School policy actors and their policy work in a multi-academy trust

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on data and analysis from a case study examining policy enactments in a multi-academy trust (MAT) in England. I draw on a semi-structured interview with an assistant headteacher in a secondary school which is part of a MAT. I use a framework created by Ball et al. (2011) which established a typology for describing policy actors in schools as narrators, entrepreneurs, outsiders, transactors, enthusiasts, critics and receivers. I argue that the policy work of school senior leaders in a MAT can be highly precarious. They are required to act as policy entrepreneurs and enthusiasts. However, there is little opportunity for critical engagement with the work being undertaken as the implementer of policy, and they bear a heavy burden of responsibility in a depoliticised system which places blame for policy failure with individual schools and school leaders.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy actors
• policy work
• policy enactments
• multi-academy trusts

Introduction

This paper reports on data and analysis from a case study which seeks to understand and explain policy enactments in a multi-academy trust (MAT). The focus here is on the practices and experiences of a senior leader in a school, and their policy work when their school is part of a MAT. To investigate how an individual in such a position goes about their work, a semi-structured interview was conducted with an education professional who is an assistant headteacher but who had also been made part of the MAT executive team.

MATs are multi-school organisations in England, trusts with charitable status funded directly by the Department for Education (DfE) to run two or more academy schools. West and Bailey (2013) have traced academies to the vocationally-orientated ‘city technology colleges’ established in 1986 by Margaret Thatcher’s third Conservative government (1987–1990). Becket (2007) and Gunter (2011) have shown how successive New Labour administrations under Tony Blair (1997–2001; 2001–2005; 2005–2007) and Gordon Brown (2007–2010) ignored a lack of supporting evidence to take up a policy aimed at privatising education. First, schools deemed failing in economically disadvantaged areas became ‘city academies’ (Department for Education and Employment 2000) free of local authority control. Expansion was then facilitated by a terminology change to simply ‘academies’ (Department for Education and Skills 2002). Hill et al. (2012) have charted how the New Labour governments then oversaw the creation of the first academy ‘chains’ in 2004 by corporate sponsors, creating effectively proto-type MATs. The Conservative-Liberal coalition government (2010–2015) developed the policy yet further by making academy status available to all schools (DfE 2010). Policy has since been aimed at stimulating MAT growth. Grants were introduced in 2013 for primary schools to form MATs, and a MAT Growth Fund (Department for Education 2016) was established. A team of Regional School Commissioners were appointed (DfE 2014) with powers to recommend schools or academies deemed in need to improvement, known as sponsor academies, to join a MAT. Consequently, the number of academies, and MATs, has since been expanded significantly under subsequent successive Conservative administrations (2015–2019, 2019-current).

MATs were therefore conceived to replace many functions of local authorities, and so constitute what has been described in this journal as a ‘hollowing out’ (Wilkins 2017, 171) of the ‘middle tier’ (Bubb et al. 2019). MATs are also an important way in which the state operationalises its promise to give education providers ‘autonomy’ (Glatter 2011) from government, with the caveat that schools’ autonomy is ceded instead to MATs (Salokangas and Ainscow 2017). However, that autonomy is illusory given that a MAT in its formulation has a direct contract with the Secretary of State ensuring considerable oversight of these organisations. MATs are subject to surveillance structures to ensure that these education providers are meeting the expectations, standards and targets set by the state. For example, MATs are not yet inspected directly by the schools regulator Ofsted, but where a school which is part of a MAT is deemed failing, that school can be ‘re-brokered’ into another MAT by the Regional Schools Commissioners (DfE 2014). Ministers have stated an aim for all schools in England to be part of a MAT by the end of this decade (DfE 2022). This proposed legislation has twice failed to garner the democratic support of MPs to be passed through parliament into law. Nonetheless, academisation and joining a MAT remains the UK governments’ preferred solution to what they perceive as ‘failing schools’ in England (Gunter and Courtney 2023, 4). Understanding how those who work within MATs operate and enact policy is, therefore, important.

