MATs centralising the curriculum: the myths, trends and critics

Back in 2024, Department for Education adviser Sir Kevan Collins made waves when he said he had “never seen teachers more enslaved”, with many being told what to do “down to the degree of the slide stack you’re going to use in every lesson”.

He added that a culture where teachers and schools were given curriculum and lessons centrally was a problem for teacher retention.

A rush of first-hand accounts of dissatisfaction followed, and much of the ire was aimed at multi-academy trusts. Since then a narrative has developed that suggests if a school gets taken over by a trust, your lessons are no longer your own.

But is this a fair reflection of how and why trusts may centralise decisions on what happens in lessons - and of the impact of those decisions?

What does a ‘centralised curriculum’ mean?

Loic Menzies, an education policy and research specialist and author of the book How Policy Happens, explains that, in a national sense, all curriculum is centralised.

At the “macro level” is the national curriculum (which soon everyone will be required to follow), and at the other end we have the “micro level”, which is how curriculum plays out in schools.

Traditionally, schools make sense of the national-level curriculum, and agree on how they will approach it at the micro level.

But there’s another level at work, too. In between the macro and micro levels is the meso-level curriculum that sits across, say, the local authority, or more commonly these days, the trust.

Any activity of trust dictation of curriculum is often lumped in together as centralisation, but in reality what is happening in practice can look vastly different between trusts.

For some trusts, centralisation might be decisions made on curriculum by the central team. For others, heads of department or key stages in schools across the trust may come together to make decisions about how their curriculum could align. Or in some cases, curriculum may become aligned over time as schools and staff across the trust share resources and strategies.

‘There isn’t always a common understanding of what is meant by “centralised curriculum”’

For some trusts, any of these scenarios could happen across all subjects, while others may be more aligned in certain subject areas. Maths, for example, may be more straightforward to align, says Steve Rollett, deputy CEO at the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), but trusts may want English and history curriculums to be slightly more reflective of local contexts and demographics.

In the latest research by the CST, 22 per cent of trusts said they “primarily” direct curriculum centrally. That was similar to the figure in 2024. But that doesn’t mean others don’t align on aspects of their curriculum.

And how far central alignment or direction filters into prescription of the actual lesson varies, too.

“There isn’t always a common understanding of what is meant by ‘centralised curriculum’. In some trusts this might mean they’ve got a curriculum map that shows concepts, content and so on that children ought to know and remember but the precise sequencing or teaching approach might not be codified,” says Rollett.

“In other trusts there might be an alignment of sequencing and resources supporting the curriculum as well. Both might be described as ‘centralised’ but can look quite different.

“There is a more sophisticated discussion taking place across the sector. It isn’t just a binary ’Should we centralise or not?’. For many it’s about to what degree, in which ways, and ‘How do we get there?’”

At the extreme end of the scale is dictation of the curriculum down to the PowerPoint teachers should be using for lessons and the words they should be speaking (essentially fully scripted lessons). But even then, it is not necessarily the case that this is the centre dictating to the schools.

“An aligned curriculum can be the product of teams of teachers and subject leaders coming together across the group, so alignment can be bottom-up and middle-up as well as top-down,” Rollett says.

“In practice it often has elements of all of these. Ultimately, the key consideration is what is going to be most beneficial for children - in both the short and long term. This might look different depending on the quality of the existing curriculum, the urgency of any change needed and the capacity of schools and trusts.”

What do trusts say are the benefits of centralising curriculum?

Trusts that centralise (at various points across the scale above) cite the benefits as efficiency, potential for school improvement, how it can make capacity for schools to focus on other things, and its potential to cut teacher workload on planning.

Astrea Academy Trust (which runs 26 schools) has a high degree of centralisation across its secondary schools, with trust-wide curriculum booklets, which essentially means a common framework, defining minimum knowledge and understanding, as well as encouraged use of provided PowerPoint presentations - though departments are able to adapt booklets and choose which resource elements they use depending on need. Its primary schools follow a centralised curriculum without using booklets.

“Using a shared curriculum has some very practical benefits: we have a common professional language across our trust, meaning we are able to compare, for example, the work from a pupil in Barnsley and a pupil in Rotherham in the same year, and ensure our training and professional development is much more effective because it meets the needs of everybody,” says Joanne Powell, regional director at Astrea.

She adds that the level of prescription has big benefits for teachers, particularly in primary where teachers are expected to teach a wide range of subjects to a high standard.

“Centrally developed curriculum resources provide a strong foundation of subject knowledge and curriculum thinking,” she argues. “This means teachers can spend less time creating materials and more time concentrating on the aspects of teaching that make the greatest difference: understanding what pupils know, identifying misconceptions and adapting instruction to support learning.”

