• Alternative provision academy trusts keen to open secure schools

    Academy chains that cater for excluded pupils are keen to open new secure schools for young offenders, but the response from mainstream trusts has been muted. The government is encouraging trusts to bid for facilities for imprisoned pupils aged 12 to 17, two years after the idea of secure schools was first proposed by the…

    5.00 Jun. 9th, 2018 | News

  • Mind the gap: The best and worst gender-based pay at multi-academy trusts

    In 2017, the government passed a law forcing every organisation with 250 or more employees to publish specific figures about the difference in pay between genders, both on their own websites and on gov.uk. The stats had to include both the mean and median gender pay gap, the proportion of men and women who have…

    5.00 Apr. 14th, 2018 | News

  • Investigation: The ups and downs of academy CEO pay

    Our annual analysis of chief executive pay in the largest academy chains once again reveals huge variations, including between men and women, and pay per pupil and school. We looked at trusts with more than 20 schools in 2016-17.  Sir Dan Moynihan of the Harris federation came top of all CEOs for salary, with a…

    19.40 Mar. 22nd, 2018 | News

  • New academy trust pledges not to hire unqualified teachers

    A new sixth form-led academy chain has announced it will only hire qualified or trainee teachers in a bid to shake off the negative history of the academies programme. The Challenge Academy Trust, which runs five schools and a sixth-form college in the north-west, has even signed an agreement with teaching unions to guarantee this…

    5.00 Sep. 26th, 2017 | News

  • Academy trusts spend millions on uninspected private alternative provision

    Multi-academy trusts spend three times as much on private alternative provision as they do on local authority alternative provision – even though many private providers have never been checked by Ofsted. Schools Week asked the largest multi-academy trusts to give details of the private alternative providers they have used to educate their pupils over the…

    5.00 Sep. 25th, 2017 | News

  • Schools No One Wants are in limbo - here's what needs to change

    The system for rebrokering schools needs reforming to better support vulnerable schools and pupils during the transition to a new academy trust, argues Mary Riall Inadequate’ academies are too often left unsupported for long periods while their transfer to a new multi-academy trust is negotiated, even though we could make simple changes to address this.…

    5.00 Sep. 18th, 2017 | Opinion

  • The Expandables: which academy trusts are supersizing?

    To kick off the first term of 2017-18, Schools Week has delved into the data on academy trust expansion over the last year. Although the headlines have been full of trusts shedding their schools, populations are booming at many others. We set out to find out what is driving this growth. Twenty academy trusts grew…

    5.00 Sep. 16th, 2017 | News

  • Auditors flag increase in financially 'unviable' academy trusts

    Auditors are increasingly raising the alarm about academy trusts at risk of running out of money, with chains raiding reserves and eyeing expansion to pay off deficits. A Schools Week analysis of annual accounts has revealed a prevailing picture of “unviable trusts”. The Rodillian Trust, which sponsors three schools in West Yorkshire, used more than…

    5.00 Feb. 3rd, 2017 | News

  • Revealed: The 23 trusts that broke rules over £4m related-party transactions

    Twenty-three academy trusts breached funding rules last year when they made payments of more than £4 million to companies related to members of their staff or trustees. For the first time, Schools Week can reveal who the trusts are and the 26 transactions in which they failed to show they were fully compliant with rules…

    5.00 Feb. 3rd, 2017 | News

  • Multi-academy trusts swap data systems for Progress 8

    New performance measures such as Progress 8 have led some multi-academy trusts to move away from traditional data-system providers. “Added layers of complexity” have helped to shake up the management information system (MIS) market at present dominated by Capita SIMS, which supports more than 80 per cent of schools. But a desire to access data…

    5.00 Jan. 31st, 2017 | News

  • Accounts Watch: Academy trust chief gets £85,000 severance pay-out

    An academy trust chief executive who resigned after a misconduct investigation received a payout of of more than £85,000. Denise Shepherd was suspended as chief executive of the Thinking Schools Academy Trust (TSAT), which runs 10 schools in Kent and Portsmouth, in May last year. It was reported in a national newspaper that a whistleblower…

    5.00 Jan. 30th, 2017 | News