Research literatures which pre-date MATs have explored how those working in schools have enacted education policy. Grace (1995) saw school leaders not just as passive recipients of government policy, but as being possessed of ideologies that informed how they carried out what was demanded of them. Ozga (2000) saw policy as ‘contested’, advocating for teachers and school leaders as policy makers. Bell and Stevenson (2006) advanced this by seeing education policy as a ‘process’ occurring in stages involving those writing, implementing and delivering it. This was further developed by Ball, Maguire, and Braun (2012) who saw policy as being subjected to interpretations, translations and reconstructions heavily dependent on context. Bell and Stevenson (2015) similarly argued that ideologically driven policy making by government ‘shapes’ what occurs in schools, but is subject to the interpretations of school leaders. Such literature has been focussed on schools as individual organisations however. Rayner, Courtney, and Gunter (2018) however have argued that the academies policy and multi-academy trusts are a case of ‘systemic change’ with implications for policy enactment in how it forces policy actors in schools to consider their policy work in light of these new organisations.

Some research outputs have found those at the top of MATs, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), to be overtly dominant in policy enactments. They do ‘vision work’ (Courtney and Gunter 2015) and utilise ‘concentrated power’ (Wilkins 2017, 177) in ways that can even be seen as ‘messianic’ (Courtney and McGinity 2021). Others however have found that leadership in MATs is not always so centralised and school leaders are allowed autonomy so that take up of policy initiatives is ‘voluntary’ (Greany and McGinity, 321) rather than coercive. Fotheringham et al. (2022) have ranked school leaders as the top influence on policy in a MAT. In this journal, Constantinides (2021) has suggested that policy making within a MAT involves a ‘complex ecology (688)’. Elsewhere, Constantinides (2023) has also written on the need for research into MATs which can ‘provide better understandings of the enactment of instructional policies as they move from the macro-level education policy environment through the meso-level MAT executive teams to schools and classrooms’ (16). Innes (2021; 2022) has also identified that policy enactments in MATs are the site of ‘micro-politics’. For Ball (1987), micro-politics in schools concerned ‘power; goal diversity; ideological disputation; conflict; interests; political activity; and control’ (8). Here, I posit that MATs as micro-political arenas have impacted the policy work of school leaders. It is therefore necessary to have a means to further conceptualise this policy work.

In doing so, I examine the policy work of an individual working as a school senior leader when that school is part of a MAT. The person interviewed here specifically for this paper, anonymised as ‘Kay’, was an important participant in a wider project investigating policy enactments because she occupied a unique position compared to other respondents who were located purely at school level. In her school, Kay was a history teacher, head of humanities and an assistant principal. However, in addition to this, she had also been made part of the MAT executive team. As part of this role, she inputted into MAT strategic meetings, leading on curriculum quality. These are half-termly meetings of around 20 people made up executive headteachers, who have responsibility for overseeing the work of 3–4 headteachers in the MAT, and others drawn from school senior leadership teams. In these meetings, internal MAT policy is decided, overseen by the CEO of the MAT. Kay was therefore very well placed to discuss policy enactment in the MAT and how being part of the MAT impacted on her policy work.

To analyse the data, I think about Kay’s policy work using a framework set out by Ball et al. (2011) which established a typology for considering the ‘policy work’ (625) of leaders teachers in schools. This typology saw individuals working in schools variously as: policy narrators; entrepreneurs; outsiders; transactors; enthusiasts; translators; critics; and receivers. These terms were set out with accompanying explanation in the table presented here in Figure 1:

Figure 1. Policy actors and policy work.

A key aspect of the framework deployed here is that the positions identified within it are not ‘fixed, unified and mutually exclusive ‘types’ of teacher in every case, people may move between’. (Constantinides 2021, 626). In other words, one individual may take on some, or even most of these descriptions at various times, sometimes simultaneously. The framework has continued to be a useful one for researchers in thinking about the policy work of education professionals. For example, Skerritt et al. (2023) deployed it to consider middle leaders as policy transactors. I argue however that claims from the work of Constantinides (2023) now require updating in the context of MATs, as these organisations have created new challenges for school senior leaders doing policy work.