And Powell says that other benefits include reducing unnecessary duplication of effort and providing resilience during periods of staff absence, turnover or recruitment challenges.

Oasis Community Learning (58 schools across the country) has rolled out a more centralised curriculum in phases. The trust follows a knowledge-based approach, setting out core knowledge concepts, and maps centrally.

Lesson-level resources are available, though Emily Hobson, primary national lead for strategy and innovation at Oasis, says schools have the choice of how they use them.

Personal biases can be introduced when writing curriculum, she argues, referring to her own experience creating curriculum back in 2014 when she was a school leader.

The important thing is there being an “equity of offer that every pupil should have across the country”, Hobson says, and that the approach allows school leaders to focus on leading schools, particularly if they have stretched capacity.

South West trust Academies for Character and Excellence (ACE), which has 20 schools, centralises to a lesser degree. There is a central curriculum model, which sets out what pupils across the trust should learn and provides examples of progression for academic excellence, character and metacognition. It is these values that align schools to the curriculum.

But CEO Nick Hind says that schools can personalise from these foundations. For example, one part of ACE’s aim is to develop students’ aspiration for learning. In the centralised curriculum there is guidance around what this progression could look like but it is for the school to adapt this to meet the needs of the pupils as they move through school.

A shared curriculum underpinned the beginning of the trust, explains Hind, and has been a reason why several schools have wanted to join.

“If we didn’t have a model of alignment, we would have to ask ourselves the question: why join the trust?” he challenges. “We knew one size doesn’t fit all. But our shared values have got to permeate everything we do, so the consistency is those and the model of curriculum design.”

How do trusts arrive at centralisation?

To some extent, bigger trusts may have more capacity to create curriculum centrally, Menzies says. But on the other hand, bottom-up curriculum planning, where heads of departments or subject leads work together, can also be easier across a smaller group of schools and make sense given those trusts’ context.

Rollett says curriculum alignment may also happen over time as a result of convergence in practice.

“The more we work together, the more we see each others’ practice, the more we’re exposed to the same research. Probably over time our view of what a good curriculum is might converge.”

Menzies says “trusts get there for different reasons”.

“There are three particularly important ones,” he argues. “Firstly, to provide a common approach and identity among schools. The second one is that trusts are supposed to be a vehicle for school improvement, and curriculum is often a fundamental part of that model.

“Thirdly, many trusts seek to take unnecessary work away from teachers, and giving them frameworks to work with is one way of doing that, even if teachers still need to make calls at the nano level about how they respond to the class that’s in front of them.”

For many trusts, their level of centralisation sits somewhere in the middle of the scale between no centralisation and complete prescription. For example, Lift Schools (62 academies) has an aligned set of curriculum principles that covers things like subject range and curriculum time, and the knowledge the trust wants each pupil to learn. Schools are then able to decide themselves how to sequence learning and best shape the curriculum for their context.

“That balance is increasingly important,” says education director Jo Thurston. “Alignment allows us to bring teachers together across the country to develop expertise, share resources and professional development, and respond collectively as the curriculum evolves. At the same time, what is right for a school in Middlesbrough will not necessarily look identical to what is right for a school in London or the Isle of Wight.”

John Halliwell, executive director of primary at STEP Academy Trust, which has 19 primary schools across South London and East Sussex, says the notion that everything is “top down” is not true in his trust’s case.

STEP has been reviewing each national curriculum subject, and choosing two a year to enhance, in partnership with schools and staff. As part of that process, subject specialists from each of its schools come together to review how the current curriculum works, current research in the subject area, and where schools could do with further support from the trust.

But what about the criticisms?

The critics of centralisation often raise concerns relating to the need for schools and teachers to have autonomy in curriculum planning and feel a sense of professionalism, as well as being able to adapt to local contexts.

Caroline Barlow, head of Heathfield Community College and co-chair of the Headteachers’ Roundtable, acknowledges that centralised curriculum can uphold standards and help staff workload, particularly in settings with high turnover or lots of new teachers.

However, she says teacher autonomy is important in a school like hers, where staff are more experienced, so departments and teachers are able to decide how to adapt content and decide if a group of students need to follow a different pathway, and also respond to national or international events.

Her deputy head, Barry Howard, who is also curriculum development lead at Heathfield, says too much centralisation potentially deskills curriculum leaders, “who should understand how a scheme for a curriculum is put together”.

Some critics argue that high degrees of centralisation are less appropriate in some subjects.

The English Association’s CEO, Dr Rebecca Fisher, and its education policy lead, Professor Robert Eaglestone, say that the organisation has “concerns about curriculum centralisation and over-standardisation for English”, though it acknowledges that many trusts are centralising while recognising that one size does not fit all, and some centralisation may free up capacity.

