What does a high performing academy sponsor look like?

Report for sponsors

DfE analysisMay 2014

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Contents

• Aims, method and key messages slides 3-9

• Findings:– Growth and development slides 10-16– Portfolio of schools slides 17-24– People and leadership slides 25-32– Governance and finance slides 33-39– School improvement approach slides 40-44

• Summary of findings and future research slides 45-49

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AIMS, METHOD AND KEY MESSAGES

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Aims

The analysis in these slides aims to develop understanding of what makes a high performing chain sponsor, in order to support and encourage the development of high performing academies in the future. We anticipate that much future growth will come from the many small to medium sized sponsors who currently vastly outnumber their larger counterparts. Yet currently, the system is largely dependent on individual examples to understand how they can develop well.

The 2013 results provided the first opportunity to look at a sizable sample of sponsors with chains of 3 or more schools and examine the factors behind their relative performance.

The outputs of this analysis are being used to:

1. Share evidence and case studies of ‘what works’ with current and prospective sponsors, supporting sponsor self-improvement;

2. Inform government policy and strategic choices, including by Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs); and

3. Strengthen departmental and RSC process to enable better decision making in individual cases about sponsor approvals, project matching and sensible growth.

How they behaveWho they are

Portfolio of schoolsGrowth and development stage

Governance & finance

People and leadership

School improvement

approach• Governance

structure• Board size• Top slice• Centrally

provided services• Structural

changes at key growth points

• Financial health and management

• Efficiencies

• Use of school and pupil data

• Use of school to school CPD/ progression

• Use of school collaboration for teaching and learning

• Replacement of heads

• Use of freedoms• Level/focus of

prescription

• Motivations of founder/CEO

• Skills/experience of board members

• Skills of middle management

• Succession planning

• Progression and recruitment practices

• Size of chain• Age of chain• Rate of growth

• Phase mix• Sponsored/

converter mix• Level of

challenge of schools

• Diversity of schools

• Geographical spread between clusters

• Geographical spread in clusters

The scope of the project was defined in terms of a wide range of variables that might impact on a sponsor’s performance

Data largely already collated

by the DfE

Data gathered through

interviews and pooling internal

intelligence

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Drawing on the data we hold, we used quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore these areas

The project develops, tests and builds on current thinking about what a high performing chain sponsor is through: • Quantitative analysis drawing on existing data The

relationship between the performance of sponsors-led chains and data on their background, school portfolio, rate/stage of development and financial health was examined. There were 88 sponsors in the sample, based on all sponsors with 3+ schools that were open by November 2012.

• Pooling internal DfE intelligence - new data fields on sponsor leadership style, school improvement model and governance and finance were developed through gathering internal department intelligence. This was based on the 58 largest sponsors in the sample. We looked for trends and tested for correlations with performance.

• Talking to higher performing sponsors. We conducted 12 two-hour structured interviews with CEOs and key staff from 12 higher performing sponsors, all with sponsors with 6+ schools. We also invited 7 CEOs of leading chains to develop understanding of common challenges. 6

Using 2013 Key Stage 2 and 4 data we categorised sponsors on an average of four or five educational performance indicators across their chains.

• How have results improved since last year? Proportion achieving 5+ A*-C including English & Maths at KS4, and level 4+ in reading, writing and mathematics at KS2.

• How many of the sponsor’s academies saw large falls in 2013? – i.e. 5% points or more.

• How many of the sponsor’s academies are seeing continued improvements? Number of academies that have improved in at least two of the last three years.

• How many academies are underperforming? Number of that academies are below the floor standard or in Ofsted category 4.

• ‘Sponsor benchmarking’ data for secondary sponsors – this looks at improvement in KS4 results for sponsored academies since opening, in comparison to schools with similar starting points over the same period.

Additional tests were run to test for difference in findings if we also took into account whether a sponsor which had presided over an academy going into special measures.

How we defined a ‘higher performing sponsor’:

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Health warning!

Whilst we have identified the factors that we believe give a fair assessment of sponsor performance, it should be remembered, particularly in relation to the quantitative aspects of this analysis, that:• the sample sizes are still relatively small;• analysis is largely based on one year’s performance data and such measures

are subject to volatility at school level; and• in most cases, pupils would not have been in the sponsored academy for the

entire key stage.

So we are unlikely to see the full impact of either the sponsor or the characteristics being analysed at this stage.

We will continue to build on our knowledge of sponsor performance as more performance data becomes available.

Based on continuing to focus on chains of 3+ schools open for over 1 year, we would expect our sample for quantitative work to grow from 88 to around 140 after the 2014 KS2 and KS4 results are published.

Summary of emerging messages for sponsors I.

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Be aware of key transition points. Particularly the phase from 5-10 academies when there is a need to develop skills and infrastructure.

Grow carefully, understanding your own capacity and the challenges and risks you take on – this might mean steady growth followed by a spurt.

It’s advisable to have a mixed portfolio of schools – specifically a balance of sponsored and converter projects. Chains with exclusively primaries also appear to find it tougher - although some primary specialists are thriving.

