New research push to help schools succeed together

School trusts from across England are launching a new research initiative to look at how schools working together can support transformative teaching, sharing the best of what is happening in school groups.

The new Centre for Multi School Effectiveness will build on existing research work and look specifically at how groups of schools can help improve education.

The Centre is being established by the Confederation of School Trusts, the sector body for school trusts, and supported by more than twenty partner trusts, including the Outwood Family of Schools.

The partner trusts have helped to shape the Centre concept and have committed to supporting the initiative, but research activity will be open to schools across the sector. An independent advisory board will help ensure the research is high quality and credible.

The Centre’s findings will be free to access for all school groups in England, with the centre also looking to international perspectives from multi-school organisations in places like the USA and Australia.

CST Deputy Chief Executive Steve Rollett said:

“We know a great deal about school effectiveness and school improvement, and schools – but especially trusts – have embraced research-based approaches over the last 20 years to improve children’s education.

“Our recent ‘Advancing education’ established that schools working together in trusts overall did better, but not why that is the case. How does knowledge travel? How is expertise built and deployed? How do groups of schools create improvement that is more equitable and sustainable?

“The Centre’s aim is to connect practice in our schools, and in schools internationally, with evidence of how that can be effective in not just one school, but across many, and share that so that everyone can benefit.”

The Centre will be a sector-led research capacity: connecting the knowledge being generated inside multi-school organisations; surfacing it, testing it, challenging it and sharing it.

It will sit alongside and amplify the work of organisations like the Education Endowment Foundation to understand how classroom best practice can be applied at scale, and build on CST’s previous work with ImpactEd through the School Improvement Hub.

Its first major programme, launching in Spring 2027, will be to build an evidence base of applied practices. This will include understanding the problems when leading education at scale and the solutions that have been found.

Education Endowment Foundation Chief Executive Professor Becky Francis CBE said:

“Over the last two decades, schools in England have increasingly embraced evidence-informed approaches to teaching and learning. As the evidence base has grown, so too has our understanding of the importance of effective implementation. The Centre for Multi School Effectiveness is a welcome initiative to support groups of schools to work together to use evidence, develop expertise, and support improvement at scale.”

Lee Wilson, CEO at Outwood Grange Academies Trust, added:

“While evidence-based teaching is well established, leadership demands the same rigorous standard. This CST initiative will pinpoint the leadership models and organisational structures proven to improve outcomes for children across our communities. This is something that we want to be a part of, in both sharing with and learning from the sector.”