As Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) grow in size, finding ways to share effective practice across schools becomes even more important - as well as understanding the impact of investment in particular interventions or initiatives across a Trust.

ImpactEd Evaluation helps MATs and school groups to:

• Easily share effective practice, by identifying what programmes are working best across a group of schools and supporting them to scale up
• Get value for money on cross-Trust investments by acting as an evaluation partner on key cross-Trust projects, such as tutoring, enrichment provision, curriculum changes or professional development
• Externally validate areas of Trust practice by providing independent research support at Trust-level, and developing capacity for monitoring and evaluation within both school and central teams

This helps Trusts ensure that they are focusing on the most effective practice as they grow.

Measuring the impact of cross-Trust tutoring and mentoring

ImpactEd Evaluation has worked with The Kemnal Academies Trust for several years as an evaluation partner. One key focus has been their “A Champion For Every Child” Programme - TKAT ACE.

The programme involves one-to-one tutoring for disadvantaged pupils in all 45 TKAT schools. It combines both academic and pastoral support and is one of the largest initiatives of its kind in England, supporting over 5,000 pupils.

ImpactEd Evaluation has supported the development of the ACE programme since an initial pilot in seven schools. Evaluation results from Year One of the programme showed a statistically significant improvement in pupils’ levels of goal orientation, self-efficacy and motivation alongside a statistically significant impact on Maths in one of the schools. This promising evidence was used to attract further funding for the project as it scaled up to all 45 academies and is now set to expand to more schools across London.

David Linsell, Director of Local Governance, Secondary Curriculum and TKAT ACE:

“In 42 years in education, this is the most significant project I have been involved in, having an impact on the lives of over 5000 disadvantaged pupils across our Trust.

ImpactEd Evaluation's evaluation helped us to see if the ACE programme was or wasn't working.  That was our main aim in approaching an external organisation to assess ACE's impact.

In addition to that, we've gained an understanding of which elements within ACE work better than others (so we can do those more), and it's also helped us in showing ACE's impact to other Trusts, Regional Schools Commissioners and the EEF - none of which we expected to do from our initial scoping of the evaluation, but which have been incredibly valuable.”

The programme has attracted widespread recognition from the evaluation including:

• Endorsement in the Children’s Commissioner's report on mental health
• Positive media coverage in Schools Week, Sec Ed and Headteacher Update
• A joint project with the Education Endowment Foundation off the back of the evaluation
• Over £400,000 in additional funding from Greater London Authority to expand the programme across London schools

You can read about the ACE programme and access our executive summary of findings. As David Linsell shares below, this evaluation helped TKAT demonstrate that pupils on the programme made better progress than would otherwise have been expected - a powerful message both within and outside the Trust.