Multi-academy trusts: establishing and developing your trust
How MATs can grow their trust, including using a trust partnership arrangement.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Trust partnerships guidance
This document:
- explains what trust partnerships are and how they work
- provides some examples of trusts and schools who have entered into a partnership
Trust partnership service level agreement
This is an example of the legal document required to formalise a trust partnership. It has been written for use by a multi-academy trust and school but can be adapted where needed.
MAT assurance framework
This is a voluntary tool to help academy trusts understand their most significant areas of strength and challenge.
Information to support local authorities interested in setting up a multi-academy trust is also available.
For information about DfE’s role in making academy trust commissioning decisions see Commissioning high-quality trusts.
Updates to this page
Last updated 6 July 2023 + show all updates
-
'Building strong academy trusts: guidance for academy trusts and prospective converters' removed. Link to new guidance, ‘Commissioning high-quality trusts’, added.
-
Updated section 2.4 of 'Trust partnerships: guidance for academy trusts and prospective joiners' to reflect the new trust and school improvement offer for the 2022 to 2023 academic year.
-
Added a link to information on local authority-established multi academy trusts.
-
Added an updated version of 'Trust partnerships: guidance for academy trusts and prospective joiners'.
-
Updated 'building strong academy trusts: guidance for academy trusts and prospective converter' and 'Trust partnerships guidance'. Replaced the 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): school improvement capacity framework' with a 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): assurance framework' and guidance on how to use this framework.
-
Updated 'Building strong academy trusts'. Added 'Trust partnerships guidance' and 'Trust partnership service level agreement'. Removed 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): resources', 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): development programme resource' and Multi-academy trust (MAT): good practice guidance and expectations for growth'.
-
Added updated MAT school improvement capacity framework.
-
Added an updated version of the 'Multi-academy trust (MAT): school improvement capacity framework'.
-
Added 'Multi-acadamy trust (MAT): school improvement capacity framework'.
-
Added 'MAT development programme: resource'.
-
Added updated resources for multi-academy trusts.
-
First published.