Top Tips: How to Scale and Grow your MAT

Growing a Multi-Academy Trust is not without its risk. There are many considerations MATs need to think about when onboarding a new school into their trust. Here’s just a few of our top tips on how to scale and grow your MAT.

 1. Implement a strategy

With the addition of more schools and staff, challenges become more commonplace for MATs. From day-to-day operations to implementing a people strategy and empowering your staff, having a well thought out approach in place to support your growth makes managing acquisitions easier.

2. Capacity and resourcing

With more schools within your MAT there is more capacity and resources to distribute, alleviating some of the pressures of growing your MAT. However, for smaller MATs it may be more difficult to onboard new schools if capacity is already stretched. Ensuring your staff have enough capacity and resource to support with your acquisition will go a long way in maintaining a happy workforce.

3. Cultural competence

Ensuring that there is a cultural match between your MAT and prospective acquisition, and alignment of vision and values is one of the main priorities to consider. If these culture and values don’t match then it is highly likely there will be issues later on down the line.

4. Do your Due Diligence

The due diligence process gives stakeholders the confidence that their upcoming acquisition is the right fit. By taking the time with due diligence and really understanding the risks and benefits associated with prospective acquisitions you can be well informed to make the decision on whether to proceed or not.

5. Get expert help

If you find yourself struggling to grow your trust or manage the current schools your trust has onboarded, then it may be time for you to seek some expert advice from industry professionals. These specialists can guide you through the process and alleviate your concerns so you can be delighted with your acquisition/s.

How can Strictly Education help?

Due Diligence

Our FREE interactive Due Diligence Checklist for Growing Multi-Academy Trusts has been developed to make the process easier by listing each area that requires review and allowing you to tick off those that have been completed. Additionally, the due diligence team at Strictly Education are experts in education and risk management and can provide support and guidance if needed. They can even manage the entire due diligence process for you, if required.

EduPeople

EduPeople is an HR, payroll and pensions system and service designed specifically for the education sector. Viewing your people data is easy - with EduPeople you have a clear and accurate picture of your workforce from a MAT-wide view all the way through to a single establishment. Not only this, EduPeople is modular and can scale and grow as your trust does. EduPeople empowers your staff by reducing administration ultimately giving them more time and capacity to focus on the things that matter most.

Find out more

Get in touch to find out more on 0330 123 2549 or at edupeople@strictlyeducation.co.uk we are happy to answer your questions. Alternatively book a discovery call to discuss your challenges and organise a tailored demonstration to show how EduPeople can help address them. You can also find out more in our EduPeople brochure and video on EduPeople here.