The contribution of this paper focusses primarily on the fact that Ball et al. (2011) characterised policy entrepreneurship as something ‘intriguing but uncommon’ (628), and policy careers as occurring ‘perhaps perversely’ (635) in schools. I argue that this has been radically altered by MATs. In order to run their organisation, the MAT CEO has arguably created a forum ostensibly for policy entrepreneurship to take place. Ball et al. (2011) define policy entrepreneurship as involving the advocacy, creation and integration of policy (626). In the data here, these forums for policy entrepreneurship take the form of strategic meetings where policy is created for the MAT. This policy entrepreneurship minimises the need for policy ‘outsiders’, drawing perceived expertise from within. Invitation into the MAT executive makes possible a policy career within the MAT as reward for school senior leaders who exhibit enthusiasm for policy work. However, this comes with a heavy burden of responsibility because once policy has been decided, school leaders must narrate, transact and translate that policy in their schools. This is done through a careful brokering of policy by school senior leaders, who must tread carefully as their power as a member of ‘the executive team’ of the MAT is precarious.

Materials and method

This paper is drawn from a wider project, The Literacy Policy Project, which deployed a case-study methodology to investigate policy enactments in a MAT. This involved conducting semi-structured interviews and unstructured observations of meetings as school leaders employed in a 15-school MAT developed a new, central literacy policy. Literacy is a useful focus for investigating policy within a MAT because it has been a highly active policy area for schools in England from the creation of the National Curriculum in 1988 to the present day (Innes, Gunter, and Armstrong 2021). At the time of data generation, a DfE white paper (2022) called for literacy ‘catch-up initiatives’ in the wake of Covid-19, and proposed that all schools employ a teacher accredited with a new National Professional Qualification in Leading Literacy (NPQLL). Meanwhile, England’s schools inspectorate Ofsted published a curriculum review (Ofsted 2022) of English teaching foregrounding reading and fluency. Furthermore, literacy, with numeracy, is a core focus of education which bisects all parts of the curriculum, rendering it useful for exactly the sort case study conducted.

The MAT in question was selected for the case study because it is a medium-sized MAT, containing a mixture of primary and secondary schools, 15 in total. The schools within the MAT are diverse in terms of their demographics, geographic location and measures such as inspection ratings. The relationship with the MAT was established through making informal contact with the CEO. Once the project was initiated, a gatekeeper who was an executive headteacher was appointed, who generously facilitated contact with other staff within the organisation and the formation of a working-group who came together to discuss literacy policy. University of Manchester ethical procedures were followed at all times.

For the purposes of this article specifically, I draw on the semi-structured interview I conducted with a school assistant headteacher anonymised here as ‘Kay’. Kay was a key individual in the project as she was interviewed in the first phase of the project, to ascertain how policy was decided upon and enacted in the MAT. Kay was then interviewed again towards the end of the project to consider how the new literacy policy developed by the working group might be received within the organisation. The research questions sought to ascertain how policy was decided on in the MAT, how policy was enacted in schools, and what the barriers are to policy enactment from her perspective. I was put in touch with Kay by the project gatekeeper precisely because she was someone who was seen as knowledgeable about policy in the MAT.

In order to move from data to analysis, interview data were transcribed and then coded according to the typology set out by Ball et al. (2011): narrators, entrepreneurs, outsiders, transactors, enthusiasts, critics and receivers. The resulting analysis is presented below. In the first analysis, I present the ways in which the framework can be used to think about Kay’s account of her activities in MAT strategic meetings as a policy entrepreneur and policy enthusiast engaged in a policy career. In the second analysis, I present the ways in which the framework can be used to consider Kay’s account of her work as a school leader as a narrator, transactor and translator of policy. In the third analysis, I consider what Kays’ account could mean for policy outsiders, receivers and critics in the MAT before proceeding to draw conclusions.

