Strategic Business Plan 2019 - 2022

Foreword

I am delighted to introduce the Business Plan for Staffordshire University Academies Trust (SUAT),

for the period 2019 - 2022.

SUAT aims to enable Staffordshire schools from any phase to secure their future as academies.

Greater autonomy for schools should not, in our view, mean greater isolation. As the educational

landscape is changing at an unprecedented pace, leading in particular to a marked reduction in the

role and capacity of Local Authorities, SUAT aims to provide a supportive and collaborative context

in which our schools can continue to thrive into the future.

That support takes many forms. Schools are first and foremost for education, so it is right that at the

heart of what we do is a focus on school improvement, staff development, and enabling our young

people to excel. We support schools in meeting the challenges of rising expectations through

mutually supportive intervention and training. Secondly, the Trust works to support each school in

ensuring that it has secure and robust financial and resource management, so that schools meet

their statutory responsibilities. And thirdly, we support schools in the nurturing of the distinctive

ethos which contributes so powerfully to the development of our pupils as rounded and balanced

young people poised to make a contribution to society.

The ethos of the Trust is collaborative and participative. Every individual Academy has a voice,

through the Trust’s open and transparent governance, in the key decisions which affect each

Academy. Moreover, the Trust aims to value the healthy diversity which exists in our Academies, and

we actively encourage each school which decides to join SUAT to maintain and further develop its

own distinctive culture and identity.

Mary Walker

Chair of the Trust Board

Planning for Growth

I am very pleased to introduce the SUAT Business Plan covering the period 2019– 2022. This plan

sets out our three year strategic objectives. It feels like a timely moment to reflect on where SUAT is,

the challenges and opportunities it faces and what needs to happen next.

The development of converter academies and MATs has given us an opportunity to work within a more autonomous system. Small standalone academies and flat MATs do not generally have the capacity to innovate or spread good practice across the system.

The SUAT Trust Board is determined to see a high performing Multi Academy Trust that delivers the very best educational experience for pupils at both primary and secondary level. The educational landscape continues to change at a fast pace with more schools converting to Academies. This document sets out our philosophy and explains how we will plan, guide, support and improve our Academies (and schools that are yet to join), ensuring that there is a clear focus on improving leadership and governance, teaching and learning and on raising standards.

We have a cost effective organisation and a business model that delivers efficiency, effectiveness

and growing economies of scale in order to free up more resources for the core business of

providing our pupils with a first class education.

The key components for our developing operating model are

Having the right curriculum and assessment systems in our Academies

Outstanding pedagogy and outcomes

An efficient professional and labour model

A collaborative leadership and management structure

Outstanding leadership at all levels

A clearly defined financial model

In order to be a high performing organisation we need to ensure that we have strong governance and be very clear on our operating model. Strong governance means clearly defined lines of accountability and oversight and appropriate skills to perform that oversight. A clear operating model will enable us to deliver our strategy through support for our Academies.

I am very glad to have a strong Board of Directors which provides the effective support and

challenge required to ensure that the Trust is a good employer and, as a Multi Academy Trust, an

effective home for our academies, with the leadership and track record to succeed.

It is often said that each child gets one chance of education. Our role is to ensure that our pupils

make the most of their opportunities by ensuring that our Academies aspire to and reach the highest

standards.

I look forward to working with you to deliver this plan.

Keith Hollins

Chief Executive Officer

Vision and Values

Staffordshire University Academies Trust has set itself four core objectives in order to equip our pupils with outcomes and real life skills that prepare them for the digital world whilst giving them the resilience to adapt to their circumstances and lived experiences:

Support our academies, staff and pupils in their journey to sustained outstanding performance through partnership, support and collaboration at all levels of the organisation.

Understand our communities in order to further improve our ability to raise aspirations and to inspire staff and pupils to maximise their full potential.

Aspire to a sustainable future for our academies so that outstanding achievement and progress can be secured for future generations of pupils.

Train, and support the wellbeing of, all staff so that they can be inspirational leaders and outstanding practitioners.

