Our guest blog today is from Amanda Hodder, CFFO at Emmaus Catholic MAC. Amanda is an experienced, transformational Chief Finance and Operations Officer (CFOO) focused on delivering real strategic value and aligning business, digital and finance strategies. She has worked within finance in the commercial sector since 2000 and became AAT qualified in 2006. Amanda went on to study CIMA and, having moved across to the education sector in 2015, transferred her studies to ACCA since working in the education sector. She is a strong, confident leader who leads firmly from the front, in the belief that every young person should have access to good quality education.

When we talk about why we all work in education, more often than not, you will hear it’s because people genuinely care about the impact on students. The extra hours worked late at night or the Saturday afternoons marking and catching up on emails; we all go above and beyond with our time to serve the next generation. 

The term ‘servant leadership’ was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970s, and it has since gained traction as a powerful and ethical approach to leadership. Servant leadership emphasises ethical behaviour, a focus on people, and a commitment to shared success. That’s why it aligns well with our vision at Emmaus, which is: ‘Excellent Catholic education for all in the heart of our communities: nourishing faith, nurturing talent, fostering aspiration’. And similarly, I’m sure it also aligns with your own organisation’s visions, as well as your personal motivators as educators. 

So, if we are all in education because we care about the pupils, then our commitment to improving the lives of all young people and commitment to share success must be easy – right? Our customers, our pupils, are the most important commodity in any school or trust. They deserve to be our key focus and to receive the very best educational experience available to them. Educational leadership is learning to do more with less and committing to that shared success. 

Then we must ask, how are trusts delivering on this servant leadership? For many, it’s through centralisation.

The latest Kreston Report identifies that 61% of trusts are now fully centralised, with the note that ‘This is in line with our expectations given that centralisation is widely considered to aid consistency across schools, should result in synergies and is expected to give opportunities for financial efficiencies within MATs.’

Yet looking outside of the Kreston Report, it doesn’t take long to find a negative view on centralisation, with many school leaders terrified of losing control. 

But what if we bring it back to our guiding vision, our reasons for working in education, our North Star? If Kreston has it right, and centralisation can make trusts the best they can be, then how can we show schools that this is something to embrace? 

For me, centralisation is not about losing control. It’s about gaining it. By having these structures in place, you can aid consistency across schools and provide opportunities for financial efficiencies within trusts, which opens doors for school leaders, rather than closing them. 

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What we do at Emmaus

If you take the Kreston Benchmark definitions, Emmaus would be classified as a combination of centralised model and moving towards full centralisation as we continue to grow. Our Catholic Multi Academy Company began in 2014 and by September 2024, we’ll have grown to 13 primaries and one secondary, spanning four local authorities. We’ll have approximately 4,200 pupils and 600 staff. 

From 2014 – 2020 we operated a decentralised structure. Our schools were confident that they could continue working as they had done prior to becoming a MAC and we didn’t have a large enough team centrally to move the systems and processes from schools into the centre. We were lucky in the sense that these six original schools were already performing strongly. 

As we looked at taking on four extra schools in 2020/21, we started to consider what finance could look like if we centralised and what we could offer with a centralised IT service. That’s when our centralisation journey began to grow. 

Trust was a crucial element in this journey. The schools trusted us to keep them involved and not take over, take control or isolate them and we trusted our team to work together as a family of schools, committed to that shared success. We have working groups sharing best practices and continually update processes and procedures when new ideas are shared. 

By encouraging the behaviours that built that trust and established our relationships energised and motivated our team, it improved morale and employee engagement as we gave stretched office staff back time to enable them to focus on other areas, which in turn led to increased productivity, performance and retention.

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The benefits we’ve already seen

We are seeing more and more guidance, frameworks, and expectations pushed down from the DfE. For instance, the expectation to be working towards ‘meeting digital and technology standards in schools’, which was constantly being updated. The requirement for compliance is huge, accompanied by no financial support from the government. Given that our IT is centralised, we can absorb this pressure centrally and support our schools to ensure they can work towards the standards. 

We define our centralisation journey as having the trust and confidence in the honesty, integrity, and reliability of another person, firmly believing that they will act in accordance with what they say. The principle of working together and sharing best practice to achieve the best educational outcomes that our pupils deserve. Understanding the implications of our decisions, including the impact on departmental and organisational objectives, has helped us to avoid costly mistakes and supported in making decisions that always add value to our trust. 

In the wise words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” We must support our school leaders by releasing them to spend more time on teaching and learning and less time on administrative tasks. If we can support our teaching staff with efficiencies and introduce great systems, education can be the key focus at our schools.

