Schools White Paper The biggest school's headline in March was the release of the schools white paper. The paper was Nadhim Zahawi's first as education secretary. The paper laid out the key ambitions of the government: Every school should be part of a MAT by 2030 Up to 6 million "tutoring courses" by 2024 – with tutoring becoming a permanent ...

When Keystone was set up, we knew that we would primarily provide support to schools in a range of areas, such as HR, health and safety, auditing, and trust growth support. Over the past 12 months, we've been approached by a few school business professionals who are looking at setting up new MATs. Nominative determinism is the idea that people tend...

The government released their white paper on schools, "Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child". The white paper is Nadhim Zahawi's first as education secretary. We've read the report and here are the key things that you need to know.   Multi Academy Trusts  Perhaps the most controversial aim laid out i...

 What is an HR audit? An HR audit is an objective look at how your school or trust's HR department operates, including the policies and procedures in place. An audit can either be internal (with the trust's own HR team conducting it) or you can instruct an outside company to conduct it for you. Unless the audit has been triggered for a specifi...

Teachers are at the front line of both teaching and pastoral care for students, but what can you do as a school business professional to support them?   Teachers mental wellbeing has been poor According to NASWT's Teacher Wellbeing Survey, 91% of teachers say their job has negatively affected their mental health and 64% say that it has im...

TikTok fight leads to surprise Ofsted visit Concerns over the safeguarding at Northampton International Academy have been raised after a TikTok video showed three students punching and hair pulling two other students. The academy has had many ups and downs with their safeguarding in recent months. The school was rated 'good' in their last full Ofst...

The Social Mobility Commission has just released their State of the Nation 2021 report which details how social mobility has been impacted by the pandemic. Social mobility is the link between your income and your parents' income. There is a strong relationship between high inequality and low social mobility. If there are high levels of inequality i...

Good meetings help get things done. They harness the skills and experience of those around the table to solve problems, ask intelligent questions and improve strategy to get things done. Bad meetings do not get things done. They waste people's time, exacerbate tension, entrench partisan behaviours and frequently cover the same ground repeatedly wit...

All schools, whether they are trusts or maintained schools, have a set of values that they aim to follow. The DfE and the ESFA tend to focus on the quantitative side of schooling with an overwhelming emphasis on exam or assessment results. Although these are incredibly important and help set us up to succeed in the professional world, they aren't t...

Converting from an LA school to an academy in a MAT or joining a MAT as a standalone academy can have many benefits. Buying in bulk leads to greater economies in scales  Joining or starting a MAT can lead to economies of scale and greater efficiency. MATs can contain as many as 70 schools which makes them a considerable 'buying block' when pur...

The last 12 months have shone a spotlight onto how schools are run. An increase in staff absences, brought on by Covid, has brought HR to the forefront as schools struggle to manage staff-pupil ratios, maintain face to face teaching and support staff who are anxious about returning to the classroom after remote learning. If your trust HR team or sc...

The Keystone team have gone above and beyond this year.

 2021 was a tough year for many and the Keystone staff had their share of struggles. Despite this, they went above and beyond to give our clients an exceptional service with measurable outcomes for pupils. Our vision is for every child to receive an outstanding education, underpinned by excellent school and trust management – and we like to th...

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Keystone has recently taken on a new marketing executive who has come from outside of education. The first thing she said was, "It's amazing how many acronyms there are. It's like you're talking another language made entirely out of letters!" Schools strive to be as approachable as possible. We aim to use clear and simple language in letters and le...

In November, the government released a report entitled 'Schools' Views on the Perceived Benefits and Obstacles to Joining a Multi-Academy Trust.' The research comes from 700 schools across the UK. 300 of these have either joined or set up a MAT within the last 3 years, 300 are maintained by the local authority and are not interested in joining...

Keeping up with the changes to school and trust legal and regulatory compliance can sometimes feel like a full-time job. Changes to the Academy Trust Handbook (formerly the Academy Financial Handbook) and other requirements can feel like they are never-ending and it's often a relief to be able to say: 'yes, we're compliant with the latest regulatio...

 How would you rate your mental health? The last 19 months have been fraught for many. It is hardly surprising that the nation's health has suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic as people had to shield, work from home and not socialise. Our worlds were turned upside down with lockdown, with many of the day-to-day activities we all took for gra...

Ashby Hastings Primary School opened its doors to pupils for the first time at the start of September, welcoming an EYFS class and ready to provide an outstanding education to local children as it grows over the next few years. Keystone worked with Symphony Learning Trust to manage the new school project from creating the presumption school bid to ...

Keystone Knowledge was set up by CEO Stephen Mitchell in January 2020, bringing together his passion for education, knowledge of the sector and desire to see improvement in operational practices. The Keystone journey began with helping schools and trusts in financial difficulty and has expanded to support education providers across the country. The...