Our mission is to enable our children, young people and their families to report that Staffordshire is a great place to live, play, learn and achieve in; a place where they feel safe and can lead healthy lives and a place that offers them a successful future.

Our vision is to achieve better outcomes for all of our children and young people by providing an

outstanding set of inclusive and aspirational learning experiences.

We will realise this by:

Raising standards of pupil progress and attainment by focussing on the core business of learning and teaching and by providing learning opportunities and varied experiences for our pupils.

Delivering a knowledge and skills based curriculum that is tailored to individual learning needs.

Promoting the spiritual, moral, social, emotional and cultural development of every learner.

Working together to maximise the power of mutual collaboration and support.

Sharing resources, staff, areas of expertise and facilities to achieve economies of scale.

Creating highly effective leadership at all levels and seeking to pool strategic capacity.

Constantly developing our ability to support the wellbeing of all staff and pupils.

Introduction

Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) are complex organisations. SUAT believes that the highest performing

MATs have a coherent approach which aligns their vision, their mission, their school improvement

strategy and their operating model. In order to do this, our leaders at all levels need to be clear how

SUAT adds value and helps schools deliver better outcomes, working together, than they would have

done working independently.

What is our intended strategy?

SUAT’s planning processes encompass both what we want to achieve for our pupils and what type of

organisational culture we want to promote. Whilst we share similar goals for what we want to

achieve for pupils, with other MATs, it is important that we are clear how we wish these aims to be

balanced and articulated. In terms of our organisational culture, we believe that SUAT should be a

network of relatively autonomous community-based schools, each with their own identity.

Clearly, we have high aspirations in terms of pupil outcomes, as academic outcomes are important

for pupils’ life chances. At the same time we strongly support other pupil-focused aims such as

supporting long term career paths or building social and cultural capital.

We are also aware of the importance of getting the balance right between growing in order to

increase central capacity, and increasing central capacity in order to support further growth.

Ultimately, SUAT’s growth plans are continually reframed as we develop our capacity, take on new

schools with different needs, and respond to the priorities and imperatives of the system around us.

Our Business Plan recognises that in reality we are heavily constrained and there are a number of

limitations to what we can do. SUAT cannot simply translate our intended strategy into practice. The

Trust Board recognises that it has to shape its actual strategy, and set up our operating model, based

on how we can best navigate the landscape that we are facing.

SUAT’s Business Plan is, therefore, shaped in response to a range of contextual factors:

External and internal requirements made of us.

The local, regional and national context.

Our Academies’ starting points and current performance.

The capacity of the Central Team.

The geographical spread of our Academies.

Many of these factors are fast-changing and so SUAT recognises that we have to constantly adapt

our strategies and this can result in a series of ‘break points’, where the Trust will need to change

our strategy leading to changes in our structure and function, but NEVER our vision and values.

Our key priorities, from an operational perspective, need to be;

Maintaining compliance as SUAT grows.

Ensuring governance structures and schemes of delegation are fit for purpose.

Balancing growth and capacity.

Necessary changes to the structure and function of the Central Team.

Delivering school improvement as we grow and become more geographically dispersed.

Maintaining local decision-making as we grow. Growth as a factor in our business planning

As we continue to grow our advantage is that we can further develop our operating model, as we will have:

The financial and educational resources to invest effectively in developing and implementing the model.

Sufficient scale of implementation to enable investment in the model. We will increasingly have the resources to invest in innovation. As a group of Academies the levy can be pooled to ensure that our central resources are large enough to develop and deliver the model.

The capacity to benchmark performance. A wider and more expert range of experience and perspectives to draw on in

developing the teaching and learning, management and other elements of the model. With more teachers and support staff there is wider scope for innovation and more opportunity for standardising best practice.

SUAT’s Business Model envisages around 30 schools, across all tiers, possibly arranged

geographically in clusters. This maximises the opportunity to work collaboratively together. The

desirable balance of the schools is 4 or 5 in the secondary sector and 15+ in the primary sector. We

aim ultimately to have representation in the mainstream sector, and also with Alternative Provision

facilities, in order to truly reflect the communities that we serve. This also gives us a comprehensive

skills set amongst our academies.

