by one academy trust, able to operate across multiple authorities or even regions.
You’ve probably heard of some of the bigger ones, like the Harris Federation, Ark Schools, or STAR Academies, but the MAT movement goes way beyond these. There are over 10,000 academies now, with more than 85% of these in a MAT, working closely together with others in their group.
If you don’t have a child in a MAT school or know someone who works in one, then you might not have been aware of this trend, but it is significant, and building upon it is the key to giving more children a better education in the next few years.
Why am I such a fan? The key advantage is that it allows great governors and leaders to make an impact across a whole group of schools, not just one. Phenomenal people like Dan Moynihan (Harris Federation) or Hamid Patel (Star Academies) go from running a single school to a whole family of them, transforming literally tens of thousands of lives in the process.
And they can do this for two key reasons.
First of all, unlike in an old-style Local Education Authority, accountability and money go together. I can’t name many or any councillors or Chief Education Officers who lost their job because local schools were rubbish, but I know of MAT leaders who had to walk or had schools taken off them because they weren’t doing well enough for kids. This focuses the mind and gets the best out of people.
Secondly, MATs are able to move money, people, expertise and resources around their schools to where they’re most needed. Perhaps it’s a struggling school that they’ve just taken on and needs investment. Maybe a department has lost a key member of staff to illness or promotion, and the MAT can move staff from elsewhere to fill their place. Or they’ve found an approach to teaching phonics that really works for kids, and they can embed it across all their schools.
Standalone schools or LEAs could not and cannot do this, and are less resilient as a result.
Getting schools ‘unstuck’
And there is now clear and growing evidence that MATs do better for children and teachers in a whole bunch of ways.
They’re more successful at getting ‘stuck’ schools ‘unstuck’. They’re better at staff recruitment and retention and, unlike the rest of the system, get more experienced staff into the schools with more disadvantaged pupils.
They also demonstrate better financial management, and on average get more of their money into the actual classroom.
This all adds up to better educational outcomes for pupils.
For instance, if all 11 year-olds did as well in their SATs as those who attend a school in a MAT in the top quarter of performance, 8% more would start secondary school at the expected standard. If everyone attended a primary school as good as those in the top 10% of MATs, the rise would be 14%, and 19% percentage points for disadvantaged kids.
Passing the test
Put simply: we have a way of running schools that we know is more cost effective, more responsive, and does better for teachers and pupils. The challenge is how we expand these benefits to every state school.
This is what I explore in a report out today for the Centre for Policy Studies – ‘Passing the Test: The future of the academies programme’.
In it, I propose practical and low-cost policies that focus on the schools that are most keen to join or form a MAT, reduce hurdles in the process, and make it easier for schools and trusts to find suitable matches.
Some of these are pretty technical. For example, the government should run a “Domesday Book” exercise across the maintained sector, so there is a clear record of assets, liabilities, and so on at each school ready to use when it joins a trust. We also need legislation to address land ownership issues that many church schools face upon academisation.
Others are about helping people find the right partners. Trusts should publish key information about how they work – behaviour strategies, curriculums taught, approaches to budget setting etc – so that schools can easily assess who they’d consider joining (or not).
‘Tinder for Trusts’
This could form the basis of a “Tinder for Trusts”, as part of an independent MATchmaking service to help school-to-MAT and MAT-to-MAT hookups. Left-swipe for a standardised curriculum, right-swipe for more in-school support!
Most importantly though, ministers need to find their voice and put a rocket under all of this. The government’s target had been to get every school joining a strong MAT by 2030, but earlier this year it was watered down to “over time”.
Frustratingly, they did this just as the sector had accepted that getting together in MATs was inevitable, and so were getting on with it!
The Catholic Church and Church of England are already academising their remaining 4,000-odd maintained schools, meaning that two-thirds of all schools will be an academy, teaching over 70% of pupils.
Given how effective MATs are proving to be at so many things, it would be crazy to not use the time left before the election to get as many schools as possible into one. A dash of cash and burst of energy from ministers is all it would take, then they can leave it to the sector to get right-swiping and find the right MATch for their school.