Schools Week recently wrote about the case of The Diocese of Bristol Academies Trust (DBAT). This 15 school trust is closing its doors after its sole secondary school was rebrokered following an inadequate Ofsted rating.
The trust’s CEO was quoted as saying that trusts with a high number of primaries and low number of secondaries were exposed to “a vulnerability”. With primary pupil numbers set to fall over the next few years, the funding models for trusts in this position may be based around reliance on their secondary schools’ numbers. So losing a secondary school could be disastrous.
Of course, this wasn’t the only reason for the closure, and funding is an increasing concern for MATs across the board.
But it does seem like a good excuse to review the composition of MATs in terms of school phase.
We’ll be using data from Get Information about Schools downloaded in January 2024.