SUAT has undergone a period of rapid, sustainable growth since 2016.

The Company Risk Register does take account of the following:

Advantages of expansion

More young people in Staffordshire enabled to have an outstanding education.

Greater flexibility of curriculum opportunities and staff CPD opportunities.

Ability to exert more influence on policy at local and regional level.

A larger MAT will strengthen the power of the brand and potentially increase its impact.

Greater range of promotional opportunities for all staff, at every level.

A larger resource-base to strengthen support available from the centre.

Increased scope for sharing learning, expertise and staff development across SUAT academies.

Increased economies of scale from having greater purchasing power and being able to share central costs among a larger number of academies.

A bigger platform for supporting innovation and planned innovation and risk taking.

Opportunity to build new primary/secondary curriculum models.

A MAT that will be large enough to provide scale but small enough to be able to respond to change in a complex environment.

Risks of expansion

Standardisation whereby academies become clones of each other and the MAT loses its capacity to innovate and respond quickly and positively to change.

Dilution of the common ethos.

The growth in the number of academies makes the MAT impersonal where key leaders and staff don’t really know each other or it becomes difficult for them to interact together.

The core infrastructure – the central services – becomes overstretched.

The opportunities identified above are not realised.

The MAT reacts to having more academies by becoming more bureaucratic and more of a rule-based organisation.

Some diseconomies of scale start to emerge; for example, it becomes harder to communicate and keep staff informed and involved across the academies.

There is a reputational risk to the brand if one of the academies gets into difficulties or improvement proves very intractable.

Lack of competitive edge within the MAT which over time becomes complacent.

SUAT has a comprehensive growth strategy for the Trust and is aware of the obstacles or challenges that could impact on successful growth. Our future growth plans are premised on us admitting schools that are in, or very close to, Staffordshire and Stoke-on Trent. We are looking at all phases and types of school. We believe that we have set up a system that can cope with around 30 schools, with some additional staffing at the centre. We have grown, at a pace that we can adjust to without any diminution in the quality of our offer. Currently our MAT central staffing costs are an acceptable percentage of our MAT levy income and we anticipate that this will fall as a percentage of income as we expand. This will allow us to invest a maximum amount in school improvement. We lease our central office, on a five-year lease, so this cost is already factored into our spending plans. We should seek to expand to a size that gives us the mass necessary to sustain our offer without becoming too large. Our intention is to achieve better outcomes for all of our young people by: • raising standards of pupil progress by focussing on the core business of learning and

teaching. • delivering a skills and knowledge based curriculum that is tailored to individual learning

needs. • promoting the spiritual, moral, social, emotional and cultural development of every

learner. • working together to maximise the power of mutual collaboration and support. • sharing resources, staff, areas of expertise and facilities to achieve economies of scale. • developing highly effective leadership at all levels and seeking to pool strategic

capacity. Staffordshire University Academies Trust believes that its academies should be at the heart of their communities; that education goes beyond the classroom and the school day, and that