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Learnings and top tips

I will be the first to admit that our trust’s journey wasn’t perfect, and we had many valuable learnings along the way:

• First and foremost, embrace honest, consistent and open communication to effectively engage your staff. Communicating and cascading information will also help your team to feel included and that they have the knowledge necessary to fulfil their duties. This will reduce the feelings of vulnerability which can arise if they are ‘kept in the dark’. If employees feel that the information you are cascading is accurate and timely, they are more likely to trust what you tell them. Communicate with the purpose of sharing knowledge; never deliberately withhold information as a means of control.

• Be clear about the scope of the decision to centralise. It’s necessary to define exactly what needs to be decided (and what does not need to be decided) at this point in time.

• Take account of uncertainty. It is important to accept that there will almost always be a degree of uncertainty about outcomes. Even if you are fairly confident that you understand the implications of centralisation, the long-term impact may be less clear. Recognising and accepting uncertainty is important even if you cannot resolve it. The actions you take will also be dependent on your own or your organisation’s attitude to risk. Consider the best and worst case scenarios, and what the impact of these would be on your Trust. 

And finally, you may find like us, this is a long game. Getting it right for us meant, and continues to mean, investing the time.

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When procuring a system like your MIS, going through an approved framework is the simplest and most secure route. It saves you spending hours drafting requirements, researching companies and going through a tender process – instead giving you all the information you need to choose the most competitive, reputable and safest provider, all through one platform.

That’s why we’re excited to be listed for the fifth time on the G-Cloud framework, as an approved Crown Commercial Services (CCS) supplier.

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What is the G-Cloud framework?

The G-Cloud framework is an agreement between the UK government and suppliers of a wide range of cloud-based services, like Arbor. The framework helps public sector organisations buy cloud services in a straightforward and transparent way, and is more efficient than posting and managing multiple, individual contracts.

The framework also gives you peace of mind that you’re complying with procurement law. It’s an easy-to-use, self-service interface hosted by Crown Commercial Services. Schools and trusts can award directly based on supplier’s features, or run a simple clarification process (with no competitions).

Plus, for the latest version of the framework (G-Cloud 14), all suppliers had to pass a Financial Viability Risk Assessment from CCS. This is a series of thorough tests to prove financial stability and make sure we can meet the standards set by the government.

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How does G-Cloud work?

You can find the DfE’s guidance on using the G-Cloud framework here. And here is our summary of the process for an MIS purchase:

1. An important first step is to work out exactly what your trust needs from your system or service before you start. For example, it might be important to you to have built-in communications and meals management, or you might want to customise the system to your bespoke assessment framework. You will likely want a system that’s compatible with multiple internet browsers and devices, and gives you secure logins.

2. Go to “Cloud software” 

3. Search for keywords that are relevant to what you’re looking for, such as ‘Primary MIS’, ‘Secondary MIS’, or ‘MAT MIS’, to find the list of relevant suppliers. Remember to download this list for your audit trail once you’ve found what you’re looking for.

If there are too many results after putting in your keywords through, you can click a filter, e.g. “2-factor authentication” to see the suppliers that provide that feature.

4. Read each supplier’s product and pricing information

5. Send any clarification questions to the suppliers or host a demo day to confirm which supplier best meets your needs

6. Award your contract using the G-Cloud contract template

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Why Arbor?

Arbor is home to the UK’s most-popular MIS and school management software, helping over 7,000 schools and MATs transform the way they work for the better. 

Arbor MAT MIS is your MAT’s mission control. More than just a dashboard, it gives you the tools and insight you need to improve the way you run your trust, grow sustainably, and work as one organisation rather than many schools.

Over 100 trusts have joined Arbor through G-Cloud so far! If you want to see Arbor in action you can book a free demo or join a webinar here.

The post Secure and cost-effective procurement – everything you need to know appeared first on Arbor.

What does a good policy look like? 

In thinking about policies, procedures and processes, success looks like meeting our charitable objectives as an academy trust. It goes without saying that everything we do should be furthering education and fulfilling our mission. However, we also subscribe very heavily to the work that the CST has done around civic trust and civic leadership. What that boils down to is that everyone within your organisation – the children, the families, our colleagues – get a sense of fulfilment, purpose, and a sense of joy. In challenging times around recruitment and retention, one of the core levers we have is to ensure that everyone feels deeply connected to their work. At Dartmoor, we start to do this by making sure that we ‘work with’, we don’t ‘do to’, in order to ensure both collegiality and alignment. We make an intentional effort to listen to all of the equally important voices in the organisation, which in turn makes our policies not only more well-known and understood, but more effective. 

