How to effectively on-board new academies

Get tips on how to smoothly on-board new academies into your trust. Find out what to prioritise before a school joins your trust, and how to help the LGB hit the ground running once all the paperwork is signed.

Last reviewed on 22 April 2022
School types: AllSchool phases: AllRef: 40812
Contents
  1. Keep the process flexible
  2. Before the conversion process starts
  3. In the 6 months before conversion: grease some wheels
  4. After conversion: help them hit the ground running

Our thanks to our associate education experts, Cathy Brown, Laura Corcoran, Sara Scott and Jill Wakefield for their help with this article.

This article is aimed at whoever leads the central governance team in your trust. This individual may be called a ‘governance lead’, ‘governance co-ordinator’, ‘governance manager’, ‘head of governance’ or something different.

Keep the process flexible

There’s no 1 size fits all and every academy is different, and you might be faced with delays as you go along. 

You might find that not everything in this article works for you. Feel free to pick and choose elements of this article to help you personalise your onboarding process for each academy.

Your trust leaders will handle the operational side of things There will be quite a lot of moving parts behind the scenes which you may not be involved in, and that’s as it should be. Your trust