I acknowledge that the use of a single interview, from one person within an organisation, means that there are obvious limitations. Unknown from the data is how this school leader’s activity is perceived by other teachers and leaders in their organisation. Different MATs will have different structures and ways of operating. However, I follow Bassey (1999) in arguing that a single interview can ‘provide a significant piece in a jigsaw’ (Bassey 1999, 89). Despite the small sample size, such a method nevertheless offers the opportunity to ‘generate a subjective understanding’ (Adler and Adler 2012, 8) of how people think and act in a given context, and therefore, I argue, can make a valid contribution to knowledge. I do not seek to claim that Kay speaks for all school senior leaders in MATs. Rather, I claim that her experience reveals something pertinent about the position that school leaders could find themselves in, within a MAT.

Background

Kay joined her school, and the MAT, in the previous academic year when the interview took place. She described her position at appointment as being ‘school leader for quality of education […] an AP [assistant principle] role’. Kay detailed extensive prior experience across five schools, including over a decade in school senior leadership roles. She positioned herself as experienced, describing herself as ‘old enough and ugly enough’ to cope with the demands of the job. It was at the end of her first academic year in post that Kay had been invited to join the MAT executive team with a responsibility for curriculum quality. The executive team in the MAT consists of the CEO; four executive headteachers, three for secondary to one for primary, reflecting the balance of schools in the trust, each one being responsible for 3–4 schools; two strategic leads for education; a chief finance officer; and a director of governance. Trust leads on curriculum, assessment, and teaching and learning are drawn from the senior leadership teams of schools, people like Kay, across the MAT. For Kay, the priority of the excutive team is to produce policies ‘to try and capture everyone […] be something we [school leaders] can all follow’. She spoke with evident pride of being part of this ‘really skilled group’. Kay described the facilitation of the strategic meetings whereby an agenda set by the CEO is circulated, and it is from this that the group create policy to be followed by the schools in the MAT. Ultimately this sets the strategic direction for the schools within the MAT through the creation of policy. How Kay described and talked about her policy work as part of this system will now be analysed and discussed before drawing conclusions.

Analysis and discussion

Policy entrepreneurship, policy enthusiasts and policy careers in the MAT

Analysis of the data from Kay evidenced that she operated as a policy entrepreneur and policy enthusiast in the strategic meetings which she attended. Ball et al. (2011) defined policy entrepreneurs as individuals involved in ‘advocacy, creativity and integration’ (626) of policy. Data from Kay’s interviews suggest that MAT strategic meetings, and the way they are structured, are set up to actively encourage such activities. In describing the strategic meetings, Kay stated: ‘the room is usually pretty full there’s usually twenty-odd of us in there […] executive principals come and sit on other agendas and I find that really encouraging because all of our agendas overlap’. Further, she continued on to say that: ‘the way that it is set out, it allows for us to have talking time within those meetings as well. We’re encouraged to sit with people that aren’t from our school and share ideas’. This sharing of ideas can be considered an act of ‘advocacy and integration’ (Ball et al. 2011, 626), which are key aspects of policy entrepreneurship. The outcomes of these meetings, the policy created through these discussions, sets the strategic direction of the MAT with decisions made on initiatives which can be rolled out across the different schools. Kay described this group as ‘powerful’ and the ‘engine room’ of the MAT, the forum where key initiatives were set in motion.

Kay’s data also demonstrated that she herself is a policy enthusiast, as might be reasonably expected given her position within the organisation. She drew a distinction between her ‘curriculum focus’ under the ‘new framework’ and the involvement she had with teaching and learning ‘ten years ago’ which she spoke of in a slightly dismissive way as ‘you know, how effective is your questioning? What’s your modelling like’. Although she quickly backtracked to acknowledge that ‘doesn’t meant pedagogy isn’t important’, she clearly enjoyed her work which is heavily linked to policy.

Kay’s data also showed that there are other individuals within the MAT who have become strongly linked with various policy areas in the way set out by Ball et al. (2011), making them out as policy enthusiasts too. For example, Kay discussed how in some circumstances, someone associated with a particular policy area might be brought along to a strategic team meeting. She offered as an example that the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENDCO) was to be coming with her to a strategic meeting focussed on that area. Similarly, she stated that recently she went to a meeting where it was asked that the Quality of Education plus the Professional Development lead for the school went.’ Therefore attendance at a strategic meeting, normally an elite space, can be seen as a reward for particular policy enthusiasms.