When planning growth think consistently in terms of geography, plan your development in terms of clusters and understand the risks of adding isolated schools to your chain.

CEOs of high performing chains tend to be strong, ambitious and determined leaders with clear moral purpose – appetite to grow is healthy but be focused on delivering great outcomes for the schools you have first.

Make sure your vision and purpose is well understood throughout your organisation – branding can be a tool but it’s collective ethos that counts.

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Summary of emerging messages for sponsors II.

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Having individuals with strong commercial skills at board level is crucial, and the importance of these skills increases when chains grow beyond 4-5.

Nurture leadership internally and make the most of cross-chain CPD and progression opportunities. High performers are much more likely to do this.

As you grow beyond 5, a full time Financial Director will be essential and you may need to recruit this person externally.

Clear accountability and governance are vital. Small boards are more likely to be successful and strong board-school level governance links are healthy.

Be proactive in finding innovative ways to achieve efficiencies.

Formulate your business model carefully – and look at what others have done. There is no single formula for top-slice and central services.

Strong financial planning is vital. If you have very strong school improvement and nothing goes wrong you may be lucky for a while but cannot rely on this.

It is your choice on how prescriptive to be with schools in your chain that are performing well – but take swift and assertive action with failing schools.

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GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENTFindings

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Cottage industry Growing infrastructure

Start to benefit from economies of scale & gain confidence

Achieving sustainability can become a strong motivation for expansion.

Life is easy if you are school-based

Sustainable sponsor

High challenge for start-ups

Large sponsor

Interviews revealed considerable consistency of views on when trusts

need to establish infrastructure, at around 6 schools. At this point,

Exec heads must transition to be CEOs and investment must be made

in central services

At 8-11 sponsors reported

reaching critical mass and the financial risks

lessen.

The largest sponsors we spoke to described

needing to re-organise again at around 20.

Business theory suggests further re-organisation may be

needed at around 40.

Non-school start-ups report a much tougher

initial phase due to inability

to draw on school

resources or reputation.

Sponsors we interviewed described having navigated their way through a common growth journey

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“At 4, 5, 6 academies you can manage as a cottage industry but then you have to ask, ‘what is the strategic plan?’ At 6, you need to develop a completely different model. Checks and balances need to be in place before any further expansion. Money at the centre takes money away from the schools so you have to be able to think about the priorities for schools – what do they need most? At 8, there is not enough money at the centre. So we expanded quickly to bridge the gap – we’ve now caught up with ourselves – and we can invest in the resources to do the central services - audit, IT, chain-wide procurement, HR etc. – properly.”

Most of the high performing sponsors we interviewed had had periods of rapid growth in the past – yet cautious growth was advocated

Nearly all of the successful sponsors we interviewed had experienced rapid growth at some stage in the past. There were three main explanations for how they managed to sustain high performance in the face of such expansion – but only one replicable model.

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Controlled growth, managed big bang

Steady growth followed by spurt of planned rapid growth based on high performing sponsor self-knowledge and accompanied by robust due diligence and ‘fussiness’ about projects.

School improvement dependent

Rapid growth in spite of a ‘naïve’ initial approach to financial planning and management at first. The three sponsors in this category credited their strong school improvement model and a certain degree of luck for the fact they had been successful, but it was not sustainable.

Supported growth

Rapid growth made possible thanks to the support of either government funding or cash donations/loans from parent companies, charities or trustees.

Many in the first two categories acknowledged that the ‘push’ to expand had been challenging and they had felt ‘overstretched’ at times.

Reflecting the previous slide, we found high performing sponsors are no more likely to have grown at a ‘slow’ pace in the past

We looked at whether growth rate is related to performance

Rapid growth was, if anything, positively correlated with sponsor success

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• We contrasted performance of trusts against their annual growth that year and two years before.

• We looked at whether they had exceeded a 25% annual growth rate (considered a sensible growth rate for small businesses).

• We also tested against adherence to the growth limits the DfE has tended to apply to high performers recently.

• We tested the impact of growth across significant threshold points.

• The vast majority of chains exceeded 25% annual growth in one of the last two years. Valid comparisons using this measure was not possible.

• We tested the impact of growth across key thresholds and found no significant impact.

• We found no significant impact of growth across thresholds.

• Chains who had grown more rapidly in 2012 than our current working rule were significantly more likely to be high performers in 2013 than those with steady growth, or newer sponsors.

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Age of sponsor (years)

Expansion if following DfE annual growth limits typically applied now to high performing sponsors

Expansion if seeing 25% a year growth

One chain’s growth has broadly followed the 25% rule - but were exceptional

…but another has seen rapid expansion

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Based on the current sample of chains, neither age nor size per se are significantly correlated with success

We looked at whether size was related to performance and found no significant trend or tipping point…

…nor were there any when we looked at trust age

• We contrasted performance of chains with 3-6, 7-12, 13-20, 21-30 schools and 31+ schools.

• The majority of chains are in the 3-6 group, with few reaching the larger categories.

• We contrasted performance of trusts who had first opened a school 1-2, 3-4 or 5+ academic years ago.

