Strategic narrative in multi‐academy trusts in England: Principal drivers for expansion

Abstract

Multi‐academy trusts (MATs) are now a common feature of the English educational landscape. Yet numerous high‐profile failures indicate that they present substantial challenges in terms of leadership and governance. One of the areas that most exercises school leaders and boards is the setting of strategic direction for the MAT. This includes elements such as its expansion. This article draws on 30 interviews with school leaders and trustees from 6 MATs and 10 interviews with national leaders of governance in looking to respond to the research question: What are the principal drivers for strategic expansion in MATs? The article begins by contextualising the research in light of recent policy, then moves to consider why theory on strategy as narrative was chosen in preference to other strategic approaches, and how it was employed to analyse data. The article concludes that within this sample there are a number of drivers for MAT expansion and that these fall under six principal categories: opportunities, values, pressures, feelings, risks and resources. It also concludes that resources and business viability play a substantial part in decisions to expand, and that strategy appears to be an iterative learning process. As such, it contributes to theory on the governance of multi‐level organisations and to practice in terms of the Department for Education's focus on MAT growth.

The scheme of delegation as a sensemaking framework in multi-academy trusts in England: Useful tool or constraint?

“…3.As the key indicates, different levels of discretion are awarded to local boards: For example, in relation to agreeing a school improvement plan, the key indicates that in MATs 1 and 2, the response is a clear 'yes', but in MAT 3, this is only in collaboration with trustees, in MAT 8 responses indicate that this should only take place in collaboration with a Regional Director, whilst in MAT 10 there was no mention at all of this duty: Added to this complexity, is the fact that many boards, as mentioned in point 2, change their SDs as new schools come into the trust, and in response to performance issues. Creating a climate in which there is much ambiguity-compounded by the fact that our previous research indicated considerable inconsistencies in communication strategies between levels of board within trusts (See Cornforth, 2019b, Baxter andFloyd, 2019). 4.…”

Trust, Accountability and Capacity in Education System Reform

“…For example, in England, rapid changes to the education system over the past 10 years have undermined the system of local accountability, which has been in place since the Post War Consensus. The system of inspection too has not changed to take account of new structures, leaving wide gaps and accountability that are leading to mismanagement, cronyism and malpractice in some school groupings -multi-academy trusts, which are groups of schools governed by a single trustee body and led by an executive head teacher (Baxer and Floyd, 2019).…”

“…This, however, requires extraordinary capacities from both teachers and the local community in order to negotiate shared problem definitions and agree on solutions and, again, the trust to have those conversations and cross potential divides. It is also very difficult to achieve in cultures in which the 'achievement factory' ideal of education has unilaterally been accepted by government, such as in the case of England (Baxer and Floyd, 2019).…”

MATification: Plurality, turbulence and effective school governance in England

“…The RSCs role in the muddle in the middle appears be to increase MATification through re-brokering but we know little of this process in the research literature; although the number of academy schools are increasing the number of trusts are reducing (DfE, 2020a), this is particularly true for SATs. The re-brokering of schools changing MATs has increased dramatically, up 30% in 2017-18 from the previous year and 1114% from 2014 (Baxter and Floyd, 2019). This has led Greany and Higham (2018) to argue that MATs are best understood as mergers and acquisitions.…”

“…Following public concern, the government's plans in 2015 to turn all state-funded schools into academies was abandoned, however Baxter and Floyd (2019) note that the government have continued to promote their rise, despite a lack of evidence that they are effective. The House of Commons select committee report into MATs (Education Committee, 2017) advised the following for governmental action: a curb on the expansion of MATs; Ofsted inspections of MATs; clarification of the future role of LAs within the system; further accountability with local communities particularly parents and alignment between Ofsted and RSC roles and responsibilities.…”