“Small but perfectly formed MAT seeks like-minded partners for termly fun, shared experiences and mutual understanding.”

Perhaps not your standard Tinder or Bumble profile, but as Valentine’s Day approaches, finding the right trust/school partnership - whether long-term or something more casual - has a lot in common with the tricky world of dating.

As trusts continue to merge and schools explore the education landscape for the right partner, working out whether you “match” can feel like a real conundrum. Do our culture and values align? Our approaches to behaviour? Our curriculum priorities? Our approaches to special educational needs and disabilities?

Getting to know each other

At Quest Trust, we decided the best way to tackle this is by enabling schools that might one day consider joining us to try us out first.

This is a different approach to trust growth. We‘re deliberately separating collaboration from conversion. Schools are welcome to work with us without any structural change being on the table, and definitely no obligation. There’s no expectation to join, no pressure and no financial incentive.

Our focus is entirely relational, based on building genuine connections, a shared mission and mutual support. It’s about working together because it benefits children and our communities, not because of a business model.

This “try-before-you-join” approach also addresses a common concern that will be familiar to many heads and governors. Multi-academy trust decisions are often viewed as high-stakes and irreversible, which makes them feel like a huge, daunting undertaking.

By creating a space where schools can collaborate openly and honestly without fear, trust and confidence can grow naturally for both sides.

No strings attached

At the heart of all this are joint projects, and practical, tangible ways in which we can work together.

Quest partner schools might collaborate on things like shared CPD, curriculum or enrichment initiatives, SEND and inclusion support, leadership mentoring, peer review or operational challenges such as governance, HR or estates.

Often this might mean senior leaders sitting in on each other’s planning discussions, staff joining cross-school subject networks or heads comparing approaches to behaviour, attendance or inclusion.

Sometimes it’s simply having trusted peers to sanity-check a tricky decision with.

How this looks in practice can vary hugely, but a couple of recent examples give a flavour.

We worked with a local primary school that was navigating some leadership capacity challenges, offering support and a sounding board as it refined how it articulated its curriculum ahead of an Ofsted inspection.

And, drawing on our experience of running a UTC, we partnered with another UTC to review its self-evaluation and development planning, not to tell it what to do, but to help it showcase its strengths and impact more clearly.

It’s not me, it’s you

The idea isn’t to create dependency or push a particular model, but to give leaders the chance to work alongside each other on real issues that matter day to day.

Like with any good relationship, those shared experiences - the everyday working alongside each other - tend to reveal far more about compatibility than any formal introduction or due diligence process ever could.

It works both ways, too. This isn’t about Quest “selling itself” but rather exploring whether there’s genuine alignment. Both sides can see whether values, ethos and approach match.

Sometimes the conclusion is that it isn’t the right fit, and that’s considered a success, too.

Discovering early on that another path is better avoids rushed conversions, strengthens relationships and builds a softer, more relational route towards trust growth.

At a time when MAT expansion is on many people’s minds, and joining conversations can feel transactional, this approach offers something genuinely different.

It’s a way to collaborate, share practice and belong before joining. Schools can get to know the culture, the people and the working style, and only explore formal membership if and when it feels right.

When you know, you know

Of course, like dating, this isn’t always straightforward.

Chemistry, shared values and mutual understanding can’t be forced. It takes time, conversation and a few attempts to know if it’s truly the right match. Sometimes simply recognising it’s not the right fit is just as valuable as discovering the one that is.

While Valentine’s Day offers a fun, lighthearted way to look at this, the lesson is a serious one.

The best relationships, whether in love or education, aren’t rushed. They are cultivated, tried, tested and given time to grow, until you know you’ve found “the one”.

Marc Doyle is CEO of Quest Trust

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