• We found no significant trends by trust age.

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Case study: careful growth, managed big bang

Greenwood Dale Academies Trust is a high performing chain that was founded in 2009 from an outstanding secondary school in Nottingham. From 2009 to 2011 the Trust grew steadily, acquiring four new schools. During that period, they focused on developing a strong core central services offer, funded through grant money from the new schools they took on, with some subsidy for salaries from Greenwood Dale school. This was integral to promoting their vision which centres on reducing burdens on principals in order to increase their capacity to be visible school leaders and drive improvement.

With all four schools performing well and some infrastructure in place, Greenwood Dale trustees agreed in 2012 that the Trust was ready for significant expansion. They took on seven schools that year and, following sustained performance across their schools, have continued to grow at a significant rate. Decisions about growth are planned rather than reactive. An annual process is in place where the trustees agree a growth plan which sets the maximum number of schools which can join during the year ahead based on a thorough review of organisational capacity.

The Trust also puts a lot of resource from the central team into schools prior to them formally joining. They ensure that they have assessed the school’s finance, HR and procurement for risks and have come to an agreement with the school, local authority and/or DfE about liabilities which the school carries. This is followed by a due diligence process exploring all areas of the school from pupil achievement to funding deficits and whether staff have the necessary barring checks in place. This is used to create a plan for the initial improvement and development activity in the new Academy.

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PORTFOLIO OF SCHOOLSFindings

High performing sponsors are more likely to have converter academies as well as sponsored academies within their chain

The blend of sponsored and converter projects within a chain appears to be related to success across a chain – a mix is better

• Chains that were not dominated by a single type of academy were more likely to perform well than chains with a vast majority of either sponsored or converter academies, and the difference was significant.

• We also tested different thresholds for classifying a dominant academy type (90%, 80%, etc), but found no obvious bias from our chosen criteria.

There is no evidence that any other measure of school challenge is related to success at sponsor level• PUPIL BACKGROUND: No correlation between

chain performance and school challenge defined in terms of pupil background (deprivation and special educational needs).

• HISTORIC ATTAINMENT: Again, no correlation between chain performance and school challenge, defined in terms of a school’s past attainment.

• SCHOOL VARIATION: No significant correlation between chain performance and school challenge, defined in terms of how similar or varied the value added results are in their schools.

• The interviews highlighted that sponsors with a mixed portfolio of schools were able to capitalise on their best schools for school improvement.

• This fits with US charter school research which finds that schools in a chain will only rise to be as high performing as the chain’s lead school.

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Over three quarters of chains with mixed types were rated as high performing– compared with half of chains with a dominant type

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Primary-only sponsors are less likely to be ‘high performing ’ – this should be treated cautiously but may be related to financial challenges

Chains dominated by primaries currently appear less likely to be high performing:

This analysis will benefit from more data. There is significant variability in results of primary schools between years, due to small key stage 2 cohorts. Across all schools, around two thirds changed by more than five percentage points in 2013.

The primary-only sponsors we spoke to highlighted a range of specific challenges:

• Primary sponsors we interviewed highlighted that due to size, the number of primary schools needed to reach ‘critical mass’ is greater - yet it is the number of schools rather than pupil units which create additional burden at the centre.

• Primary sponsors we interviewed seemed less likely to replace the head of a failing school – which may reflect shorter supply in the talent pool due to numbers of schools.

• Other primary specific challenges cited included: weaker bursars/financial management, less of a functioning competitive market, greater performance vulnerability from staff changes.

“There is no queue of superheads waiting around the corner. We have to recognize a range of qualities and styles and support our heads in their leadership. Changing senior leadership precipitously can waste time, disrupt improvement and impact negatively on children’s education”

Mixed of phases Predominantly primary schools

Predominantly secondary

schoolsPhase

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Chains largely consisting of 80%+ primary schools were significantly less likely to perform well than

secondary chains or more mixed phase chains

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Those primary sponsors who succeed ‘against the odds’ understand and work around the particular challenges

While the challenging growth period can be longer for primary only sponsors…

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Cottage industry Growing infrastructure

Start to benefit from economies of scale & gain confidence

Achieving sustainability can become a strong motivation for expansion.

Life is easy if you are school-based

Sustainable sponsor

High challenge for start-ups

Large sponsor

The period when infrastructure is needed but there is not necessarily

sufficient funding to support it can be extended

…high performing primary sponsors adapt their model

I. One primary only chain (A) had significant fundraising up front, and grew to critical mass (15) quickly.

II. Another (B), identified at least one strong school in each of the 10 regional MATs to drive local school improvement, under the control of highly-qualified regional executive principals.

III. A further (C), chains’ model similarly boost capacity/expertise by bringing outstanding converter schools and their leaders into the chain.

On the other hand… CEOs of high performing primary chains reported feeling that there is greater scope for delivering improvement through innovation at this phase for those who do overcome the significant challenges. Strong secondary chains reported enjoying the challenge of getting into the primary market.