every person’s role within the Trust is to deliver outstanding provision in whatever sphere, so that maximum progress by the pupils can be made. The Trust believes that these values should allow all stakeholders to excel and believe that there are no limits on individual achievements. Our success will be measured against the values set out above. The Trust recognises its responsibility to the development and welfare of staff, and where appropriate these values apply equally to them as well as pupils. This is the right growth strategy because it seeks to achieve incremental growth. In order to be a successful MAT we have developed a crystal clear vision for our future. We know what we stand for, our values and the principles that underpin our strategy for school improvement. We have now built a team, both at our corporate centre and in our academies, that shares that clarity and has the capacity to lead real and sustainable change. We believe that the most successful MATs have grown gradually and remained based around one or two geographical hubs; we intend to be based in, or close to, Staffordshire. If we did develop hubs the most likely model would be around phases rather than geographical proximity. Our intention is to grow at a sustainable pace. We will not take on too many academies before we have the capacity to support them properly. This will be defined by the level of challenge of the schools that we admit. We know from our experience to date that challenging schools are complex organisations within very complex communities. They require leadership that is sensitive to context, but also inspired by the moral responsibility of providing all children with an excellent education. This is our vision in our County. We recognise that schools are not franchises that can simply be rebranded with a lick of paint, a new uniform and a corporate logo. In SUAT’s view our academies will offer different opportunities. Our MAT will provide our academies, and the staff and leaders within them, with a supportive network that allows extra capacity, shared best practice, and a great education for our young people. However, we recognise that if our network is collapsing under the pressure of rapid growth, it will not be able to serve this function. SUAT intends to increase incrementally its capacity to support individual academies through the sharing of resources, practice and leadership. We will prevent the failure of our plan by ensuring that we meet the needs of the academies by systematically building our capacity. Our immediate challenge centred around school improvement and organising the basics of a group of schools working together; it is now about maturing a partnership and expanding its scope. The redefining in 2019 of our vision by the Members, the Trust Board, the Academy Principals and the Chairs of the Local Academy Councils is now underpinned by explicit values, which genuinely inform decision-making and action. These are particularly important because in the current landscape it is our intention to take on additional schools. Returning to mutually-held values is essential if new schools are to provide a best-fit with our current academies. We also have a clear plan for capacity-building, due diligence and risk management.

The core work of school improvement is also very different at scale. There is benefit in having consistent policies across schools, as this allows for sharing of resources and staff, but it requires absolute clarity about what is expected and what is left to the discretion of the individual school; this we have done.

A summary of our processes for increasing capacity in terms of key personnel and/or other resources as the Trust grows is:

Senior Leadership

SUAT believes that MATs have social and moral commitments different to those of commercial organisations. Finance and organisational structures are a critical factor, but the growth of SUAT should not be measured solely by its economic size. The real measure is in the scope and ability of the Trust to enable all its academies to contribute richly to their communities; enhance the experiential quality of life in our academies; develop the talents and capabilities of staff; and, crucially, extend the life opportunities of our young people. This requires outstanding senior leadership in our academies.

As a not-for-profit educational organisation SUAT is in a distinctive position where our model of sustainable growth is formed, not only by financial factors, as with business organisations, but also by wider social, moral and organisational considerations. We recognize that leadership is the most commonly identified characteristic of successful growth. Developing our leadership capacity at all levels will contribute to, shape and direct the strategic vision and growth plans of the Trust.

We have now a well-communicated and well-implemented strategic vision which will enable each academy to contribute to the Trust’s vision and will ensure that each supporting strategy is mapped against successful outcomes for young people. Effective leadership also extends the social and moral responsibilities of the Trust through a commitment to and partnership with others in education. For example, our academies are expected to contribute strongly to their local network of schools.

Operational Support

The growth of SUAT from one to three schools in 2014 put more strain on the system that, in a single school, could be managed through personality, such as finance, governance, HR and PR. We recognised in 2015 that these critical health factors of the organisation were not being adequately addressed. If social, moral and organisational factors determine the success of our growth, it is the financial element that will enable or constrain the Trust’s ability to achieve and sustain this. At its simplest, economies of scale only begin to operate above a certain threshold. By calculating, at the Trust level, our 5% levy contribution to running the central team and support structure, we have modelled the impact on SUAT at different scales.

Our developing business model has a number of key drivers:

School improvement at scale.

This is the most fundamental because it is about children’s outcomes and the quality of education in

all of SUAT’s Academies. A key barrier nationally seems to be the ability of some MATs to develop a

clear theory of school improvement that can be easily understood and applied at scale. Scale

enables the best leaders to have a much larger impact. Rather than relying on creating more great

leaders SUAT will provide a structure in which outstanding leaders can support a greater number of

schools. We will also seek to provide opportunities where we can develop the next generation of

leaders.

The SUAT Trust Board recognises that it isn’t possible for the CEO of the MAT to do school improvement day in, day out when they have to wear the hat of accounting officer and when they are responsible for leading such a diverse team of professionals. The role of SUAT’s CEO is increasingly to build the capacity, provide oversight and guidance, and, crucially, create a strong theory of the case for school improvement that everyone in the MAT understands and can apply. This will allow for sustainable growth and success.

