Academies and trusts
Academies receive funding directly from the government and are run by an academy trust. Academies do not charge fees. Academies are inspected by Ofsted. They have to follow the same rules on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions as other state schools and students sit the same exams. Academies have more control over how they do things than community schools, for example they do not have to follow the national curriculum and can set their own term times. Some schools choose to become academies. If a school funded by the local authority is judged as ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted then it must become an academy.
Academy trusts are not-for-profit companies. They employ the staff and have trustees who are responsible for the performance of the academies in the trust. Trusts might run a single academy (SATs) or a group of academies (MATs). Please note that there are MATs with only a single academy, these differ from SATs in their funding agreements with the Department. For more information, please see Academy and free school funding agreements.
Types of academies
The release reports MAT performance separately depending on the MAT academy type. Converter academies have chosen to convert to academy status. Sponsored academies are established by a sponsor and were deemed by the Department for Education to be underperforming and in need of help from a sponsor to improve performance. Free schools are brand new academies, set up without a predecessor school following a competitive application process. Legally, free schools are academies once open, so they enjoy the same autonomy and freedoms. Free schools include University Technical Colleges (UTCs), which are a type of free school set up by universities and employers to address a defined employer need in the local area. 39.8% of MATs exclusively contained converter academies; the remaining MATs contained a mix of MAT academy types.
Comparing MAT performance to the national data
Performance measures for MATs are provided separately for MAT sponsored academies and MAT converter academies, alongside overall measures for all institutions that are in MATs. Performance measures for institutions that are not academies, and SATs are provided for context. Including them ensures that all data included in the “all-state funded mainstream institutions” and “all academies” figures are available. However, due to differences between MATs, SATs and other institutions highlighted earlier in the release such as the maturity of each system, comparisons should be treated with caution. Institutions that are not academies, includes all LA maintained schools (community schools, voluntary aided schools, voluntary controlled schools, and foundation schools), city technology colleges, and further education sector institutions.
Differences between this release and the MAT level performance data
The KS4 and 16 to 18 MAT level performance measures, on the Find School and College Performance Data website, and the KS2 MAT level performance measures shared with eligible trusts through the View your education data website have inclusion criteria applied.
For 2021 to 2022, for each key stage (and cohort) we produced measures for MATs:
- That had at least three academies with results at that key stage/cohort and
- Where those schools had been with the MAT for at least three academic years (defined as having joined that MAT before 14 September 2019).
The Government feels it is right and fair to hold MATs to account on their data when they have had their schools for long enough to make a difference. We, therefore, publish trust level data for MATs that are sufficiently well established to have had time to have an impact on the performance of schools they take over (these are often historically underperforming schools).
The inclusion criteria mean that we only report MAT level performance measures for MATs that have at least three schools at the relevant phase. They also mean that schools are not included in a MAT’s performance measures until they have spent three academic years in the trust. This gives the trust some time to implement any changes in the running of the institution and influence the educational performance of pupils at key stages before any trust level accountability data are published.
In 2021/22, 38.5% of MATs covering KS2 had fewer than three KS2 institutions; 68.4% of MATs covering KS4 had fewer than three KS4 institutions; 80.3% of MATs covering the academic and applied general cohorts had fewer than three 16 to 18 institutions.
13.7% of pupils at the end of KS2 (10.8% of institutions) in MATs were in MATs with fewer than three KS2 academies. 36.3% of pupils at the end of KS4 (34.4% of institutions) were in a MAT with fewer than three KS4 academies. 21.1% of students in the MAT academic cohort, 19.2% of students in the MAT applied general cohort (15.5% of institutions with pupils that were in the academic and applied general cohorts) were in MATs with fewer than three 16 to 18 academies.
At least this percentage of trusts, the institutions within them, and the students that attended them will not have been included in 2021/22 MAT performance tables on the Find School and College Performance Data website and the KS2 measures shared with eligible KS2 trusts through View your education data due to the inclusion criteria.
Not applying the inclusion criteria in this release shows the achievements of all pupils in MATs across KS2, KS4, and 16 to 18, but it should be remembered that it is not the same basis on which trusts are held to account.
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on how grades were awarded and measures were calculated in the 2021/22 academic year
This academic year saw the return of the summer exam series, after they had been cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, where alternative processes were set up to award grades (centre assessment grades, known as CAGs, and teacher assessed grades, known as TAGs). As part of the transition back to the summer exam series adaptations were made to the exams (including advance information) and the approach to grading for 2022 exams broadly reflected a midpoint between results in 2019 and 2021. More information on these changes at KS4 can be seen in the Guide to GCSE results for England, summer 2022.
The KS4 and 16 to 18 performance measures reported in this release, and on the Find School and College Performance Data website, for the 2021/22 academic year have been affected by our commitment not to include results from qualifications achieved between January 2020 and August 2021 in future performance measures. We have adjusted the methodology designed to minimise the impact of gaps in data for schools and colleges. KS2 assessments in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled during the pandemic. To find out more about this, please visit our primary accountability measures guide, secondary accountability measures guide, or 16 to 18 accountability measures guide.
As a result, users need to exercise caution when considering comparisons over time, as they may not reflect changes in pupil performance alone, and likely reflect the changes in methodology for awarding grades and in calculating the measures, rather than demonstrating a difference in standards.
Feedback
We are reviewing the usefulness of this statistical release to users of the data for future years and would welcome any feedback from readers on how we best present national data on the trust sectorin future. We welcome feedback on any aspect of this document at Attainment.STATISTICS@education.gov.uk.