• Our survey from Sponsor Relationship Managers (SRMs) produced data which suggested that, whilst high performing sponsors are more likely to have ‘middle management tiers’ once they get beyond six, primary sponsors are less likely to have them – this may be a reflection of the squeeze.

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High performing sponsors think consistently in terms of geography and plan their development in terms of clusters – yet emphasis varies

All sponsors we interviewed extolled the benefits of geographical clustering.

• They all thought about their own growth in terms of developing groups of schools which could work together for mutual benefit.

• The benefits they identified revolved around: a) efficiencies, and b) inter-school working.

• For some, moving beyond a single geographical location was not something they would entertain.

Some high performing sponsors show far greater willingness to diversify locations.

• With the right arrangements in place, some sponsors did not believe geography was a necessary obstacle.

• Some new sponsors have a devolved multi-cluster vision from early on – and develop a devolved structure to support this whilst facilitating collaboration across the chain.

• Management tools to support cross-chain collaboration at a distance included online knowledge management and mobile school improvement teams.

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“The closeness of schools is not the main issue, it’s about the closeness of relationships.”

“In business you should expand from where you are. You should not skip

areas. There are very basic logistical reasons – how do you get there at

a distance?”

“We have a philosophical belief that we should be able to be in any of our academies within 30 minutes. So if there is an issue we can interchange very quickly.”

“We are not hung-up on geography – if a school needs our help and is close to one of our MATs, we would try to do it,…The rationale of where we work is not sophisticated. We are conscious to have outstanding, good and new provision in every MAT but we work where we can logistically to maintain local context and ensure it is represented in the structure.”

“We have training days where the staff train together, we have networks where people come together and share the best schemes of work, lesson plans and ideas. All of those things seem really logical; we can only do that because the maximum commute between our schools is 90 minutes.”

“We have a philosophical belief that we should be able to be in any of our academies within 30 minutes. So if there is an issue we can interchange very quickly.”

“We have training days where the staff train together, we have networks where people come together and share the best schemes of work, lesson plans and ideas. All of those things seem really logical; we can only do that because the maximum commute between our schools is 90 minutes.”

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Despite high performing sponsors thinking in terms of clusters, high performers are no more likely to have their schools located closelyWe analysed the relationship between geographic clustering and sponsor performance and improvement in school attainment.We tested the following cluster measures:a) the extent to which any sponsor with a chain

of up to 12 schools had all schools within a ‘cluster’.

b) the extent to which any sponsor takes a multi-clustered approach, with clusters defined as groups of 3+ schools (or 4+ if primary only) within 30 miles.

c) the average distance of each school to the nearest school under the same sponsor.

d) the average of such distance across all the schools under the same sponsor.

e) the variability of such distance across all the schools under the same sponsor.

Cluster measures were compared to sponsor performance.

There was no systematic relationship between sponsor performance or school improvement and geographical clustering.

• We found no evidence of performance being positively related to clustering for any measure tested.

• This was also the case after controlling for type of academy and phase of education, with most of the variability coming from sponsor led primary schools.

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0 20 40 60 80 100Distance to nearest school under same sponsor (miles)

Geographical orphans appear to be doing well –

but they tend to have started from a very low

base so hard to compare

Most of the variation in improvement is centred around the average of 2.8

Clustering and improvement – distance to nearest school within same sponsor

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The diversity of findings partially reflects a shift toward a less centralist model being adopted by younger ‘high performing

sponsors’Original model

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• Single cluster or multiple clusters at close proximity.

• Grow slow and draw skills and resource from sponsored academies who’ve ‘come-good’.

• School improvement, character and largely curriculum drive from centre – although some ‘earned autonomy’.

• Strongly competitive.

Popular new model

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• Small regional clusters, geographically spread (can be mini MATs).

• Grow faster and depend on converters joining and some sponsored ‘come-good’ to initiate new hubs.

• School improvement driven by hub.• Character and curriculum determined by the

school – influenced by hub/centre.• Sharing and outward facing.

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PEOPLE AND LEADERSHIPFindings

CEOs of successful sponsors are strong, ambitious and determined leaders with a clear moral purpose

Interviews with high performing sponsors revealed three common themes in terms of CEO’s motivations:

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Moral purpose

What?• Belief in own model• Desire to spread their model to

allow more children to benefit

Who?• All successful CEOs interviewed

How was it evident?• Moral imperative consistently

cited as initial motivator• Most aspired to an ‘all -

through’ model so children could benefit

• Several expressed desire to act in context of broken LA system

• Diocese acting to prevent divergence from church ethos

Professional challenge

What?• Wanting to move beyond being

a head/executive head• Eagerness to influence sector

widely• Wanting to be a forerunner

Who?• Accomplished ‘super-heads’• Philanthropists

How was it evident? • Transition to CEO explained

frequently as a ‘logical next step’ for system leaders

• Interviewees describe academies as a new opportunity/challenge

Explicitly not ‘empire building’

All successful CEOs interviewed carefully explained future ambitions in terms of building on outcomes once achieved – many explicitly stated they were not interested in ‘empire building’

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“[The sponsor] sent someone who worked for him to say, ‘Would you like to be my head for my academy?’ And I said no. [And then he said] ‘if you come and run my school and make it outstanding then you can set up a chain of schools’ . I had never heard of such a thing, because back then there weren’t any. So I said yes and took the school on.”