“English is a dialogic discipline, which means teachers needs the freedom to be responsive to students; too much centralisation can squash that,” they argue. “As a dialogic discipline, English needs teachers who have autonomy and deep professional and subject expertise - indeed, the [curriculum review] is supportive of this, stating that English needs to be grounded in the local context and fold in local authors.”

‘When teachers feel they have less control over what and how they teach, job satisfaction falls’

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, says teachers should “not be treated simply as delivery agents for pre-packed lessons”, adding that “no single curriculum package can meet the needs of every school, community or classroom”.

“When teachers feel they have less control over what and how they teach, job satisfaction falls and more teachers consider leaving the profession,” he argues.

Astrea’s Powell, though, is unapologetic about centralisation and cautions against assumptions inherent in some of the criticisms of it.

“There can sometimes be a concern that a shared curriculum leaves little room for local context, but we should be careful about what we mean by that. Context should enrich a curriculum, not limit it,” she says. “Every child deserves access to knowledge, ideas, places and experiences that extend beyond their immediate surroundings. While it is important that pupils see their own lives and communities reflected in what they learn, it is equally important that education broadens their horizons and introduces them to a wider world.”

She says Astrea provides a “consistent entitlement to powerful knowledge for all pupils”, while allowing schools and teachers to bring learning to life through local examples, experiences and connections.

“We see these local elements not as alternatives to a shared curriculum, but as ways of enriching it and making it even more meaningful for pupils,” she says.

Oasis makes sure to adapt for its context, says Hobson. For example, by teaching local history and geography, and it provides tailored resources across the cities schools are located in.

But in terms of autonomy, Hobson argues that “the greatest autonomy you have is to develop your relationships in the classrooms with the pupils that you teach, and if we can move some of the noise away that might detract from that, and give you the tools to find out what they know and how you can develop them further. That is the greatest level of autonomy that I would want as a teacher”.

For Hind, as well as making sure ACE’s schools have the freedom to adapt the shared model to their contexts, the trust also encourages teachers to personalise the curriculum to meet the needs of their specific children. He is very clear that teachers plan their own lessons rather than this coming centrally.

“One size fits all doesn’t work,” he says. “A teacher has to know their children and understand the needs of their children. If you don’t know your children, how are you going to plan for them? It’s like a supply teacher coming in.

“Our teachers - it’s their curriculum. It’s not something that has been handed down. If they don’t have ownership of it, then it becomes really, really difficult because it’s just something they’ve been given.”

Halliwell feels similarly.

“What we put together is an idea of a model of a typical child going through a curriculum, but that can’t necessarily be done in the same way because we need to take into account pupils’ needs, their starting points, what their curriculum has been like previously, the gaps they are facing,” he says.

“What we’ve tried to do is think about the most common challenges that a school might have and we have built that into the plan and map of the curriculum, and staff can dip in and out of that.”

To be clear, there are huge variations between trusts about how far centralisation should go - and robust critiques and disagreements among them.

What might we see from the new government on this?

The government’s schools White Paper, published before Andy Burnham was installed as prime minister and Lucy Powell became education secretary, was clear in saying that it wants all schools to be in families of schools.

Ms Powell has since said her department will look again at the curriculum review published under her predecessor - though changes to the national curriculum would only impact at the top level.

“We saw with the Francis [curriculum] review that actually a big theme in it was how we make sure there’s more flexibility, alongside specific entitlements,” Menzies says.

“So it’s possible that a post-Francis review curriculum will allow more space for curriculum making at the meso and micro level, which might, in turn. lead to MATs playing a bigger role.”

But Kebede highlights the curriculum review’s point that teachers should act as “curriculum makers”.

“The new government has a vital opportunity to put teachers back at the centre of curriculum design and ensure professional expertise drives motivating and enjoyable lessons,” he says.

Will we get more centralisation?

There are no other surveys as widespread as CST’s on how trusts align the curriculum. But Rollett suspects the percentage that don’t align at all is reducing as the trust sector matures.

Similarly, Hobson thinks we will see more curriculum alignment.

“There are trusts that are really interested in this level of work and wanting to do this,” she says.

“If they make significant changes to the actual curriculum content in the review, I genuinely don’t believe schools have the resources now that they did when they did this back in 2014, and I think that’s a real threat to small schools. Lots of primaries that aren’t part of MATs, they will end up having to buy in a curriculum because they potentially haven’t got the capacity to develop it.”

Menzies thinks that could mean a bigger role for MATs in curriculum making and, particularly as some smaller trusts and single-academy trusts consolidate, more centralisation down the line.