Kay saw one aspect of her policy work as being a ‘gatekeeper’ of who gets to do this however. She showed an awareness that some individuals might use policy enthusiasm to try and progress in the organisation. She noted that someone might say ‘yes I did this my class, and actually, it might have been a car crash’, acknowledging that there can be a gap between policy enthusiasm and delivery in practice. Because of this, she sees herself as doing ‘quality control’, that she can say to a policy enthusiast ‘ok but we’re going to need to provide X, Y, and Z’ before a particular policy can be more widely shared. Therefore access to this exclusive group of policy entrepreneurs and enthusiasts is tightly monitored.

This policy entrepreneurship is highly contingent however. On one level, Kay expressed feelings of power and autonomy. However, somewhat contradictorily, she also commented: ‘But I feel very much that you can tell that the planning has gone in beforehand, and when we go next time for example we’re looking at the trust-wide teaching and learning policy that they were pulling together and we’re being asked our thoughts on that.’ Therefore while those in the executive team may be free to conduct policy entrepreneurship, these other comments also belied the fact that this was guided from elsewhere. Chiefly the CEO, who was positioned as ‘overseeing’ the strategic team meetings. In the data from Kay, the CEO is seldom mentioned and therefore appears a distant figure, but the setting of agendas is a subtle reminder to the executive team of the hierarchy and calls into question how far this can truly be considered a ‘creative’ role in line with Ball et al. (2011) definition of policy entrepreneurship.

Once policy has been created, Kay’s next job is then to mobilise that policy by taking it back to her school. This is detailed in the next analysis.

Policy narrating, transacting and translating in the MAT

Data and analysis from Kay’s transcript evidences that she is heavily involved in narrating, transacting and translating MAT policy for her school.

Ball et al. (2011) defined policy narrators as being those involved in the ‘interpretation, selection and enforcement of meanings’ (626). The data from Kay’s interview also showed that this is something she is involved in. She described how once a strategic plan has been agreed, it is then the responsibility of MAT leads like Kay who occupy school leadership positions to take this back to their schools. For Kay, as a curriculum lead, she sees it as her job to ‘shape’ an agreed policy to a specific school context. In doing so, Kay described how the first thing she would do after a strategy meeting would be to ‘take it [the new policy] back to the wider SLT (Senior Leadership Team), we meet weekly’. Once the policy has been explained there, it is Kay’s job as curriculum lead to use ‘different forums’ to meet with ‘curriculum leaders’ within her school. In having dialogue with them, she stated that she used a dual approach: ‘I bring them all together as a group, but then I have separate conversations with them’. This combination of on-record and off-record conversations shows Kay knows that it may require informal as well as formal narrating to convey a policy, to get that ‘buy-in’ from staff across her school. Therefore a significant amount of her time in school is spent narrating policy.

Kay’s interview data painted a complex picture regarding her work as a transactor of policy. Ball et al. (2011) defined transactors as being involved in the ‘accounting, monitoring, and reporting of policy’ (262), Kay said that ensuring policy was enacted as intended was about ‘line leading all the way down’. Within her own school she described taking part in ‘quality enhancement’ and ‘quality assurance’ initiatives such as ‘learning walks’ and a general ‘open door policy’ in school. A specific focus might be set over a two-week period of learning walks, sometimes including student voice activities, or scrutiny of books. The specific focus of quality assurance activities would be communicated to staff in a bulletin. In order to enforce policy, Kay described how afterwards, feedback would be given to individuals on ‘massive strengths’ or ‘massive weaknesses’. Kay’s transacting of policy is therefore selective, and targeted.

