Mercian Education Trust

Thinking of joining MET?

Information for Schools

Inspire to Aspire

To educate highly

achieving, independent,

free thinking

individuals able to

engage in civic society.

MET Aims

Thinking of joining MET? Making the decision to convert to an academy is the single greatest strategic

decision a Governing Body will ever make for their school.

The information contained within this document will help you determine

whether Mercian Educational Trust is an organisation that your school would

work well within and benefit from.

What is Mercian Educational Trust?

Mercian Educational Trust (MET) is a Multi Academy Trust (MAT). This allows

MET to create collaborative groups of schools that work together on shared aim,

to provide a quality, and successful, education experience to children.

MET has the ability to form two types of partnership.

A converter partnership— A partnership where a school chooses to convert and

both the School & MET agree that the partnership would be beneficial to all

groups.

A sponsorship partnership - A school has received an Academisation Order from

the DfE and an agreement if reached between the School, DfE & MET that MET

is best placed to support the school.

To develop and enhance open and

honest collaboration amongst schools

that provides:

•A high quality, purposeful education for

children

•Opportunities, experiences and

excellent outcomes that no school can

achieve alone

•Strong dynamic and sustainable school

leadership

•A community of excellent, professional

staff who, through collaboration, learn,

improve and develop.

MET Mission

Inspire to Aspire

An absolute commitment to: • Inclusive education to enable success for all • A ‘purposeful’ education that includes: • a commitment to a curriculum which promotes high quality; achievement for all and excellent outcomes for students •a commitment to develop skills that enable pupils to be creative reflective and open minded •The belief that partnership and collaboration with others – who share our values – strengthens all • The importance of collective responsibility for the success and well-being of all pupils in our community

MET Values

.

The Department for Education commissioned a report in 2016 to look at effective Multi Academy Trusts. They asked school leaders why their governing boards had chosen to adopt a MAT structure, they said MATs:

enabled governors and leaders to come together and take responsibility to provide better education in their community, rather than just in their individual schools, supported by a common ethos;

facilitated the sharing of effective practice across a group of schools, so that when a particular approach has been shown to work, improving teaching and learning, it can be implemented across the MAT;

ensured no school was left behind because the leader or chief executive of the MAT had the levers to secure improved performance of all the schools within the MAT, and were accountable for doing this;

extended the reach of great leaders and governors – at all levels – to support and develop teachers across a wider group of schools;

produced a pipeline of future leaders, by enabling a greater array of middle leadership positions;

facilitated the recruitment and retention of staff, by giving leaders the ability to point to realistic career development paths and opportunities to specialise within a MAT;

made it easier for teachers to support each other across the group of schools by sharing, drawing on and learning from good practice, taking on increased responsibility for specialist subjects and acting as a coach and critical friend; and

generated economies of scale, enabling cost efficient commissioning and purchasing of goods and services, and/or facilitating the development of in-house services for schools across the MAT

The full report can be downloaded by clicking the MET logo below

Why join a Multi Academy Trust?

Members

The upper tier of MET governance

are our Members. Members

review all submissions made in

respect of leadership of our

schools, learning and teaching,

financial management. They act as

a ‘critical friend’ to all aspects of

MET practice.

Directors’ Board

The Directors’ Board deliberate on,

and make all decisions on behalf of

Mercian Educational Trust. They

are professionally advised on this,

and supported by, the employed

Executive Leadership. The

Directors’ Board are accountable

to the Members.

Delegated Governance

Committee

Within each school sits a Delegated

Governing Committee (DGC),

working on behalf of the Board of

Directors. Through challenge and

support of the school leadership it

has the primary responsibility of

ensuring the school offers a high

quality education.

Inspire to Aspire

How does Mercian Educational Trust operate?

Inspire to Aspire

How will MET help your school improve?

In order to demonstrate how MET improves schools in comparison to

other Multi Academy Trusts we will use 10 ways effective academy trusts

lead school improvement. These areas were highlighted as good practice

by the DfE in their December 2016 report “Multi-academy trusts—Good

practice guidance and expectations for growth”

Area 1

Develop a clear trust-wide school improvement model from the outset, so that

schools are clear about expectations of them and also what they can expect in

terms of support from the trust. It also ensures trust leaders have a consistent

view of the best way to improve standards. It is important that they do not pull

in different directions or prioritise different things.

What does MET do?

MET has a trust-wide school improvement model that can be downloaded

from our website. School leaders and staff are clear of the MET expectations

and the support they can receive from the trust. This consistency ensures

strong collaboration between schools that in turn provides a positive impact

on standards in all schools.

Area 2

Keep your approach simple. Focus above all on making teaching as good as it

can be. This should be the focus of your school leaders’ time too, so try to free

this up, by centralising administrative, finance and HR functions where/when

appropriate.

What does MET do?

MET enables leaders and Delegated Governance Committees to maintain a

sharp focus on making teaching & learning as effective as it can be. This is

achieved through support structures to enhance leadership at both senior and

middle levels. School leaders are further enabled through centralised support

that leads to a reduction of administrative tasks such as finance, HR and

estates functions.

Inspire to Aspire

How will MET help your school improve?

Area 4

Standardise the approach to using information and external quality assurance

across your schools. This enables the trust’s board to be given consistent

information so that they can quickly see and make comparisons of the

performance of each school, both as a whole and in particular areas (such as

the impact of pupil premium funding). It is also easier to identify areas of

strengths and weaknesses within individual schools and, therefore, where

schools can support each other.

What does MET do?

The MET leadership structure of an Executive Headteacher working across a

hub of schools ensures a consistent approach to using information across

schools . The trust also uses the expertise of contracted National Leaders in

Education and School Improvement Advisors for external quality assurance.

