Schools within multi-academy trusts are increasingly positive about their value, suggests a poll that gives a significant boost for the government’s all-MAT vision.
But the National Governance Association (NGA) survey also reveals many schools outside MATs remain unconvinced, despite a renewed government drive since last year.
The poll of 4,185 governors marks one of the most comprehensive attempts yet to take the pulse of the sector since the schools white paper, published in March. Titled ‘Opportunity for all’, it laid out the government’s academy plans.
Here are the key findings:
1. Schools warm to MATs …
The NGA found a “continued positive trend” in which 77 per cent (up from 64 per cent in 2017) of school-level governors or committee members within multi-academy trusts said their trust added value.
The finding will be welcomed by the Department for Education. Critics have repeatedly alleged limited evidence underpinning its MAT drive.
But three-quarters of governors said they felt their voices were heard, and half said they were happy with trust-wide budget pooling. More trusts now have school-level governance too, as encouraged by the department.
Some governors are likely to be new trust appointments, however, rather than only pre-MAT governors who have changed their minds.
The findings back up anecdotal reports from trust bosses who say their schools valued their work more during the pandemic. Trusts were able to take a load off headteachers by working out trust-wide Covid risk policies, for instance.
2. … But community engagement a worry
Critics have long accused MATs of being insufficiently accountable locally, sparking even the recent white paper to state they must be “responsive to parents and local communities”.
The NGA found only 55 per cent of local governors felt their MAT engaged effectively with parents and the wider school community – down from 64 per cent in 2020, when Covid boosted engagement.
Parents “still often have no concept of the trust, which remains distant to them, sometimes literally,” the report’s authors noted, calling the decline “disappointing”.
3. Funding and growth on MAT agenda
While MAT respondents were more likely to highlight positive finances, they also felt they did not have “sufficient funding for their vision and strategy”. The survey was done in April and May, before higher-than-expected energy and wage bills.
Cash could be one reason that economies of scale surged as a factor in trusts’ reasons for growth, from 30 per cent of respondents to 58 per cent. The DfE will be pleased 55 per cent also listed the white paper as a factor, suggesting it is influencing decisions, despite lacking new formal requirements for expansion.
MATs with fewer than 10 schools were the most likely to say they planned to expand – another positive boost for the white paper’s 10-schools-per-trust message.
But 56 per cent of small MATs had not grown in the past year, suggesting expansion may not be easy. Regional divides also appeared, with London trusts adding fewest schools.
4. LA and SAT schools still wary
Encouraging maintained schools and single-academy trusts to join MATs was one of the white paper’s main aims. The DfE had launched a renewed MAT drive a year earlier too.
But only a quarter of governors at standalone academies, 12 per cent of those at local authority-controlled schools and 7 per cent of federation governors said schools planned to join MATs.
While the figures have risen – and the NGA expects the white paper to have generated further momentum – it suggests many schools will not willingly embrace the DfE’s all-MAT vision. A third of single-academy trusts and 60 per cent of maintained schools had not even considered joining a MAT.
Respondents highlighted ongoing concerns about losing autonomy, identity, reserves and focus on the school’s best interests. They said more “conclusive evidence” was needed on what MATs offered that other local partnerships did not.
Emma Knights, the NGA’s chief executive, said: “There is still much work to do to convince many of our respondents this is indeed the right way forward for the future of their school and pupils.”
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