We talked to Ben March, chief finance and operations officer (CFOO) of STEP Academy Trust – a multi-academy trust with 20 primary schools across London and the south east of England.
He told us about STEP's rationale for switching financial models, and the benefits it has seen across its schools.
Target funding where it's needed most
This decision was prompted by trust growth, and by the context of the new schools that joined the trust. Ben explained that the trust took on a number of schools in a short space of time, and that they suddenly had schools located in 8 different funding areas. This made it difficult to reconcile how all pupils could feasibly expect the same standards of excellence when, at the time, there were significant regional differences – for example, with age-weighted pupil