Over the course of recent research on multi-academy trusts undertaken by LKMco, where I work, several CEOs argued that multi-academy trust growth is important “to make savings through economies of scale”. However, there is another crucial and pressing role for MATs: cutting teacher workload by sharing planning and development of resources across schools.

I confess, I am an ex-teacher with a bee in my bonnet. I loved crafting individual lessons for my pupils. I also learned a lot by planning without a ready-made scheme of work. However, it resulted in long hours, exhaustion and stress.

My workload experience was not unusual. Analysis by the NFER showed that 10-11 per cent of qualified teachers leave the state sector each year. Workload, partly due to planning, is the key driver of this crisis in teacher retention. A recent study from The Key found that school leaders feel that workload is one of the main reasons teachers leave their school. The DfE’s Teacher Workload survey highlighted planning as a main source of excessive workload.

Do we just need more teachers? Probably.

But the current school funding and education policy context makes reductions in contact hours unlikely. If schools are having to make cuts, employing extra staff to increase teacher capacity is not a viable option. However, given that MATs are supposed to create a self-sustaining school system, surely we should be expecting them to use their scale to minimise needless additional work.

By helping schools to share planning and development of resources, MATs could reduce the time individual teachers spend on preparing lessons. One way of doing this would be to use a MAT-wide intranet to share lessons and contact details of different schools’ teachers. Although some teachers already share planning within their immediate departments, MAT-level sharing could cut workload further. Adapting plans which are relevant to visions and local contexts is likely to be quicker than departments planning afresh or adjusting plans from online sources. Furthermore, having easy contact with other MAT teachers means there can be a backbone of trust, quality and ongoing communication to make sharing more effective.

Standardised schemes of work

MATs could also cut planning time by standardising schemes of work. This would avoid unnecessary work duplication. Our report, Building Trusts, which we wrote with the charity Ambition School Leadership, showed that some MATs are already standardising curriculum resources to facilitate cross-school collaboration and cut costs.  

Understandably, people might object to lesson homogeneity because they fear it will weaken teacher autonomy. I can sympathise because, as a teacher, I enjoyed the sense of ownership I had over my work. However, such resource sharing does not have to result in a prescriptive approach where all teachers churn out the same lessons. Teachers would save time on laborious basic planning tasks and have increased capacity to hone and tailor lessons.

MATs can facilitate collaborative planning in different ways. Building Trusts showed that MATs operate on a spectrum between complete centralisation and school autonomy. In some MATs, functions, like curriculum design, are delivered centrally with a core team holding key responsibilities and directing schools. In others, individual schools keep hold of more responsibilities. Others also operate using “collaborative convergence”, in which schools in a MAT voluntarily work together to define an agreed approach.

Complete centralisation is not necessary for sharing planning. Where a MAT favours “collaborative convergence”, schools could work together to agree their approach to planning. Schools could agree on a framework for what basic things must be included in schemes of work. This would ensure lessons plans were transferable between schools. Largely autonomous schools could share plans but have no obligation to follow a set approach. This could help schools to retain their individuality, whilst giving them access to a solid starting point for planning. Teachers from different MAT schools could also exchange ideas and improve each other’s work. 

I am not suggesting that MAT structures are the ultimate workload solution. Policy plays a huge role, and not all schools are an academy. But  MAT structures can be used for more than cutting costs. Focus now needs to shift from MATs making financial economies of scale to workload economies of scale.

Kate Bowen-Viner is an associate at the education and youth ‘think- and action-tank’ LKMco