Academies : Myths versus reality
This resource sets out what you need to know if your school is considering joining a multi-academy trust (MAT), debunking the myths and setting out the reality of academisation.
Supporters of academisation used to claim that the policy would deliver better results, more freedom for schools and greater accountability.
The opposite is true: there is no convincing evidence about school improvement, and the academy system is increasingly dominated by large Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) which tightly control their academies. Communities, staff and parents are locked out of decisions about their schools.
Arguments for academisation often now emphasise financial stability and efficiencies.
But again, the evidence points in the opposite direction, with MATs spending less on frontline staff, and more on bureaucracy, including highly paid CEOs. Far from offering stability, the system is now characterised by MAT takeovers, mergers and transfers of academies between MATs.
Proponents of academisation claim that the academies policy has led to better outcomes and Ofsted grades.
Reality
Despite the hundreds of millions spent on converting schools to academy status, there is no evidence that academies boost attainment.
Research by Professor Stephen Gorrard has demonstrated that academies are no better at raising attainment than the schools they replaced, and that there is no evidence that academies produce better results than schools with equivalent intakes.
Similarly, a 2018 Education Policy Institute (EPI) report concluded that there was “little difference in the performance of schools in academy chains and local authorities” but found that MATs were “disproportionately represented” among the worst performing groups of primary schools.
The previous Conservative Government acknowledged in 2022 that “on average, the poorest performing MATs do worse than the poorest performing LAs”
NEU analysis of Ofsted ratings found that schools who join MATs were less likely to improve their Ofsted rating and were, in fact, more likely to see a regression in their next Ofsted assessment.
MATs usually say that staff pay and conditions will not change when a school joins them.
Reality
There is no legal barrier to a MAT changing staff pay, terms and conditions following academy conversion, and this often happens.
Staff already in the school have a legal right to maintain their pay and conditions on transfer, but the pay and conditions for new joiners can be whatever the MAT decides. Furthermore, conditions for existing staff can also be changed in the future through a restructure.
Many of the largest MATs do not abide by national terms and conditions.
NEU analysis of government data has also found that academies have higher rates of teachers leaving the profession than maintained schools. Among large MATs, the rate of leaving the profession has remained consistently higher than in other type of school over the past 10 years.
Responses to the NEU’s 2025 annual State of Education survey of 13,000 teacher members also revealed that 67 per cent of teachers in large MATs said they ‘often’ or ‘always’ have to work evenings, compared to 59 per cent of teachers in local-authority maintained schools.
Teachers in large MATs were also significantly more likely to work weekends. 61 per cent stated they did so ‘often’ or ‘always’, compared to 53 per cent in maintained schools.
MATs often claim that they can provide more funding and support to a school than it gets through the local authority.
Reality
MATs are funded at the same rates as local authority schools and do not receive extra money. Any savings they can achieve will come from the budgets of their schools. Services that the MAT provides to its schools, and the pay of its central team, including the CEO, must come from their academies’ funding.
MATs usually fund their central services through a “top-slice” of individual academy budgets. Recent data indicate that the average top-slice contribution has increased across all MAT sizes over the past two years. Many trusts are now choosing to pool their academy funding, which means it is not even possible to say how much is being taken from the budgets of each academy.
Crucially, any commitments made by the MAT about how much it takes from school budgets are non-binding. These rates can be changed at any time and schools in the MAT have no right to a say over this. Read more on MAT finances here.
While proponents of academies claim that MATs can achieve economies of scale and spend more on frontline staff, the opposite is true.
A 2024 analysis of school expenditure in England by education journalist Warwick Mansell found that “academies are spending less per pupil on teaching, and less on education support staff, than their LA-maintained counterparts.”
MATs are also spending much larger proportions of their per-pupil funding on senior management. The soaring cost of CEO salaries is a big part of this. In 2024-25, CEOs of the largest MATs earned over £200,000 on average, up from £189,000 the year before.
Schools may sometimes see choosing to join a MAT a protection against being forced into academisation at a later date.
Reality
Becoming an academy is irreversible and offers no protection from a future transfer to a different MAT. Once a school is part of a MAT, it loses control of its own destiny: it can never decide to leave, either to re-join the local authority or join another MAT.
Academy transfers and MAT mergers are becoming increasingly common, and there is a trend towards consolidation into much larger MATs. In 2024-25, a total of 280 academies were transferred between MATs.
MATs which fail may be forced to give up all or some of their schools by the Government. In these cases, parents and staff have no say over which MAT the schools are transferred to.
This does not just affect schools in smaller MATs or those subject to government intervention. Even large MATs sometimes decide to give up schools to other trusts. Again, the school community has no say in the process.
MATs often claim that joining them will not mean a huge change to the school and that it will continue to enjoy its own freedoms and identity within the MAT.
Reality
Joining a MAT means a fundamental and permanent change to the legal status of the school, the loss of local governance and no guarantees over the future direction of the trust.
When a school joins a MAT, it ceases to exist as a legal entity. The governing body will also cease to exist, with power transferred upwards to the MAT board of trustees.
The trust can decide which powers, if any, to delegate to its academies through school-level “committees”, while many have effectively abolished local governing bodies.
While MATs may promise that they will continue to allow a school to have decision-making powers, there is nothing to prevent the trust from making changes to governance in the future.
Parent voice is reduced in MATs because they are not required to have parent representatives at both the trust and school level.
It is no wonder that a 2019 House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report into academy accounts and performance found that “Parents and local people have to fight to obtain even basic information about their children’s schools”.
