EPI report: Secrets of successful school groups

The EPI’s recent report provides valuable insights into the performance of academy trusts, local authorities, federations, and dioceses across several key metrics. Drawing on findings from an interactive benchmarking tool and the Decisions in Education in England (DEEP) survey, the report highlights challenges and trends in recruitment, financial health, and pupil inclusion

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Education Policy Institute

School workforce challenges

One of the standout issues identified by multi-academy trust (MAT) leaders is recruitment. Secondary schools within MATs show a higher annual turnover of classroom teachers (16.9%) compared to those under local authorities (14.4%). This turnover rate is even more pronounced in larger MATs, reaching 19.5% on average.

While high teacher turnover at the secondary level correlates with lower overall attainment and fewer post-16 destinations, it does not significantly impact the progress of disadvantaged or low prior attaining pupils. Interestingly, at the primary level, there is no apparent link between teacher turnover and KS2 attainment.

Efficiency seems to be tied to higher teacher turnover, suggesting that schools focusing on retaining only high-quality teachers could achieve better performance metrics despite frequent staff changes.

Financial health of school groups

Financially, primary MATs are about twice as likely to maintain positive in-year balances compared to other group types. This trend is even stronger at the secondary level, where MATs are nearly three times as likely to have positive balances, although these balances tend to represent a smaller percentage of overall budgets than in primary schools.

EPI’s survey reveals that 90% of MATs employ top-slicing, taking around 6% of funding from all schools within the trust rather than pooling resources. In contrast, diocesan school groups generate the highest proportion of their income independently (over 6% on average), whereas academy trusts have the lowest self-generated income. This disparity likely reflects the socio-economic status of the communities these schools serve.

Pupil inclusion and attainment

Larger MATs (with 10 or more schools) report higher rates of persistent absence, suspension, and unexplained exits compared to smaller MATs and local authorities. However, these larger MATs also enrol more disadvantaged pupils and achieve better outcomes for these students.

Diocesan primary schools, both MAT and non-MAT, tend to have less representative intakes of their local areas. Despite this, they exhibit lower levels of persistent absence and higher overall attainment.

Internal exclusions, which are not included in national data collections, appear more common in secondary schools. Less than 3% of secondary schools reported not using internal exclusions at all, compared to nearly a quarter of primary schools, as indicated by the DEEP survey.

Policy recommendations

Based on these findings, several policy recommendations are proposed:

1. Enhanced metrics publication: The Department for Education should publish accessible metrics for school groups, similar to the “trust quality descriptors” approach. This would enable a clearer understanding of each group’s performance and its reflection of local community demographics.
2. Review accountability and inspection systems: It’s crucial to adapt the accountability and inspection systems to better consider the diverse pupil demographics and circumstances of individual schools. Schools admitting higher proportions of disadvantaged or additional needs pupils should not be unfairly penalised under new accountability measures.
3. Inclusive admissions code: The school admissions code needs a review to focus more on inclusion, particularly examining why some school groups (like dioceses) are less representative of their local areas in terms of low-income pupil admissions.
4. Consistent financial returns: To facilitate better comparisons, local authority education teams should report their income and expenditure similarly to how trust central teams do via the Academies Accounting Return. This move would enhance transparency regarding how funds are top-sliced and re-distributed.

Addressing these areas can help improve the recruitment and retention of quality teachers, ensure fair financial practices, and foster more inclusive educational environments.