Kay’s data also showed that executive headteachers make visits to schools to conduct policy transacting. Kay’s position is important in this as someone who executive headteachers will ‘touch base’ with in carrying out their work. Kay’s data also evidenced that the executive teams transacting was somewhat selective, and they will ‘work more intensely with some schools and school leaders than others’ to monitor and enforce policy’. At the same time, Kay was acutely aware of the potential dangers in coming to staff with something ‘seen to have Trust badged on it’ and being perceived as a threat to staff. She acknowledged some potential blurring, of where staff perceived policy was coming from; herself or ‘the Trust’: ‘they might say that they’ve been told to do it by me’. At the same time, she explained how work was done to prepare the ground for executive headteacher visits such as introductory videos for sharing among staff. Kay said that this ensures that they ‘knew the faces and the names and who led on what so. I feel my staff know which two of them that I specifically work with given my agenda’. Kay saw this as important because ‘its not about going into someone’s classroom with a clipboard and then you going away’. She recognised that there is the potential for ‘anxiety’ and ‘distrust’ and therefore there is a need for the executive team to be seen to be being ‘open’ in how they carry out their policy work as transactors of policy.

In the work of Ball et al. (2011), translators produce policy documents, and Kay referred to the fact that at the time of interview she was working on ‘my section of the self-evaluation form (SEF). Kay saw herself as being a good position to undertake such work, knowing MAT policy closely. She stated that MAT policy was for providing that overall structure isn’t that’s consistent across schools that are as you say very different but you’re allowing them to say well I’m compliant if you like on that strand but I need to adapt it in that way’. Kay’s interview data provided plentiful evidence of policy being translated into written documents. In reflecting on the new policy created by the working group which featured a mission statement and six ‘pillars’ of literacy for all schools across the MAT, Kay demonstrated that there is a need to think carefully about how big policy ideas are captured in writing. She gave as an example the MAT quality of education policy as something which had ‘reassured’ her and her team about what ‘great quality of teaching and learning look like’ in a way which was ‘research-based’. However, she also acknowledged that ‘each school is on a different point on its journey’ and so in writing a MAT-wide policy, there is a need to provide ‘principles’ rather than ‘non-negotiables’ so that schools can maintain ‘that autonomy’.

In discussing the relationship between the MAT policy and school policy, Kay said that she saw MAT policy as providing the ‘architecture’ of the house, but schools could ‘decorate’ it how they see fit. In exemplifying this in practice, in relation to the literacy policy developed in the working group she selected a line calling for ‘extended writing in every subject’ which she saw as a ‘barrier’, stating that in her view a better way to put it would be to say ‘extended writing across the curriculum’ to allow for individual differences. In relation to this, she discussed the importance of acknowledging the ‘resource within … we are also individual schools’, citing the fact that the academy where she is based has ‘very skilled people’ involved with ‘curriculum and development’.

Another element of policy translating outlined by Ball et al. (2011) was the arranging of ‘events’ (262) and this too was apparent in Kay’s transcript, in that part of her policy work means she is involved in organising and delivering continuing professional development. This is something she agrees with her line manager, in this case the headteacher, to devise a programme ‘that supports us being able to get messages out’ in ‘inset’ events spaced throughout the year. This Kay sees as vital because, in her words, ‘it’s one thing to write a document, isn't it? It’s quite another one to actually embed it in the school’ and so it is primarily through training that she ensures ‘everybody understands’. Therefore translating policy for a more general audience of teaching staff is something which Kay is involved in to a considerable degree.

Kays narrating, transacting and translating of MAT policy for school naturally impacts on others around her, which is outlined in the next analysis.

Policy receivers, critics and outsiders in the MAT

Data and analysis from Kay’s transcript revealed that her activities position many of her colleagues as receivers of policy, with the aims of minimising the impact of policy critics at school level, and reducing the need for policy outsiders in the MAT.

Ball et al. (2011) defined policy receivers as being ‘mainly junior teachers and teaching assistants’ who could be characterised by ‘coping, defending and dependency’ (262). Individuals working at this level were not directly present in Kay’s data. She prioritised communications with ‘your middle leaders’ because ‘they’re the ones that really know their teams the best.’ Therefore she positioned herself at a distance from those who Ball et al. (2011) would have seen as typical ‘receivers’ of policy. However, it could be argued from Kay’s transcript that middle leaders are also ‘receivers’. She positioned middle leaders as the people who would ‘drive’ and ‘implement’ policy. However, there was no evidence in Kay’s data that she saw middle leaders as creators, of even shapers, of policy. In the ‘line management structure’ of the MAT, strategy comes from ‘senior leaders’ and she ‘would want you know a Head of Design or a Head of Performing Arts or a Head of PE to be able to articulate and say where they are on a given strategy or aspects of a policy’. The chance for middle leaders to input into strategy, is therefore minimal, and the number of teachers who can be seen as ‘receivers’ of policy in a MAT can be seen to be substantially increased from the description set out by Ball et al. (2011).