This enables the trust to quickly make comparisons between each school’s

performance. This allows identification of strengths and weaknesses within

schools and opportunities where schools can support each other.

Area 3

Use data to hold leaders to account for performance. Reduce unnecessary

burdens on leaders and teachers by streamlining information management

processes.

What does MET do?

MET has an agreed and aligned monitoring cycle that enables data collection

to be consistent and collaborative. Trust schools subscribe to the same

assessment package to allow the same assessment ‘language’ to be used

across schools and to allow benchmarking of standards.

The Trust Scheme of Delegation and Governance structure streamlines

information management processes and reduces repetition and reformatting

of findings for different groups

Inspire to Aspire

How will MET help your school improve?

Area 6

Expect that every school will be both a giver and receiver of support. There are

pockets of strong practice in weak schools and vice versa.

What does MET do?

The MET leadership structure ensures that strengths from all schools are

identified quickly with good practice shared across all schools. Identified

leaders provide support and training to colleagues to disseminate good

practice and grow leadership capacity.

Area 5

Scrutinise the difference in performance and work with leaders across the trust

to interrogate the causes and potential solutions. Do not assume that there is

a simple solution or only one way to resolve the issue.

What does MET do?

The structure of an Executive Headteacher working across a hub of schools,

supported by NLE & SIA provides support to leaders to scrutinise the difference

in performance. Senior & Middle leaders work collaboratively across the trust

to interrogate causes of underperformance and develop solutions. The trust

uses a careful balance of consistency and innovation to approach problems.

Inspire to Aspire

How will MET help your school improve?

Area 8

Collaboration is most effective when teachers work together regularly rather

than just discussing ideas. Make sure this happens through things like peer

review. As your trust grows, consider the creation of subject or specialism (e.g.

SENCO) hub leads across a cluster of schools.

What does MET do?

MET has developed a ‘hub’ model to enable schools to work closely together

and share expertise. For example subject leaders working together to

moderate outcomes in books.

Area 7

Recognise that you will need to give different schools different levels of

support and the same school will need different levels of support at different

times – some trusts describe this as ‘tighten to improve, loosen to be great’.

What does MET do?

Strong collaborative links and an ethos of openness between schools allows

swift identification of support needs and opportunities. For example using

subject leadership expertise to provide support to a school in need through

training of staff members.

Inspire to Aspire

How will MET help your school improve?

Area 10

Learn from strengths and experience of other trusts and support those who

want to learn from you. As your trust grows you will have more capacity to

support wider system improvement.

What does MET do?

MET has developed links with other Multi Academy Trusts in the region and

nationally .This allows the sharing of ideas and good practice at a wider level

than purely school level.

MET has good working relationships with external organisations. For example

MET supports University of Worcester with educational training programmes

for students and educational research projects

MET continues to foster close relationships with the Local Authority, RSC and

other organisations (e.g. diocese) in order to enrich the learning experiences of

MET children.

Area 9

Make sure every member of staff has a personalised and bespoke

development plan, irrespective of whether they are a senior or middle leader, a

classroom teacher or fulfil another role. In a larger MAT, you can plot clearer

career paths through your trust which will help to attract, retain and support

the improvement of high quality teachers.

What does MET do?

MET has a consistent and effective appraisal structure in place to ensure that

every employee is supported to be the best they can be.

MET has developed links with external organisations to provide effective CPD

opportunities to its staff.

Inspire to Aspire

Services within MET MET’s central services provide support to schools, allowing leaders

to remain education focused

Financial Support

Encouraging regular school attendance is one of the most powerful ways we

prepare children for success—both in school and in life. MET actively supports

schools achieve this goal through it’s EWO Service. A bespoke arrangement can

be provided to match school needs through parental engagement and

Education Welfare

Educational Psychology

Expert advice and guidance for pupils needs are invaluable to correctly support

pupil progress. MET EP service can provide guidance to identify pupil needs and

strategies to allow schools to best support them.

Using a wealth of experience and practice within our MET family of schools we offer

high quality Teaching and Learning support. We offer a high quality pedagogical ap-

proach to Thinking Skills, Creativity and global practice and subject specific support

with Reading, Mathematics, Music and Sport.

MET also has access to high quality support through National Leaders of Education

(NLE) and School Improvement Advisors (SIA).

Teaching & Learning Support

All MET schools are well supported with financial arrangements. Schools use the

same financial package to manage payments and track expenditure. MET has a

Trust Business Manager who oversees trust finances and works with individual

school offices to track expenditure, plan future budgets and assist in staff

deployment.

Inspire to Aspire

To educate highly achieving, independent,

free thinking individuals able to engage in

civic society.

Mercian Education Trust

Unit 66 Malvern Hills Science Park Malvern

Worcestershire WR14 3SZ

Telephone: 01684 585348

Email: office@metacademies.co.uk

Twitter: @METacademies Website: www.metacademies.co.uk

To educate highly achieving, independent, free thinking individuals

able to engage in civic society.

MET Aims

To develop and enhance open and honest collaboration amongst schools that provides:

A high quality, purposeful education for

children Opportunities, experiences and

excellent outcomes that no school can achieve alone

Strong dynamic and sustainable school leadership

A community of excellent, professional staff who, through collaboration, learn, improve and develop.

MET Mission

An absolute commitment to:

Inclusive education to enable success for all A ‘purposeful’ education that includes:

a commitment to a curriculum which promotes high quality; achievement for all and excellent outcomes for students

a commitment to develop skills that enable pupils to be creative reflective and open minded

The belief that partnership and collaboration with others – who share our values – strengthens all

The importance of collective responsibility for the success and well-being of all pupils in our community

MET Values