A lot of what we have in place is intentional by design – they don’t just happen by accident. If we’re thinking about which processes are important to design first, I think it’s vital that the processes around finance, people, estates, and, increasingly in the last few years, digital are clarified. But again, there should always be a sense of co-construction. 

Finance, for example, in a MAT, is often a function that feels ‘done to’. People are told what they need to do to be compliant, and that’s that. I don’t like that in education, there’s schools or trusts and then there’s the support services – this makes for a separation. Trusts can be very legalistic in the way they set direction and goals, without making policies accessible for those actually using them. Our processes are codified in handbooks, formed through staff voices and working parties where we’re constantly checking in on whether they’re helpful, if they make sense, does it give staff what they need to reduce bureaucratic burden, do they feel they’re able to quickly, effectively and efficiently understand how to do x, y and z? 

If you designed a new process for, let’s say, budget management, how do you actually practically roll that out? How do you communicate that? 

Step one: create a draft playbook (this will tend to be done by the teams who are responsible)

Step two: market-test the draft with groups of colleagues, asking them to review and critique

Inclusion of our staff at this level means our policies are far more easily realised and enacted. More broadly, it really helps us to make sure we’re solving the right issues, because sometimes it’s quite easy to sit and put a process in place because we’ve looking at it from a compliance mindset. 

Compliance vs culture

Compliance is really important because it’s foundational, but it can’t be seen as a separate strand from the culture and what we’re trying to promote in terms of that collegiality, that cooperation, and as I said, that sense of ‘doing with’ not ‘doing to’. The temptation when it comes to policies, processes and procedures is to always think about the 1%, that really sharp end of risk, and ignore the 99% aspect of how we need to be setting out our cultural norms, how it needs to be linked to our vision and values, and ultimately, how policies shouldn’t just be something that you go to when you need to enact them. It should be an absolute statement of both intent and a statement of our vision and values translated into important statements.

It’s important to acknowledge that this isn’t something we’ve perfected in our trust, yet. Even with the approaches I’ve mentioned so far, there can still be a bit of a disconnect between the policy as what’s seen as a legal document versus what we actually want it to be. And that’s because it has represented a step change. Especially for very experienced colleagues, their understanding of a policy is, here’s something I go to if I’m not happy or I’m in trouble or something’s coming up. There’s a change curve there that just takes a bit more embedding and reiteration.

Implementing policies in our schools 

When it comes to people policies, the vast majority in our trust, are set at that central level. This is important for two reasons. From a compliance point of view, we have to remember we are one employer and therefore, actually, terms and conditions need to be equitable. From a cultural point of view, it’s important to ensure in our policies that we are able to promote what we want. And that’s why we’ve done such a lot of work on the flexible working policy, the menopause policy and others. It’s about being progressive so that these policies are about rights, not permissions. In terms of at school level, there’s always going to be headteacher discretion for the application of policy. It’s a roadmap, it’s not a straightjacket.

A good example would be our bereavement policy, for example. When I was younger my nan died. She was a really, really important part of my life. And actually that was something where I needed some flexibility because it affected me really quite deeply. You can’t capture that all in a policy, because you need to effectively standardise some aspects, but you can do that in your processes and procedures of being able to sit someone down and say, are you okay? What support do you need, how long do you need and what can we do to be there for you? It would be impossible to write down a policy that would encapsulate how everybody reacts in grief.

Making an effective policy 

Ultimately, it should all come back to your vision and values. As Mary Meyer would say, vision and values should be lived, not laminated. A policy is a statement of how we live our values, how we live our entitlement, and how we forefront the employee experience in the way we do business.

I think the second thing that’s really important is the stakeholder engagement. Again, it’s really important that you don’t just send your policies to the union so they can sign off on it, but you actually ask questions with the intent of changing the policy where needed. Have you seen best practice? Can you help us to form this? Because they are incredibly knowledgeable in this space and really do want to work with schools and trusts to have the very best experience for their members and colleagues.

And more broadly, once you’ve formed your initial statements around policy, bringing that into a space where stakeholders get to contribute is critical. It’s no different than when we’re teaching. We don’t give resources to our young people that they’re not able to access because that would be ludicrous. So why would we, in our policies and the way we state things, just lean into a legalistic framework as opposed to enactments?

And then the third thing, which is something that we’ve only started recently, and it kind of feels like a no-brainer, is that we’ve started to do a review with stakeholders of a policy six months after implementation. It’s important to do that because we all on our policy say this will be reviewed in two years time, three years time. Why wait?

The post “Lived, not laminated” – How Dartmoor MAT implements policies, processes and procedures appeared first on Arbor.