Ball et al. (2011) defined policy critics as people who maintain ‘counter-discourse’ (262). Self-evidently, Kay is unlikely to fit this category. However, the data from her interview showed that she had an awareness of policy critics within her organisation. Here, this does not necessarily mean people in formal positions like a ‘union representative’ as in the work of Ball et al. (2011). Rather, Kay spoke about individual teachers, specific ‘departments’ a ‘faculty’ or ‘even a whole school, who aren’t exhibiting the right ‘buy in’ to a particular policy. Reflecting on this, Kay commented ‘we’re naïve if we ever think that 100% of people are going to buy in with things anyway. But the vast majority will. And then the people who aren’t as convinced will come along.’ When questioned on how she, personally, would ensure that takes place, Kay detailed some of the strategies that deploys. She detailed how in providing feedback to departments: ‘where its maybe fallen a bit short is maybe here, and you don’t have to put a member of staff name or a subject next to it. You can keep that quite generic and people will recognise themselves’. Therefore Kay takes steps to avoid direct confrontation, hoping that individual staff will take the hint and buy in to the policy. She categorised those not ‘buying in’ as having beliefs she deemed ‘old fashioned’; referring specifically here to a view that literacy is the responsibility of the English department alone.

Interestingly, Kay reflected that in the past she might have been a policy critic herself. She stated that she would often ‘look back on my experience where I don’t think that I’ve been effectively line managed and its often or when I’ve felt anxious and its always been about communication’. She explained further that this is one reason why she took time to be clear with staff on ‘why we’re doing something’ and what the ‘outcomes’ might be. It’s always been work wise that’s caused me the most anxiety and stress where something isn’t communicated in a timely way when there isn’t clarity in terms of why we’re doing something and what we think the outcomes are going to be. Therefore while ‘critics’ might be different to how they are presented in the work of Ball et al. (2011), dealing with critics partly drives how Kay operates and minimising their influence is a key part of her position in the MAT, and her value to the organisation. Further, giving an individual such as Kay a place on the executive team could also be seen as a way of reducing the potential for her to be a policy critic.

Shifting policy creation, advocacy and integration (Ball et al., 262) into the space of the MAT executive has an impact on where policy ideas come from in the MAT. The data here suggest that in a MAT context, the influence of outsiders has arguably been reduced. Ball et al. (2011) defined policy outsiders as individuals including ‘local authority advisors, as well as consultants and edu-businesses’ (626). The data here did still evidence some use of ‘outsiders’ to the MAT to an extent. For example, Kay stated that ‘at a trust level we have access to National College which is great’. However, she also spoke about efforts being made that ‘maybe sort of minimises […] bought in programmes’. When pushed to explain this, she gave examples from across the MAT of literacy interventions like ‘Accelerated Reader’, testing programmes, ‘Bedrock’ or ‘Drop Everything and Read’. However, she evidenced that there is a move within the MAT to ‘develop expertise from within’.

Kay recounted how she had been ‘put together’ with a ‘counter-part’, an assistant headteacher from another school, who was helping her to integrate an oracy strategy into her school literacy curriculum. She described the process as ‘the woman who works there is speaking to us, and we’ve had an invite to go over there, we’re meeting tomorrow to try and work out some dates’. This evidenced a rolling programme of initiatives within the MAT whereby visits to schools by counterparts are used to embed new ideas. Kay articulated that many of these arrangements were made at the strategic meetings, where perhaps ‘we’ve got a language teacher that we might want to put in touch with someone else’. Expertise is therefore shared across schools seemingly rather more than across organisational boundaries.