“It is our moral obligation as an outstanding school to help other primaries where we can. We work in the toughest areas and show that success is possible. If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere.”

“We’ve no desire to be big. Being big is not an end in itself, that’s not what we want. We simply want to do a good job and not compromise any of our previous academies.”

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Vision and ethos are well transmitted by leaders throughout strong chains – but this is not always with branding

Use of branding to communicate vision and ethos varied between high performing sponsors:• Variations in levels of investment in branding

by sponsors were striking in interviews: – School-initiated sponsors and

organisations where individuals have an established local reputation to trade on seemed to invest less.

– Start-ups without local roots invest more. In the case of one, ‘brand’/ethos is part of fundraising platform as well as selling to schools/LAs.

• Around half the sponsors we interviewed had made deliberate decisions to let schools maintain their own brand. They viewed this as in keeping with their ethos of supporting professional autonomy and devolved decision making. School re-branding was viewed as an important tool amongst the other half.

High performing Lower performing0%

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60%

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Proportion of sponsors with ‘clearly stated chain purpose which is well understood’

High performers are more likely to have a well understood vision:• Our survey of Sponsor Relationship Managers (SRMs)

suggests 60% of high performing sponsors have a vision and ethos that is clearly understood, versus 37% of weaker sponsors.

• Interviews supported this – setting out ‘what it means to be an xx school’ was important for all successful sponsors we spoke to – the term ‘collective ethos’ was used by several.

• Several said that head teachers can only remain post-opening if they understand and are fully committed to the ethos.

Being a ‘business sponsor’ does not guarantee success, yet strong commercial skills at board level are seen as crucial

Strong presence of individuals with commercial backgrounds at board was seen as important – especially in the ‘growing infrastructure’ phase…

• Strong sponsors with business founders felt they had benefitted from their approaches and way of looking at things. In particular, the emphasis on financial planning.

• All strong sponsors we spoke to valued commercial skills and saw them as critical at board level.

• Two sponsors had appointed senior commercial sector people to trouble shooting roles on the board having hit problems during the ‘growing infrastructure’ phase – their input was considered transformative.

We found no evidence that being a ‘business sponsor’ per se guarantees success…

• ‘Business sponsors’ were identified through a combination of background stated on their initial application form, and our own knowledge of which are currently a business, or are supported by a person or entity with a commercial background.

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“We had no expertise in education so we don’t come from the starting point that we are experts in something. The first step was to, just as you might do in business, find out who does something very, very well, who does it best in the world and copy them.”

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High performing sponsors think holistically about staff needs and making the most of development opportunities across the chain

• Most sponsors we interviewed provide cross-school progression opportunities at all levels; all do at leadership level. At least half saved costs by employing a senior teacher at a higher rate to work across more than one school.

High performing sponsors are more likely to offer a CPD programme across the chain…

High performing appear more likely to move staff between schools…

• These survey results fit with the picture painted by great sponsors during interviews - five emphasised that they have developed their own very distinct CPD programmes delivered by leading professionals across the chain.

“It is better for individual and for chain when one outstanding head works across 3 schools – it spreads the benefit of expertise and provides career progression.”

Put a strong emphasis on nurturing internal leadership as part of succession planning – less so the FD appointment

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• In keeping with previous research (Hill, 2012), most of the sponsors interviewed used their CPD development programmes to drive their succession planning for senior board and make regional lead appointments. They focus on developing existing school leaders but also brought in others with high level educational expertise.

• Most of the CEOs at the Expert Roundtable had identified a successor within the Trust. Largely they deemed Chief Operational Officers as having more insight into the strategic aspects of the CEO role than those working on the educational side. Four of the seven had identified successors from their Trust’s ‘business side’.

• Two sponsors explained that they provide opportunities for future leaders to gain experience of other industries through secondments and short-term loans.

Strong focus on bringing future Trust leaders, including regional directors, up through ranks

Financial directors and Chief Operating Officers were seen as vital appointments – but were more likely to be external recruitments

“The Department should ask all sponsors for their succession plans. At [our academy] we spend time on them regularly and they cover the short and medium term. You’d expect all good sponsors to have them.”

• The most essential appointment for most sponsors we interviewed has been their finance director – this was usually someone from the corporate world, although most had previously worked in the education sector too. Less often it was a former school bursar.

• Sponsors at the Expert Roundtable described that these were the most difficult appointments to make due to pay not being competitive with the private sector and regional talent shortages.

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Case study: nurturing leadership, strong CPD

One of the longest established high performing sponsors ARK are particularly notable for their work to nurture leadership and promote professional development.

ARK’s CPD scheme aims to foster and maintain high quality teaching in every ARK school. It involves 10 days of training per year for every teacher and specific programmes for staff at each stage in their career. The network also holds an annual summit for all staff to come together to spend a day looking at their own development and that of the network.