The other key risk, of course, is that if school improvement is not systemised and distributed sufficiently then when key people leave the organisation’s core work is put at grave risk. This has been recognised in our Risk Register since 2016.

The workforce: Becoming an employer of choice.

Recruiting and retaining the most talented staff to work in our Academies is the number one school improvement strategy. Our model will ensure that recruitment is not something that we inevitably outsource to agencies, it is a fundamental leadership responsibility and it has to be the core business of the Trust Board and our Academies.

We are experiencing incredibly challenging times. One third of those who joined the profession in 2010 have now left, and issues such as stagnating pay, perception of workload and a more buoyant wider jobs market and economy are conspiring to make this a crisis. As a MAT we have the potential to combat these challenges but we need to build the perception that we are an employer of choice. Successful recruitment and retention is about far more than jazzy adverts laden with buzz words or ‘wellbeing’ days. It is fundamentally about organisational strategy and mature organisations invest a lot of time, energy and resource in getting this right.

Today’s potential employees place a premium on an organisation’s vision, its role in society and the ability it gives them as employees to be ‘change makers’. They also want flexibility and the opportunity to work across a wide range of contexts during their careers; they want access to high quality mentors who are experts in their field; they want clearly set our career development pathways and opportunities; and they want to network with their peers. They also do want a decent work life balance.

Teaching is highly unusual in that newly qualified teachers are given their own clients (class) without serving a multi-year apprenticeship under a more experienced professional.

Financial sustainability and economies of scale.

Again, this is a huge issue for us. Despite the promise by government of some additional funding in the coming years things will still be tight. By prioritising strategic thought and planning around this issue we will be best placed to protect spending on pupils’ learning in the years to come. However, we are only scratching the surface. Whilst we are becoming very good at procurement for major contracts and considering harmonising back office systems and processes (which saves money and time), we are very often duplicating support services without having conversations across our Academies, and even with other MATs, about how we can work together and ensure strategic co-ordination. This could, for example, apply to CPD delivery, ICT provision, HR advice, education psychology services, and more. As we grow we should seek to maximise the benefits of greater centralisation, increasing purchasing power and operational effectiveness.

This requires a much deeper level of collaboration between MATs and SUAT considers it to be the deepest level of collaboration that the system should be aiming for. If we are really serious about

sustainability we should be opening up conversations with other local MATs, building trust, exploring areas where we can complement one another’s strengths and weaknesses to achieve better co-ordination and a more joined up approach to providing some back office services.

Governance

We have developed a fit-for-purpose governance structure, in which there is greater clarity about each contributor’s role. Many of the pioneering MATs are “accidental” trusts, which have grown from successful schools with successful heads becoming “accidental” CEOs. But the governance structures that were right for a single or handful of schools are unlikely to be appropriate as SUAT grows.

SUAT’s original structure of governance was premised on a school model and so we have, therefore, reviewed our governance structure with a view both to make it better serve our current needs and be capable of flexing and evolving as SUAT continues to grow.

At the organisational level, we have developed a model of governance with clear and agreed distinctions at Trust and Local Academy Council (Local Governing Body) level. Clear delegation and direction of responsibilities now provide the necessary framework for ownership, transparency and accountabilities.; this needs further development. We have developed sound subsidiary governance because it is essential to ensure that we have arrangements that are appropriate for the size and complexity of the organisation. The Trust Board can now be sure that each of our Academies is operating in a manner consistent with the direction and leadership set by the Board, while being suitably flexible to deal with local cultures and situations.

Local governance is a hugely critical area. We currently have over 150 members of Local Academy Councils (LACs) in our system. Most of the negative press on the MAT sector directly stems from issues that have arisen through poor governance.