We all know the Heraclitus phrase that ‘the only constant in life is change,’ and yet change is also the thing we fear and put off until necessary. The world of education has sometimes been slow to pick up on the great and sweeping changes that we’ve seen in the rest of the public sector, particularly when it comes to embracing cloud technology. The reasons for this are understandable: budgets are tight, retention is challenging, and the landscape seems to be constantly shifting. 2022 seemed to epitomise this landscape of change, both politically and also in the sheer numbers of schools who moved to the cloud: in one term alone nearly 1,500 schools alone moved away from legacy software. 

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Why is communication so important to change management?

Day-to-day, I speak to many MATs who are thinking about moving to the cloud and trying to align their systems, particularly as they look to grow. And what I’ve found is, whether I’m speaking to a newly formed MAT who doesn’t really know why they’re moving to the cloud, or a long-standing MAT with tens of schools, the common pitfalls remain the same, meaning trusts are setting themselves up for a far more challenging journey into cloud-based life than it ought to be. 

It all comes down to change management and communication. In Lewin’s original change management model from the 1940s, communication sits as one of the steps in the first phase – long before any kind of implementation or decision-making. Skipping this step is hazardous, but it’s something I see time and time again. From the second your team starts to think about change, be this of an MIS or something entirely different, it needs to be communicated to all those it affects. It needs to be communicated why you are thinking about change, what the impetus was, what benefits you’re aiming for and what the long-term goal is. It’s also worth mentioning that this communication piece doesn’t sit within a single email; it should be an invitation for others to be involved in the conversation. 

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Where to start?

I’d always recommend starting with a document which clearly defines: what is being changed, who it is going to affect short-term (decision-makers), and who it will affect long-term. I’d also recommend putting together a working party, who are consulted throughout the entire process. Said working party shouldn’t just include directors and the CEO, but should be representative of stakeholders, including a headteacher, perhaps teachers or office managers. 

The misconception made here is that communicating a decision is a tickbox exercise of letting those who will be affected, know about the change. Instead, it should be formative and beneficial to the decision-making process itself. The working party should be a broad spectrum of what your trust is all about so that you get different viewpoints and skillsets feeding into the conversation. And, the likelihood is, if you turn to those invested in the ‘old way’, and say, we’re thinking of moving forward with something new, people will come out of the woodwork with crucial expertise on what it is they need to do their jobs well. 

What I see far too often are well-meaning and well-researched project leads, who have spanned the entire procurement process, done their research and likely chosen the best system for their trust. And yet, there’s an assumption that all those other stakeholders will automatically reach the same conclusion without the months of context. Instead, it feels like a decision has been made and isn’t to be questioned. Those stakeholders are still at the beginning of the journey, meaning that whilst the project lead is trying to implement the project, they’re simultaneously having to justify and reconvince the trust that this was the right move. Of course, this means implementation itself suffers, training lacks buy-in, and engagement/uptake is low, meaning that even if the system were the perfect fit, nobody is bought in enough to realise the benefits. Day one of the new system becomes a rush to make up for the lack of previous dialogue. 

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Managing change with growth

With growth leading as the goal for many trusts, strategic management of such changes becomes increasingly important. It goes without saying that those schools who are yet to academise are increasingly the most reluctant to do so, with a loss of autonomy most often quoted as the biggest reasoning. If MATs are set on growing and retaining schools, in a gradually more competitive landscape, they must caveat these fears with clear communication and an openness of conversation, regardless of whatever change they are making. 

The other side of change and moving systems, for example, is not so much managing expectations as to creating expectations. Speaking strictly to MIS, it’s interesting that most trusts (though this will change), have never had to move before and have always used the same system. As a result, the question is often: this is how we did it before, how do we achieve the same thing, but in the cloud? The question should be: how can we do this better, with the support of cloud systems? 

‘Cloud’ has been a buzzword for a while; there’s an idea that schools and trusts need to simply shift everything they currently do into the cloud. I would ask those that still buy into this philosophy why they want to directly replicate something which they are actively moving away from? Instead, why not acknowledge you want change and pick strategic tools that can make a measurable difference to the way your organisation runs? Improve your workflows, improve your processes, let the technology be part of your culture and vision rather than a tickbox, consider how it can be part of your school improvement plan, think how you could reduce workload or boost wellbeing. A change of this kind should be exactly that… a change. 

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Closing thoughts

What it all comes back to is that initial impetus to change, when the decision is made to think about something new. That’s when the real change starts to happen, and in order for it to be successful, central teams must have their change management and communication piece secure from the beginning, so that everybody knows exactly where you are going, why you’re going there, and how it’s going to transform the way you work for the better. 

