Frequently Asked Questions
How much do you charge for central services/what is the ‘top slice’?
We do not have a top slice, an increasing number of MATs do not. We pool our resources, to utilise our ability to procure resources and services centrally. Over the years we have saved tens of thousands of pounds by acting as one organisation financially. For example, we provide safer recruitment and first aid training to all of our schools now, whereas a few years ago each individual school purchased this training from a range of expensive providers.
How does this ‘pooling’ work in practice?
Schools have an education budget for staffing and resources. They also have the sports and 73% of the pupil premium budget (for tier 2 and 3 spend). All other ‘traditional’ school costs from utilities, to refuse collection to grounds maintenance, sit with Rise – enabling us to procure better services and save money.
What happens to staff if we transfer into your MAT?
Staff retain their roles and their pay and conditions. Nothing materially changes. Rise MAT become the employers through a TUPE process.
If I work in a MAT, can staff be directed to work in any school?
No. we do not move staff against their will, at short notice between schools. We do often have secondments, maternity cover and internal professional development opportunities that people can apply for but this is different to being compelled to work somewhere else.
Do you have local governors?
Yes. They are a key part of our governance structures. Local governance in our MAT is different to community school governance and it would be disingenuous to state otherwise. Our local governors are a committee of our Trust Board, for it is Directors who have the ultimate responsibility for governance in a MAT.
We set out clearly who does what in our Scheme of Delegation. Our local governors have twenty clear areas of focus that help ensure our individual schools vision and values are lived and that our schools are anchored in their communities.
What do we have to do if we are in Rise?
This is inevitably an area of tension. As a standalone community school or a SAT…there is no need to have synergy with what others are doing. In a MAT, that is different. We cannot get the efficiencies, collaborations and synergy if we all do different things at different times. Below is an overview of some key areas of MAT alignment.
Phonics
Almost all our schools now use Sounds Write. We believe that the CPD for staff is first rate, the heavily scripted program is ideal to secure consistency and it is a program that supports reading and writing extremely well. The reason that most schools use the same program is that we can share expertise, staff can move between schools without retraining and our central quality assurance can be stronger.
That said, some of our schools, for legitimate reasons, are not yet Sounds Write schools and that is okay. Each school will make the move when the time is right.
Assessment, record keeping and target setting
We must have a trust wide view of progress and attainment. We need to identify strong pupil outcomes, be clear of any Rise strengths and weaknesses and then use our resources appropriately.
To support teacher assessment, systematic identification of gaps in knowledge and to provide national benchmarks, we use Rising Stars PIRA and PUMA standardised tests for reading and mathematics.
We use CAT tests with pupils in receipt of pupil premium (Rise+ pupils).
All assessment costs are pooled and procurement managed centrally to get best value.
MIS
All Rise schools use Arbor.
Curriculum
Rise leaders and teachers have been and continue to collaborate on a first class, ambitious curriculum. The Rise curriculum is a huge step in reducing teacher workload, raising standards in all subjects and developing trust wide subject specific professional development.
We have worked collectively thus far, to develop an in-depth curriculum for; science, history, geography, art and DT. We are looking at further subjects this year.
Our curriculum is ever evolving and improving – through the teachers who use it and the subject leaders who quality assure its implementation. When new schools join Rise, if they have a curriculum aspect that is stronger than the one our schools have collaborated on; we absorb their work into ours.
The approach to curriculum transition is carefully considered on a school by school basis. Context is everything.