Creating a school improvement framework for your MAT

Learn how to create the right environment in your MAT to drive school improvement. Get to grips with what you need to determine as a central team, and how to involve each school in creating the improvement framework by sharing good practice and successful interventions.

Last reviewed on 11 May 2023
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 44198
Contents
  1. The 3 elements of a MAT improvement framework
  2. Top-down improvement: what to determine at MAT level
  3. Bottom-up improvement: encourage your schools to innovate
  4. Peer-to-peer improvement: enable your schools to learn from each other
  5. Checklist for assessing your school improvement framework

The 3 elements of a MAT improvement framework

Understand how to build a school improvement framework that takes into account:

  • ‘Top-down’ improvement, i.e built and dictated by the MAT
  • ‘Bottom-up’ improvement, where the learnings of each academy feed into the improvement model
  • ‘Peer-to-peer’ improvement, to account for where academies can share resources and knowledge

We look at each of these elements below.

Top-down improvement: what to determine at MAT level

Create an education vision

Your framework should centre around a shared vision of what makes a great education.

For example, your MAT may choose to prioritise:

  • Pupil mastery of core skills
  • A knowledge-rich curriculum
  • Social mobility and routes to higher education and high quality vocational learning
  • Creativity
  • Developing character, wellbeing and resilience

These aims are not mutually exclusive, but the whole MAT should aim for an agreed vision that balances the different elements. This balance will depend on what you decide is right for your pupils and communities.