In 2012, ARK created its own teacher training programme in collaboration with Canterbury Christ Church University. The network has now been accredited as a teacher training institution. The programme is aimed at graduates and career-switchers. Current trainees have been nurses, soldiers, lawyers, and doctors, and bring the benefit of their skills and experience into the classroom. By 2020, ARK’s aim is for at least half of its teachers to have come through the ARK Teacher Training programme. By 2015, they want all existing staff to be using the programme’s resources as part of their on-going professional development.

If a change in leadership is taking place within a particular ARK school, the Trust will identify a strong leader from within the network to take the school forward. This will normally be someone with experience in an ARK setting who has been through the ARK programmes of professional development. ARK’s ‘Future Leaders’ programme was set up in partnership with the National College and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust is designed to train headteachers to turn around challenging schools. There are over 300 professionals on the programme. Following the success of Future Leaders, ARK worked with partners to establish something similar aimed at middle leaders. Over the past five years, middle leaders from 444 secondary schools have been through this programme.

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GOVERNANCE AND FINANCEFindings

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High performing sponsors are more likely to have clear accountability and governance structures

High performing sponsors seem more likely to have structures perceived as excellent in terms of clarity and accountability…

…and related to this, more often have smaller boards

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The shape of governance structures is broadly similar but the balance of decision-making between different levels varies

Chain CEO

Hub director

Head C Head EHead DHead A Head B

Education. Dir.

Hub director Hub director

CFO HR (and others)

Strategy Vs operational level: A general distinction between strategic direction - exercised at chain level- and more operational accountability-exercised at school or hub level.

Size of ‘hubs’ varies significantly. At the extremes were one with 3 schools and another with 15 schools – most others varies between 4 and 10. Directors of smaller hubs tend to be thought of as ‘Exec Principals’.

Hubs led by educationalists: All the high performing sponsors we interviewed had middle leaders with educational expertise – some were known as ‘Exec Principals’ and others ‘Regional Directors’.

Similar across high performing sponsors

Different between high performing sponsors

Heads reporting lines – whilst most heads report directly to the hub director, some still report to school governing bodies reflecting differences in local school governance arrangements

Board and local governance links: It is common for school governing bodies to include representation from board members.

Autonomy to hubs: one chains’ hubs are MATs in their own right, but there are other examples of highly devolved decision-making. In other instances the role is restricted more narrowly to school improvement.

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High performing sponsors remain focused on core business but find innovative ways to maximise efficiencies across their chains

Whilst focussing on their core purpose, a number of sponsors have identified ways to generate returns on their investment in IT and CPD:Trusts developing and selling their services: One bought and developed a pupil data

management system which produces school level dashboards and pupil level data. This is available to parents on an online dashboard, via secure access. They have sold their developments back to the software company, which has partially funded further IT investments. They will use their system to link to a reward scheme for teachers.

Another developed a high-tech performance management system in-house and are now selling it back to software provider.

Some sell their teacher training packages or programmes externally to other schools and chains, which helps recoup the costs of the programme development.

• Back office efficiencies commonly cited by high performing sponsors in interviews were:

– Single recruitment processes– Catering – Printers and photocopying – Purchasing of paper and books and supplies – Software licence costs/cloud networks– Utilities– Centralised HR services and contracts

• We have not been able to access the data to assess systematically how frequently these avenues are used or significant differences with weak sponsors – but this is an area for further exploration.

A range of efficiencies are achieved by high performing sponsors across their chains – especially once they reach around 10 schools:

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“We’ve benefitted from economies of scale, [since] we’ve had 10 schools and we enjoy contracts at a much better

value than many huge LAs because they assume because they are large that they will get economies of scale and

they have no commercial capability whatsoever. They just take whatever deal they are offered. We are very

commercial and we bargain and play people off against each other as people do in the world of business. We

drive huge deals.”

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Business model is clearly important – yet we found no link between top-slice or central services and chain performance

We looked at the top-slice and central services offered by our largest chain sponsors:

• Our internal survey suggests that the average top-slice for all chains with 3+ established schools is 4.4%. The typical range was 2 to 5%, with a few outliers.

• The vast majority of chain sponsors provide finance, school improvement and IT services centrally.

There was no obvious relationship between either top-slice or range of central services and performance of chain:

• In one example, the sponsor only charges £100 per pupil but still have a large say over what schools buy. The chain organise and commission – the schools pay for services to retain responsibility.

• Another chain takes 5.1% as a top slice from schools to pay for a huge range of services. Schools also buy ICT services from them on a per pupil basis.

Superficially these seem very different but they are both ensuring schools receive the services they need – they just fund it in different ways.

Finance

School im

provement HR IT

Legal

Buildings m

aintenance

Building projects

Insurance

Utilities

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%Proportion supplying service

Interviews highlighted that high performing sponsors have a wide spectrum of charging practices – top-slice is only a part of the picture:

• We found no correlation between size of top-slice and performance of sponsor in results terms.

• Nor was any link evident between the types of back-office services provided and performance.