The expectations of school governors are onerous even for a full-time professional and are unreasonable to expect from a volunteer, who may have no relevant experience. Amongst other things our LAC members are expected to appoint Academy Principals, approve and set out a budget, define, monitor and interpret performance data, oversee staff disciplinary matters etc. A candidate for a similar role outside the school system would be expected to demonstrate experience of senior management, communications, HR and finance. Accordingly, we need to be able to recruit, retain and train LAC members with the right skills set.

We must recognise that our success partially depends on recruiting people to the Trust Board, and to the LACs, who are able to apply the level of challenge, support and strategy required for organisations of our scale and responsibility. We also know that the governance of our more challenging Academies is necessarily more demanding of time.

The Trust Board is an additional tier of governance sitting above the governance structures of the constituent Academies. We must seek to further develop clarity in relation to the respective roles of Academy Principals, Local Academy Councils, the Trust Board and the corporate centre.

The Trust Board can add value here. The Trust seeks to recruit individual Trustees that have experience and expertise of all aspects of the work of the Trust and the corporate centre – education, finance, HR, property and human relations, for example. Equally we must build on our current model of devolving operational responsibilities to our Local Academy Councils whilst strengthening accountability at the local level. The further development of the Trust Board must not erode this local accountability.

Vision

SUAT is being developed by visionary people. However, there is so much more potential for developing ‘the vision’ for education (and engaging local stakeholders in that vision) than we have demonstrated so far. We must not define ourselves only by the number of schools, the ability to achieve Ofsted success or performance tables. These are objectives rather than vision.

A very important feature of a sound operating model for SUAT is that it is built around a single, holistic vision for the Trust and that each component works to deliver that vision. This is fundamental if we are going to be transformative and if we are going to recruit and retain staff, LAC members and Members and Trustees to join us.

SUAT strongly believes that it must work with a range of stakeholders to take the space that national and local government has held for so long in developing the vision for education in this county. We need to be looking to the future, identifying the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for children and their futures, and developing a vision that sets out how – together with our sponsor, communities, local businesses, charities, parents and others – we are going to prepare children as best we can for that future.

Future Planning at Trust Board Level

We must now further develop our thinking in these areas, in order to turn vision into reality, as SUAT continues to grow. In order to further develop our business model, we need to:

School Improvement

We need to ensure that our school improvement work is systemised and distributed in such a way that it enables a successful model of succession planning.

We must support the further development and evolution of pedagogy and assessment.

We must establish what, fundamentally, should be at the heart of our school improvement work.

We need to further develop our attempts to resolve the juxtaposition of the standards and inclusion agendas.

The Workforce

We need to start to develop a five-year recruitment and retention strategy.

We must consider ways of further developing our reputation as an employer of choice.

We can develop best practice teaching models and share them across our schools.

Finance

We must engage in conversations with other MATs about how we can work together and ensure strategic co-ordination.

We can consider having conversations with other MATs about how we can work together? This could, for example, apply to CPD delivery, payroll, ICT provision, HR advice, education psychology services and more.

We need to determine the scale of our corporate centre.

Geographical dispersion will play a part in optimising trust development – as we undertake geographical expansion we must consider the impact on budgets and the potential for us needing to alter our operating model, if at all.

We should consider developing clusters in order to streamline management and make use of staff more easily.

Governance

We must develop a strategy designed to inspire and incentivise high calibre people to take on the roles.

We need to look more carefully at the training and development needs of our LAC members.

We must ensure that we continue to develop and maintain a system of high quality governance and support with clear lines of accountability. This should necessarily include recognition that volunteers will almost certainly be time limited?

We need to agree that a consistent operating model is being implemented.

We must ensure that the Trust Board maintains a constant performance dialogue, with the individual Academies, that is proactive, supportive and developmental.

We must clarify the evolving respective roles of Academy Principals, Local Academy Councils, the Trust Board and the corporate centre?

Vision

We need to capture the imagination of our communities and stakeholders in order to inspire them to contribute to the development of our vision and about what the wider offer and pledges to children and young people should be.

We must further develop a clear curriculum, pedagogy, management structure and labour model aligning these elements around a coherent vision for all academies in our family.

We must reflect as to where we are now and identify what opportunities we have here.