Since we started with a quote, it seems like a good idea to end on one too, this time from author and thought leader Lisa Bodell:

“”Change cannot be put on people. The best way to instill change is to do it with them. Create it with them.”

Matt’s article appears in our free ebook for MAT leaders, all about creating a cohesive trust, which you can download here. 

Or, discover more of our content for MATs here.

The post Perfecting the art of change management at your school or trust appeared first on Arbor.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making your website appear further up the page when people search terms into Google, or another search engine. This helps to get more organic traffic through your website… for free!

Your website probably ranks highly when people know what they’re looking for, such as when somebody types in your exact school name or location. But what about when prospective parents or students search for ‘best schools in my area’ or ‘top schools near me for sports’? 

SEO is all about helping to boost your website so that it’s easy to find, even when people don’t know exactly what they’re looking for. 

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Why is it important that my school website ranks highly?

It’s not often that schools and trusts have the capacity for a marketing team, which means your website is often your main marketing tool. It’s the place people come to when they’re browsing schools in the local area and wondering which is the best fit for their child. 

If your website is difficult to find, and prospective parents or students have to try harder to find out the information they need, then there’s a high chance that this will influence their decision-making process. It’s important that your school website is easily accessible and navigable.

For trusts in particular, your website also plays a key role in your brand as an organisation. A high-performing website, where all the information people need is at their fingertips, can give greater integrity to your brand and make your offer more attractive to schools and pupils. 

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How can I optimise my school website?

1. Use keywords

Keywords are phrases that are commonly searched for on Google, Bing or other search engines. Despite the name, they can be single words, such as ‘school’, or phrases, like ‘schools rated good by Ofsted in London.’

Threading the keywords which are important to your school (by thinking about how you want to be found online!) is a key part of SEO. You can then build these throughout the wording across your website. You can use a keyword checker to see the popularity of the terms you choose, and what your competition is like. In an ideal world, the terms you choose would have a high search count with minimal competition. 

It’s important to use these in your headings, subheadings and alt. text for pictures, as well as your main bodies of text.

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2. Links

Hyperlinks can help to boost your website’s performance in a number of ways and come in different forms. 

• Internal links – links on your own site that link to other places on your website
• External links – links on your own site that link to other sites
• Backlinks – links from other sites (such as articles, blogs etc.) which link back to your website

All the links on your site help search engines to see you as an authority in your area, so make sure they are relevant, easy to navigate and give the user exactly what they are looking for. 

Backlinks can be particularly useful in boosting your website performance, as they indicate to search engines that you are trusted and give your website authenticity. When it comes to backlinks, quality or quantity is key, look for links from websites that are closely aligned with your own and have a high authority. Don’t fall into the trap of buying backlinks! Not only can this can lead to you being penalised by the search engine, but there are plenty of organic ways to gain backlinks too. These include:

• Testimonials on other sites
• Answering questions on sites like Quora and linking back
• Guest blogging for other organisations that relate to your school’s activities
• If your school gets into the press, you can ask them to include a link in their online articles 

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3. Always prioritise the user experience

It’s super important that your website is easy to navigate, and isn’t filled with clunky, unnecessary information. This is even more significant given that the majority of internet traffic is via mobile. 

The main thing to remember is to always have the user experience front of mind when thinking about SEO. You don’t want to make it difficult for users to find the information you’d like them to see! 

In other words, there’s no point ranking highly if your website isn’t serving its original purpose. Whilst keywords and hyperlinks are good for boosting performance, stuffing them throughout your website in order to trick the search engine into ranking your website higher will be a short-lived win. Search engines will often penalise websites that attempt to use these ‘black hat tactics.’ Investing in a good quality website with useful content will always win in the long run.

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We post our blogs weekly on Twitter and LinkedIn – follow us for more useful tips and tricks for your school or trust. 

If you’re a trust thinking about your digital strategy, download our free ebook here, which features articles from MAT experts on how to perfect this in your organisation. 

Not yet using Arbor? Find out more about us here. 

The post How to optimise your trust or school website appeared first on Arbor.

In March 2022, the government released the schools white paper, which revealed plans for all schools to be part of “strong” multi-academy trusts (MATs) by 2030. Recent political change means the bill has now taken a back seat, but with many MATs already intending to grow, the scene has been set for a critical few years in the academisation journey. 

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Academisation: where do schools and multi-academy trusts currently stand?

With many trusts now set on growth, we wanted to explore if the expectations of MAT leaders aligned with the sentiment of LA maintained schools. 

In September 2022, we surveyed 108 trust leaders and 244 members of SLT in LA maintained schools from around the country. 