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Financial planning was something all high performing sponsors emphasised, especially as they grow beyond 6

The need to strengthen financial planning has been recognised ‘late in the day’ for a number of high performing sponsors…

• In the last 12 months, four of the sponsors we interviewed have taken urgent action to strengthen their financial capabilities - three in the ‘growing infrastructure’ phase and one ‘large sponsor’.

• Actions have included: bringing in experienced full-time business personnel to control all aspects of HR, finance, procurement, IT, and business planning across the chain and in each school; and bringing in external auditors to complete a detailed business review and conducting a complete restructure.

• Sponsors emphasised the toughness of the financial climate they face, and the cautious planning and risk management required.

“Initially we underspecified the size and scope of the finance work needed and probably overestimated the amount of education improvement work required.”

“When we started we made the assumption they [schools] could do it – didn’t take us long to work out they couldn’t! And we’ve just had our first audit of 2012-13 and all the mistakes we made were glaring …but by the end of that year we put in what we needed to put in.”

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SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT APPROACHFindings

High performing sponsors adopt different approaches in the extent they prescribe on teaching and learning

The level of prescription on curriculum and pedagogy does not appear to be a defining feature of successful sponsors…

A number of sponsors described an ‘earned autonomy’ model. But the thresholds were set in very different places...

• Sponsor Relationship Managers (SRMs) were asked to rate how prescriptive their sponsors were in terms of curriculum and pedagogy.

• There was no significant difference between higher and lower performing sponsors.

Most prescriptiveLeast prescriptive

• Set curriculum materials – only strongest can opt out

• ‘Sheep-dip’ staff training

• Tend to replace heads

• Take firm control of failing schools

• Monitor pupil data

• Curriculum set locally – common elements due to influence of lead schools

• Tend to work with incumbent heads

• All high performing sponsors we spoke to operated a version of ‘earned autonomy’ – while some described it as 20% autonomy and 80% prescription, for others it was the other way.

• Level of prescription on teaching and learning did not appear to be related to prescription in branding.

• In our SRM survey, we found pupil data monitoring was universal and not related to sponsor performance.

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Generally, high performing sponsors take firm control of failing schools – but their strategies for handling incumbent leaders vary

• Sponsors interviewed tended to emphasise they have no blanket policy on moving heads on. One high performing sponsor had only changed 2/14 incumbent heads.

• The critical factor in decisions were described in terms of willingness to embrace the sponsor’s ethos and can demonstrate capacity to improve.

High performing sponsors across the board emphasised that they do everything they can to get in and take firm control quickly:

• All high performing sponsors we interviewed emphasised that they do everything they can to get in and take firm control of failing schools quickly.

• This included sponsors that considered themselves more ‘collaborative’ workers, although in these cases, emphasis was on jointly developing a plan of action which the sponsor could then hold the school accountable for.

• Where practicable, detailed planning was done as part of due diligence well before funding agreements are signed.

The perception is that high performing sponsors move heads on more quickly – but sponsor interviews suggest a varied picture:

“It’s all about your ability, as a sponsor and a CEO, to identify potential and qualities in

leaders. Heads need to be signed up to ‘Leigh thinking’ and then we can work with them.”

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Many high performing sponsors are outward facing – achieving some of the benefits of geographical clustering via alternative

meansSponsor interviews illustrated that it is common place for high performing sponsors to be driving the success of their schools, partly through partnerships in the wider system. Equally, many work with schools outside their chain to support them, usually as a natural continuation of the relationships they built through being system leaders prior to becoming academy trusts.

Sponsor B is entering into a service level agreements with Diocesan schools to supply services. They are also in a mutually beneficial arrangement with a teaching school by helping them to deploy their staff and gaining experienced people in return. The CEO is interested in developing/building these networks for the benefit of the chain.

“We are contacted regularly by small, primary MATs asking for advice. we will help and offer advice if we can – we do not keep any of our policies or

structures hidden; it is there for all to see and use. It is all about a wider system of improvement, not just about us. We are not competitive.”

Sponsor C recruits improvement partners for their schools from many sources including other schools. They have recently had a maintained school approach them wanting to be the school improvement partner for the Diocese with the next academy that needs ‘special care’.

Sponsor A is working with an outstanding school who are deploying their staff in their schools as an SI. This is also CPD for those staff and their home school is more likely to retain them by providing new opportunities. The schools also continue with their informal networks within their LA and working with feeder primaries/secondaries.

Sponsor D now has five NLEs in total. They use this expertise to ‘parachute’ their Directors and Executive Principals into sponsored projects, to lead radical, rapid and sustained transformation – but also to offer additional support to non-chain schools in their local areas.

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Case study: assertive on failure, but not highly prescriptive

REAch2 is the largest national primary chain and is attaining good results across it’s schools. They use a varied and tailored programme of tools to turn around failing schools, based on the National Support School model. This includes: introducing proven aspects of curriculum and timetabling, acting on behavioural issues, putting in place acting or temporary heads and refreshing governing bodies, introducing leadership coaching and school-to-school support at all levels of teaching.