Conclusion

The data and analysis here provide an insight into the practices of school leaders in a MAT. Thought about through the lens of policy actors and policy work set out by Ball et al. (2011), several things are apparent. Firstly, the typology set out by Ball et al. (2011) remains useful. However, the data here also evidences that certain claims made by Ball et al. (2011) require updating, and the typology critically engaging with.

As presented in the data and analysis above, school leaders in a MAT could be considered as policy entrepreneurs. The MAT strategic meetings ostensibly exist primarily as a space for policy entrepreneurship to take place, and to explicitly reward those who are perceived to have enthusiasm for policy. Being part of the strategic meetings means that school leaders can become jointly responsible for creating policy within the MAT. This actively encourages policy careers, making them viable for education professionals in a way which they were not little more than 10 years ago when Ball et al. (2011) published this typology. Further, Ball et al. (2011) had stated that, previously, policy narrating had been done ‘by headteachers and their SLTs’ (262). However, the data here evidenced that narration of policy is now done primarily by attendees of the MAT strategic meetings, with headteachers on the receiving end of this narration, as well as school senior leaders who are not part of the group. Admittance to the MAT executive is tightly controlled as a way to reward those who exhibit the ‘right’ type of policy entrepreneurship and policy enthusiasm. As such, the MAT CEO uses the strategic meetings as a means to distribute their leadership. School leaders like Kay then function as a buffer between the MAT and schools, subtly ensuring policy is aligned.

In the years since Ball et al. (2011) created this typology, other researchers have written on policy entrepreneurship. Verger (2012) has set out how ‘policy entrepreneurs’ within knowledge-based organisations have been used to successfully ‘theorize, frame, and mobilize’ (111) programmatic ideas to decision makers. Building on this, Innes (2023) has shown how policy entrepreneurship is also being done within MATs by organisations such as the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). However, in such accounts, policy entrepreneurs are removed from the organisations they are advocating to. They are influential figures, but without ultimate responsibility for how policy plays out. Here, an individual like Kay does not have that luxury. Despite her forays into the MAT executive team and the strategic meetings, she remains a school leader first and foremost and her data shows she is continually mindful of this. Her presence in school appears to be a relatively benign one, constantly aware of the potential ‘threat’ associated with something ‘coming with Trust badged on it’ and it is notable that Kay said nothing on the topic of how she might deal directly with policy critics. As such it is questionable how far a school leader such as Kay is truly doing policy entrepreneurship, and having a policy career, or just engaged in something which simply feels like it from her perspective.

Arguably the most important policy that Kay advocates for is not any one particular policy relating to curriculum, but rather the MAT executive and the strategic meetings itself. The very existence of this ‘skilled group of people’ who operate in this exclusive, closed group evidences the attempted self-sufficiency of the MAT. As shown in the data here, MAT policy is decided in a space which a school leader might perceive as an elite space, the ‘engine room’. However, the data here shows that the MAT executive is also an isolated space. Already removed from local authorities, Kay speaks of a move within the MAT away from ‘bought in’ programmes with the emphasis being placed on ‘developing expertise from within’. The MAT presented here seems to stand, increasingly, alone, drawing primarily on its own resources. This speaks to recent research outputs by Gunter and Courtney (2023) on the concept of ‘policy mortality’. Within a system of policy mortality, some schools and school leaders are required to fail so that others can be seen as successful. Therefore decision making must be depoliticised (Courtney and McGinity 2022), removed from the public sphere, such that responsibility for policy lies with individuals. Decision making is therefore closed within MATs, to ensure that school and MAT leaders, not government, are accountable for failure. In such a system, while school leaders might revel in their new policy entrepreneurship and policy careers as an opportunity to achieve ‘honour’ and ‘acclaim’, they also carry a heavy burden of responsibility when ‘blame’ and ‘shame’ (Gunter and Courtney 2023) is an essential part of the system.

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Mark Innes

Mark Innes is a Lecturer in Education at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester where he is a programme director and teaches course units related to educational leadership and research. He is also a part-time student on the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD). His doctorate explores policy enactment in multi-academy trusts. Previously, Mark was an English teacher in South Yorkshire for twelve years.