We feel that three things are essential for school improvement: accountability, additional support and additional challenge. We believe there are quantifiable advantages of being in a MAT, for example: 

• sharing best practice, expertise and resources and raising standards across all key stages by working with the other schools in the MAT;
• maintaining and developing a shared vision and ethos;
• having opportunities for students to share enrichment activities which might not be cost-effective for an individual school to offer;
• having opportunities for staff to benefit from working in a larger organisation with access to high quality training, personal development and career opportunities;
• succession planning and retaining and developing staff, including at leadership level;
• training new teachers through the SCITT and Teaching School Alliance; and
• efficiencies and economies of scale through procurement and the provision or commissioning of services which may no longer be available from the Local Authority (LA)