The chain is committed to locally driven solutions and take trouble to ensure that decisions about what needs to happen are made according to the needs of the children and families in that community. Regional Executive Principals (who lead locally based clusters of schools, which are organised as MATs within a REAch2 umbrella) take close control of new, poorly performing schools in their area. They use their local resources to drive improvements and to react quickly to issues, bringing in expertise from across the chain where it is required. Schools are not re-branded with the REAch2 name, maintaining their local identities.

REAch2 operate broadly on the principle of ‘earned autonomy’. As schools in special measures begin to improve and demonstrate capabilities to take on more control, the leadership becomes more autonomous. Each ‘outstanding’ academy is free to make its own decisions and well-performing convertor academies will have different schemes of delegation to brokered sponsored academies. Yet even strongly performing REAch2 schools will share characteristics with other schools across the family. The chain has a rich menu of professional development which is offered across the chain, including a 14-day programme that all heads are required to attend. In addition cross-group innovations are being introduced. “11 B4 11” is a recent example – a programme which offers all REAch2 pupils 11 unique and memorable opportunities before they turn 11.

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SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

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Common principle for high performing sponsors Overall reading of range of evidence available suggests this is integral to being a high performing sponsor

Varied within high performing sponsors Our research has shown that some high performing sponsors do this – but not all

No distinction between higher/lower performing sponsorsIssues we have tested and found no evidence of a positive correlation with sponsor success

Growth and development

High performing sponsors grow carefully, understanding their own capacity, the challenges they take on and navigating key transition points well. 5-10 is a particularly challenging growth period.

The extent to which their growth has been measured or steady in the past varies.

No evidence yet of an optimal size or age.

Portfolio of schools

In terms of school mix, high performing sponsors are more likely to have a blend of sponsored and converter projects – those with 90%+ sponsored do not tend to perform as well.

Overall those with 80%+ primaries appear not likely to do as well – but there are some exceptional primary only sponsors.

No evidence that level or diversity of challenge in terms of historic attainment or pupil intake is relevant.

High performing sponsors plan growth in terms of developing geographical clusters of schools and maximising opportunities for collaboration.

The extent to which schools are located in geographically close clusters or close to Trust HQ varies.

No systematic relationship between sponsor performance and geographical clustering.

Summary of findings

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Common principle for high performing sponsors

Varied within high performing sponsors

No distinction between higher/lower performing sponsors

People and leadership

High performing sponsors have strong and determined CEOs with a clear moral purpose that is well transmitted to all staff.

The extent to which vision is communicated as a single ‘brand’ vs schools retaining autonomous identity varies.

Career progression is often a motivation for CEO across the board (distinct from ‘empire building’).

High performing sponsors value commercial skills and invest in financial leadership beyond 5-6. FD and COO appointments are often external.

No evidence that sponsors with business founders are more likely to succeed (though small sample).

Most high performing sponsors provide cross-group progression and CPD. They hire senior teachers to work across more than one school and nurture future leaders in-house.

Some high performing sponsors to be outward facing and work to promote skills beyond the chain, but not others.

Governance and Finance

High performing sponsors are more likely to have visibly clear and accountable governance arrangements and small boards.

Links between trust and school level governance are often strong but there are different models for doing this.

They incorporate a range of organisational structures.

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Common principle for high performing sponsors

Varied within high performing sponsors

No distinction between higher/lower performing sponsors

Governance and finance cont.

High performing sponsors have a middle or ‘regional’ management tier led by educationalists when they grow to 5+.

Middle leaders are typically responsible for anything from 3-10 schools. Their level of autonomy varies.

High performing sponsors understand the importance of financial planning and invest in this.

The extent of focus on financial planning in the past varies.

No distinct top-slice, central offer or performance on key financial indicators.

School improvement approach

High performing sponsors have protocols for taking control of failing schools. Their action is always swift and assertive.

Vary in how likely they are to replace heads of failing schools.

High performing sponsors usually describe their approach to sustaining school improvement in terms of ‘earned autonomy’.

Vary in the extent they prescribe curriculum and pedagogy.

No more likely to monitor pupil data across the chain than weaker sponsors – they all do.

High performing sponsors usually have strong partnerships with schools in the wider system.

For some it is a continuation of their historic system leadership role – some use external partnerships to help drive success in their schools.

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Opportunities to build on this research are developing all the time. Some potential future areas are listed below.

• Update analysis based on this year’s results – based on continuing focus on chains of 3+ schools open for over 1 year, we would expect our sample for quantitative work to grow from 88 to around 140, providing richer data and enabling further analysis of different sponsor types and segmentation. This should also allow us to look at the difference between good and great in more detail.

• In-depth exploration of the factors associated with successfully running a Free School and group of Free Schools.

• Analysis of characteristics of high performing converter-only chains.

• More detailed work on characteristics of poorly performing sponsors – including exploring in detail where sponsors had been progressing well and hit difficulties at key transition points.

• Further analysis of the relationship between chain performance and financial health indicators

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For more information

Contact us

By email: sponsor.support@education.gsi.gov.uk

Also check out

In-depth sponsor profiles for a number of the sponsors interviewed for the research: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/academy-sponsor-profiles