Starting a school chain:
Executive Summary
Spring 2014
1
Agenda
Introduction
Questions to consider when establishing a chain
• Scale
• Degree of variance
• Control balance between central office and individual schools
Tools and further information
2
Introduction
This is an executive summary of our guidance on starting a school chain. It provides an
overview of the key decisions you will need to make when considering the nature of
your chain.
This summary should be used in conjunction with the full guidance available on NSN’s
website. This provides more information about what you need to consider when
making these decisions and examples of how Academy chains in the UK and Charter
School Management Organisations in the US have approached them.
The full guidance has been developed by Meera Shah, MBA candidate at Harvard
Business School, in association with New Schools Network and with the generous
support of a number of school chains in both the US and the UK.
If you have any questions about this guidance or about how NSN can help you develop
your plans further, please contact us through [email protected]
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Agenda
Introduction
Issues to consider when establishing a chain
• Scale
• Degree of variance
• Control balance between central office and individual schools
Tools and further information
4
Issues to consider when establishing a chain
Before you commit to starting a chain, make sure you are doing it for the right
reasons…
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Genuine desire to improve educational opportunities for children directly
through the school system
Financial sustainability
Personal legacy
Improved career trajectories for existing staff
Greater voice in the educational debate
Improved access to philanthropic funds
Help build a better brand (enabling improved staff recruitment and
retention)
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Scale, variance and control
When starting a school chain, you need to consider 3 key issues:
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SCALE:
How large do you want your chain to become?
VARIANCE
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How much do you want your schools to differ by their location,
age range and student intake
CONTROL
3
How much do you want your chain to control the governance,
resources and pedagogy of individual schools
You can use the decision grid in the ‘Tools’ section to help record your choices to these
questions.
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Your approach to these 3 issues will affect the nature of your
chain and how it is organised in a number of ways (I)
Culture
Norms and behaviours in the organisation; everyone’s shared understanding of “how
things work around here”
• Examples include attitudes about accountability, orientation towards students and
staff, conflict resolution methods, the approach with stakeholders
Structures
Defines how work gets done; includes how people are organised, who has
responsibility and accountability for results and who makes or influences decisions
• Formal structures are deliberately established forms that can be either relatively
permanent or temporary (eg, organisational chart, task forces, cross-functional
teams)
• Informal structures and power are garnered and reinforced through social
networks; usually earned or developed through tenure, expertise or competence
Systems
Processes and procedures through which work gets done; purpose is to increase
efficiency and effectiveness in implementing strategy
• Often built around functions such as career development and promotion,
compensation, student assignment, resource allocation, accountability
Source: Based on definitions within ‘Note on PELP Coherence Framework’, Harvard
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Your approach to these 3 issues will affect the nature of your
chain and how it is organised in a number of ways (II)
Resources
Organisational resources includes areas such as human capital, physical assets (eg,
technology) and finances
• People are the most valuable asset representing ~80% of a school’s budget
• Technology is important both to fulfil external reporting demands as well as to
support organisational processes (eg, enabling teachers and administrators to use
data to make better instructional decisions)
Leaders must allocate the full range of resources in ways which are coherent with
their organisation’s strategy in order to implement it effectively
Stakeholders
People and groups inside and outside the organisation who have a legitimate interest
in the system and can influence it’s effectiveness
• Examples includes teachers’ unions, parents, students, governors, community and
advocacy groups, local politicians and policymakers
Performance
Measure of an organisation’s success in formulating and delivering an integrated
strategy
• Includes areas such as student test scores, Ofsted reports
Source: Based on definitions within ‘Note on PELP Coherence Framework’, Harvard
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1
SCALE: How large do you want your chain to become?
A small chain (< 10 schools )
• Set up as a small collection of individual
schools with limited central resource
― Can operate on existing systems
and within existing structures
A large chain (>10 schools)
• Diverse set of schools (eg, different
geographies, grade levels, student needs
etc.) often bound together by multiple
layers of central resource
•
May have some variance from original
school(s) – eg, different grade levels, or
different student needs served
•
Requires considerably more support,
structures and systems than for a single (or
a small number of) school(s)
•
Examples include:
•
Examples include:
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2
VARIANCE : How much do you want your schools to differ?
Age range variance
Geographic variance
•
Key questions
•
In what range of
geographic locations
do you aim to
establish your schools
- close or disparate?
How will this evolve as
your grow?
High variance
Example range
Disparate
geographies; multiple
single site operations
Few geographic
clusters, each with
multiple schools
Low variance
•
What grade levels will
you initially serve?
•
Will you only focus on
these or will you
expand?
•
At what size will you
expand?
High variance
Multiple grade levels
served; students aged
5-18
Focused on a narrow
set of grade levels
Low variance
Variance in student need
•
Will you aim to serve
particular types of
students?
•
If so, what will you
focus on (eg, minority,
low-income, faith
etc.)?
High variance
Wide array of
students (eg, special
education, English as a
second language etc.)
Actively targeted
towards a particular
demographic / type
Low variance
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3
CONTROL: How much do you want your chain to control the
governance, resources and pedagogy of individual schools
Permissive
Prescriptive
Informal
collaborative
Family or
Partnership
Non-executive
chain
Schools in the
chain collaborate
but there is no
shared
governance
Each school has
its own separate
governance but
share
governance of
some resources,
services, support
and leadership
Schools with
shared
governance and
some shared
support and
services but
each separately
accountable to
distinct boards.
May operate on a geographical basis or
may be linked by a shared educational
ethos and mission
Source: National College
May or may not be
located on a close
geographical basis
Executive chain
Pedagogical chain
Schools with
shared
governance with
shared executive
leadership,
management,
support and back
office services.
Schools with
shared
governance with
shared executive
leadership,
management,
support and back
office services
and a shared
pedagogical
model
Schools either located on a close
geographical basis or organised into
geographical clusters
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Agenda
Introduction
Questions to consider when establishing a chain
• Scale
• Degree of variance
• Control balance between central office and individual schools
Tools and further information
12
Tools: Decision making grid
You can use the grid below to think through how your decisions will affect the type of school
chain you create:
What is your
proposed
approach?
What are the
associated
challenges?
How do you plan to
mitigate against
these?
Type of network
• Extension of
single school vs.
multiple schools
Degree of variance
• Geographic, age
range, student
need
Control balance
between central
office and individual
schools
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Further information:
Full Guidance
This executive summary is designed to be used in conjunction with the full guidance we have
produced on starting a school chain, which can be found here.
Other guidance
This guidance focusses mainly on the operational infrastructure of school chains. NSN has produced a
number of guidance documents which you will find helpful when thinking about how the governance
model which sits behind your school may need to change, including:
•
Governance Structures: Multi-Academy Trusts – which sets out the key questions Multi-Academy
Trusts need to consider when deciding on governance structures; and
•
Governance models and challenges for Free School chains - which sets out the governance
options open to those who wish to start a Free School chain.
Individual support
NSN’s operations specialists are available to speak to Free Schools in the initial stages of starting a
Free School chain. Please contact [email protected] for more details.
Academy sponsorship
One way to grow a school chain is by sponsoring existing schools through the DfE’s Academy
Sponsorship programme. There are also opportunities for Academy sponsors to receive funding to
expand their operation through the Sponsor Capacity Fund.
Please contact [email protected] for more details
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