We found that less than half of all LA Maintained schools expected to be part of a MAT by 2030. Many cited political uncertainty, though the majority of respondents said their negative feelings towards academisation were focused on loss of autonomy, community and identity. Schools also quoted their lack of need for support, especially when they were already ”‘economically viable and have good results.” Those that do expect to join a MAT were still largely negative about the prospect, with many simply saying “we have no choice.”

Despite this response from schools, not one respondent in our survey of MAT leaders thought that their trust would add zero schools in the next three years. Most respondents expected to grow by either 4-6 schools (33%), 7-10 schools (22%) or 1-3 schools (22%). 2% of respondents expected to grow by over 31 schools. This was matched by the general consensus that “schools joining is always positive”, with many participants referring to how growth would allow their trust to “make a difference to as many lives as possible.”

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Bridging the expectations gap between schools and multi-academy trusts

The discrepancy between the way schools and trust leaders view academisation is clear. With the majority (59%) of respondents in our survey of MAT leaders saying that their preferred method of growth was through acquiring new schools, there is work to be done on changing the perception of what joining a MAT can truly mean. This is especially pertinent for MATs who want to make sure they grow as a cohesive trust with a strong culture, rather than taking on schools simply to remain financially viable. 

Political uncertainty aside, how can MAT leaders win over schools who are reluctant to academise? And, as trusts grow, how can they make sure that they do so sustainably and as one organisation, not many? 

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How to grow your multi-academy trust as one organisation, not many

We’ve put together an ebook for MAT leaders, where we hope you will find some answers to these questions. It features the thoughts of six MAT leaders and experts on growth:

• Introduction from Arbor’s CRO, Phillippa De’Ath
• Insights from Mark Greatrex, CEO at Bellevue Place Education Trust, on why fluidity and mergers are central to the future MAT landscape
• Danny Armitage, Executive Director at Together Learning Trust explores whether you can be a strong trust without a distinctive culture
• Hazel Pulley, CEO at Excelsior MAT, looks into the opportunities that come with growth for trusts and schools alike
• A guide to change management at your MAT from Matt Darsley, Arbor’s Senior Partnership Manager
• Top tips on how to create a strong digital strategy as your trust grows, from Lisa Hawker, CIO at TransforMATive
• How and why do MATs need to scale their central teams? Dave Noble, Director at NSBL Associates, provides his answers to this big question.

We’ve also put together some of the comments and perspectives from the respondents of both of our surveys.

Download your free copy here!

We’d love to see where you stand in this discussion – join the debate on social media using the hashtag #CohesiveMATs. 

Discover more of our content for multi-academy trusts here. 

The post Multi-academy trust growth strategy: How to scale as one organisation appeared first on Arbor.

I’ve always believed in leading with a strong moral purpose, supported by the idea of servant leadership. The simple values that we learn in everyday life, like treating others how you like to be treated, are ones that should be brought into your organisation. 

And I take that with me when thinking about culture. Whether it be in a classroom, a corridor or on the playground, I’m always thinking, would I be happy for my child to be involved in an interaction like that? Once you start viewing things through this lens, you can be guided by your moral purpose. 

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Taking on vulnerable schools

A great deal of our work as a trust has been around schools in special measures. When I get asked why I focus on vulnerable schools, I often reply, ‘Why not?’ It’s who we are and what we do. Many teachers get into the profession to make a difference, and I’m no exception. Certainly in the early years, it wasn’t even a consideration to turn down a school who would ask for help. You learn along the way about pinch points within your own organisation and the risk, then, that comes with this approach. Over time, you find the balance of helping others without negatively impacting what you’ve already established. However, I certainly don’t think trusts should have a blanket approach of not taking on vulnerable schools. It’s got to be an informed choice.

It’s also key to acknowledge when thinking about this choice, that taking on a vulnerable school can be brutal, both physically and emotionally. You have to unearth the challenges which have led that school to where it currently stands, which can mean uprooting safeguarding policies and having to look face-on at the harm that the previous ineffectiveness of the policy may have caused to children. That’s difficult, even when you know you are there to fix it. At the same time, there will be people who aren’t yet onboard with their school joining the trust, which can lead to further difficult conversations. Not to mention that trusts aren’t  awash with extra capacity given the challenges of funding over the last ten years. You’ve got to have a really good process for identifying what that capacity is going to be, so that you can get that transfer of resource right.

That’s why due diligence is absolutely essential. You need to make sure that the infrastructure is there, so that teachers are able to get on with their job. You can’t have out-of-date servers or significant HR issues – you need to set up the conditions for them to succeed first. Often, people are drawn immediately to focus on the quality of education, particularly in schools that Ofsted would define as ‘failing’, though I’m never comfortable with the term ‘failing school’. That’s undoubtedly important, but you have to get the infrastructure of the school right first. HR, finance, safeguarding… all of those structural things that enable you to focus on education. If you don’t fix those, they’ll keep coming back and knocking you off course. In that sense, the due diligence in those areas is far more important than what’s going on in the classroom. 

