Starting a school chain:
key factors to
consider
Spring 2014
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 open@newschoolsnetwork.org
Issues to consider when establishing a chain
Before you commit to starting a chain, make sure you are doing it for the
right reasons…

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)
Scale, variance and control
When starting a school chain, you need to consider 3 key issues:
Scale
How large do you want your chain to become?
Variance
How large do you want your chain to become?
3
Control
How large do you want your chain to become?
You can use the decision grid in the ‘Tools’ section to help record your
choices to these questions.
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
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, crossStructures
functional teams)
—Informal structures and power are garnered and reinforced through social
networks; usually earned or developed through tenure, expertise or
competence
Your approach to these 3 issues will affect the nature of
your chain and how it is organised in a number of ways (II)
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
Organisational resources includes areas such as human capital, physical assets (e.g.
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
Resources
support organisational processes (e.g., 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
Your approach to these 3 issues will affect the nature of
your chain and how it is organised in a number of ways (II)
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
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
— May have some variance from original
school(s) – eg, different grade levels, or
different student needs served
Examples include:
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
— Requires considerably more support,
structures and systems than for a single (or
a small number of) school(s)
Examples include:
Variance: How much do you want your schools to differ?
Key Questions
Geographic Variance
— 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
Age Range 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
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
Disparate geographies;
multiple single site operations
Multiple grade levels served;
students aged 5-18
Wide array of students (eg,
special education, English as a
second language etc.)
Few geographic clusters,
each with multiple schools
Focused on a narrow set of
grade levels
Actively targeted towards a
particular demographic / type
Low variance
Low variance
Low variance
Control: How much do you want your chain to control the
governance, resources and pedagogy of individual schools
3
aPermissive
a Informal
collaborative
Schools in the
chain collaborate
but there is no
shared
governance
Prescriptive
Family or
Partnership
Each school has its
own separate
governance but
share governance
of some
resources,
services, support
and leadership
May operate on a geographical basis or may be
linked by a shared educational ethos and
mission
Source: National College
Non-executive
chain
Schools with
shared
governance and
some shared
support and
services but each
separately
accountable to
distinct boards.
May or may not be
located on a close
geographical basis
Executive chain
Schools with
shared
governance with
shared executive
leadership,
management,
support and back
office services.
Pedagogical chain
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
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
11
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 Schools - 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
open@newschoolsnetwork.org 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 academies.sponsorship@education.gsi.gov.uk for more details