Commissioning high-quality trusts: summary of guidance

Get to grips with the DfE’s guidance on commissioning high-quality trusts. Understand how the DfE measures the quality of trusts, and what it means for your trust.

Last reviewed on 12 July 2023
School types: All · School phases: All
Ref: 42805
Contents
  1. What is this guidance for?
  2. 5 new descriptions to measure trust quality
  3. The DfE will use the descriptions to consider the best trust for each school
  4. Use the trust quality descriptions to evaluate your governance
  5. Your trust won't be judged against these descriptions

This article is based on the Department for Education's (DfE) guidance on commissioning high-quality trusts.

What is this guidance for?

This guidance explains how the DfE:

  • Judges the quality of academy trusts
  • Uses that information to decide which schools to recommend to which trusts

It's part of the government’s plan for all schools to be part of high-quality multi-academy trusts (MATs). Although the aim for this to happen by 2030 has been scrapped, the government is moving schools in education investment areas with consecutive Ofsted ratings below ‘good’ into MATs.

5 new descriptions to measure trust quality

Pillar 1: High-quality and inclusive education The core of what the DfE expects and the starting point for considering a trust’s effectiveness Pillar 2: School improvement Demonstrates the capacity the trust has to offer Pillars 3, 4 and 5:

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