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Aligning your MAT’s culture

When it comes to changing the culture, the way I like to think of it is that we are all there for the same ‘why’, as dubbed by Simon Sinek. What people begin to understand is the reason they’re in the school is exactly the same as yours – to provide the best possible education for the students in that school. It’s important to communicate that, especially when talking to those who have been through the emotional toll of going into special measures. This way, you can be sure that, whatever comes next, your moral purpose and values are aligned. The next step is convincing them that they’re part of the solution, and not part of the problem. For a long time, staff would have been told they’re part of the problem. Their understanding of the weight of responsibility they take is disproportionate to the impact they’ve had. Often they’re the people who have tried everything to help that school, but the conditions haven’t been there for them to have the impact they want to have. 

When we take on a new school, we do this by getting everybody together. Every single member of staff, be that the caretaker, office manager, through to the head, comes together so we tell them exactly why we’re there. More importantly, we show that we’re there to listen and to stay for the long-term. It’s an open-door policy. We’ve done it quite formally too, where in some cases I’ve met with every single member of staff individually. I would ask them what they feel are the problems and what they think is to come, unpicking how they feel about their situation. That’s really good intelligence to unlock. 

The same goes for parents, as creating that external culture is important too, especially where they’ve lost confidence in the school. If parents are angry or uncertain, the answer is also an open-door policy – let’s get them into the school and allow them to get it all off their chest. Let’s convince them that we’re in this together. 

What it comes back to is that acid test of, would this be good enough for my own child? That’s the ultimate measure of success, in my opinion. It’s an indescribable feeling when you are walking through a school that was a huge challenge, and teachers are teaching, children are learning. Or even seeing a particular child who has had some real difficulty making progress, however small the steps are. 

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A longer version of Sajid’s article appears in our free ebook, alongside four articles from other key MAT leaders. Download your copy here. 

Discover more of our content for groups and trusts here. 

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The post How and why Prince Albert Community Trust takes on vulnerable schools appeared first on Arbor.

Interestingly, less than 10% of respondents thought that all schools in a MAT had to be in the same area. There were a variety of reasons to justify this response, such as the importance of joint school activities and the equity of treatment from governors who understand the local area. 

On the flip side, 26% of respondents said that it was of no importance that all schools in a MAT were in the same area. This was largely put down to the ability of technology to supplement where face-to-face isn’t possible. One respondent also made the point that geographic distance should not be a barrier to taking on schools that are well-suited to the MAT or are in need of assistance which a MAT further away can offer. 

Ultimately, the middle ground was popular, with 62% of respondents agreeing that they would want at least clusters of their schools to be near each other for practical reasons like sharing teachers and resources. 

Despite this fairly mixed response, the reaction changed when we asked our participants to consider the effect of geography on MAT culture, rather than just the logistics or practicalities of running a MAT.  75% of participants actually agreed that culture can be sustained even when schools within a trust are not geographically close, which was generally justified by the notion that, “technology can link schools that are not geographically close.” This marks a definite shift in attitude, as pre-Covid, MAT leaders were much more likely to state that having a smaller geographical footprint helped to maintain a tight culture.

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In fact, nearly 1 in 3 participants felt that having the same systems was one of the most important factors when thinking about how to work together as one organisation, as summarised by one respondent who added, “divergent technology platforms create a barrier for communications and make it much more challenging to operate as a single organisation.” 88% of our participants agreed that, in an ideal world, all of their schools would share the same Management Information System in order to work better together. 

It’s certainly an interesting take that, while many seemed to agree that nothing beats face-to-face communication, a shared culture could be sustained through technology. 

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Hear opinions from MAT leaders

We put this dilemma to Laura Gregory, Director of Education at Bellevue Place Education Trust. Her piece on the MAT distance debate is one of five articles in our ebook for MAT leaders. Creating a Cohesive Trust also includes our other survey results, insights and a discussion guide. You can download your free copy here. 

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Keep up with our other blog and ebook releases on Twitter and LinkedIn.

New to Arbor’s content? Click here for more MAT blogs and case studies. 

The post Should schools in a MAT be close together? appeared first on Arbor.

In our last book for MAT staff, we explored whether trusts could and should create a shared culture. This is now more relevant than ever, spurred on by the government’s statement that all schools should belong to ‘strong’ MATs by 2030. We wanted to take another look at what having a strong and cohesive MAT really means and as part of this, how every school could benefit from being in a trust. 

