Impact of Regional Academy Growth Fund analysed

The Department for Education has published a report on the impact of the Regional Academy Growth Fund (RAGF), highlighting how the £31 million investment has been used by academy schools grow sustainably.

The report shows that the fund helped academy trusts to take on and improve more schools, strengthen leadership, free up teachers to focus their energies in the classroom, and co-ordinate back office tasks across several schools.

The research shows that participants felt that they had spent the RAGF award in accordance with initial plans, and the majority reported that they had achieved the aims set out during the application process. Almost all participants reported that the first activity undertaken was the appointment of key personnel.

Other activities, such as developing leadership and creating centralised processes and systems, then followed. Strengthening governance structures, including ensuring trust-wide compliance and consistency, was regarded as important by several interviewees. Several MATs noted that their activities would not have been undertaken without RAGF, or that progress towards improvement and/or growth would have been slower without it.

The fund was found to have an impact on disadvantaged pupils, commonly in relation to the installation of data tracking and progress monitoring/planning systems. It was felt that this had enabled schools to have a more informed view of pupil progress, so that interventions could be better targeted and applied more effectively according to specific pupil needs.

The report says participants reported that they had made good progress against school improvement targets during the delivery of RAGF activities. Although most participants felt that this progress would have been made anyway, RAGF had made the rate of progress quicker.