In February 2022, we conducted a survey of 164 MAT leaders and discovered that nearly 1 in 5 respondents did not feel that their trust had a cohesive culture which all their schools felt part of. 

When we asked participants about the factors they felt best contributed to a shared culture, our survey also revealed that MAT leaders were not drawn to surface-level factors, such as having the same uniform or a standardised curriculum. Instead, respondents were more focused on having shared opportunities for staff and students, and shared vision and values. This seems to direct us towards what having a cohesive trust truly means: sharing, not sameness. 

Hear from five MAT leaders 

To look further into what it takes to create a cohesive trust, we invited five different MAT leaders to write about what they thought helped build cohesion and resilience in their trusts. 

Our book opens with the importance of communication at Learning For Life Education Trust, and the resulting cross-trust oracy programme. You’ll then hear why Wellspring Academy Trust has committed to 125-year plans for all their schools, and how The Learning For Life Partnership shares best practice both within and beyond their own schools. The fourth piece in our book features interviews with three key trust leaders from across the country, exploring how sharing courses between their schools has benefited their students. This is followed by The Kemnal Academy Trust’s unique approach to trust-wide staff retention and opportunities. Our book closes with a look into moral leadership at Prince Albert Community Trust and how this has helped transform a number of vulnerable schools. 

The ebook is free to download for anybody interested in helping their trust work together as one organisation, not many schools. We hope you gain some inspiration on how to make sure that every school, and every student, is benefiting from everything your trust has to offer.

Click here to download your copy. 

If you missed the first part of our Cohesive Trust series, you can download it for free here.

To keep up with all our other exciting new content and news, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

The post Our new ebook for MAT staff! appeared first on Arbor.

The debate around autonomy vs. alignment for schools in Trusts has been animated over the past few years, with some MATs giving their schools independence over their policies and others preferring a more centralised approach.

If we accept that trusts will always differ on how centralised to be, perhaps the more interesting question becomes: how do you create a trust which works really well together as one organisation, regardless of where you sit on that scale? 

What are the factors which create a successful, shared culture in a MAT? And how do you make sure the academies in your trust benefit from being part of a greater whole? 

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The importance of creating a shared culture in a MAT

To get a sense of the national picture, in February 2022 we surveyed 164 trust leaders from around the country. 94% of respondents agreed it’s important all schools in a MAT feel part of the same culture. In fact, many indicated that having a shared culture was fundamental to a MAT’s purpose; one respondent wrote,  ‘I would wonder what ‘the point in being a trust would be if there was no sense of a shared culture.”

Having said this, nearly 1 in 5 respondents said that their trust did not have one cohesive culture which all schools feel part of, with many emphasising that this was an ongoing journey for their MAT. 

One participant put this down to “each school [being] reluctant to take on ideas and processes the other schools use”, whilst another explained that “we have not had time to build a common ethos beyond our founders’ vision which was entrepreneurial.” For some MAT leaders, a shared culture is simply “a difficult thing to achieve when you are a big, mixed-phase MAT across different authorities.”

What are the foundations for a strong culture?

We asked those who felt they had already achieved a strong culture in their MAT about what they thought were the main factors that had led to this success. 78% of respondents to this question said that having a shared vision and values were the most important, with having clear leadership and shared staff opportunities also proving to be popular choices. One participant explained that, “shared vision and joined-up leadership are a precursor to successfully implementing any other measures.” 

This speaks to a wider trend, where respondents seemed to value structural, trust-level factors over teaching and learning or pupil-driven factors, such as having a standardised curriculum, sharing the same visual identity (e.g. uniforms) and having shared opportunities for pupils across the trust. 

What does the future of MAT culture look like?

With nearly 1 in 5 respondents saying they were yet to achieve a shared culture in their trust, we wanted to explore what some MAT leaders felt were the key drivers and best practices when it came to meaningful cultural change. To do this, we’ve compiled leaders’ viewpoints from five MATs across the country and put them together with our survey insights to create our latest ebook for MAT leaders, called Creating a Cohesive Trust. As well as our survey results and a question guide, hear from MAT leaders on how their trusts work together as one organisation, including discussions on:

• How to make meaningful cultural change in a Trust
• How far is too far when it comes to distance between schools?
• Why total honesty is the bedrock for a good MAT culture
• Prioritising pedagogy over Trust culture
• How to tailor communication and avoid creating a monoculture

Click here to download the full ebook.

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Want to read more MAT content? Get stuck in with our MAT MIS series, perfect for MAT Central Teams.

The post How to create a shared culture in your Trust appeared first on Arbor.