Across England, MATs are growing in size and complexity. Yet most still rely on datasets that look aligned on the surface but behave very differently underneath. The result? Leaders make decisions with incomplete comparability, schools feel unfairly judged, and improvement work slows down long before it reaches the classroom.
This article unpacks why inconsistent trust data quietly drains time, confidence, and impact — and what high-performing MATs do instead.
1. Every school’s data tells a slightly different story — even when the numbers look the same
At trust level, leaders often assume that if two schools submit the same metric, the insight should be comparable.
But under the surface, that metric could be built from completely different:
- export timeframes
- inclusion/exclusions of pupils on/off role
- recording conventions
- pupil group definitions
- grade conventions
The number might be identical in name — but fundamentally not equivalent in meaning.
That’s where strategic decisions begin to drift.
Improvement plans rest on unstable foundations.
And comparisons between schools become a narrative exercise, not an evidence-driven one.
2. Time is lost downstream — governors, CEOs and improvement teams fill gaps manually
When trust data isn’t aligned, the cost shows up in three places:
a) Schools spend the most time fixing the problem
Pastoral leads re-export files. Data managers adjust spreadsheets. SLT re-checks numbers before submitting anything “upwards.”
This is time taken away from the children they’re trying to support.
b) Central teams “reconcile” data manually
Directors of Improvement try to normalise datasets post-hoc.
Education leads caveat every insight.
Finance, HR, and safeguarding teams cannot link their own datasets reliably.
c) Decision-making is slowed — or distorted
What should be a “quick look across the trust” turns into:
- “Can we trust this number?”
- “Which version is correct?”
- “Why does School A look worse — or better — than the others?”
The hidden cost is not just time.
It’s lost confidence.
3. MATs don’t need identical systems; they need a single standard applied consistently
A trust cannot — and should not — force every school into the same MIS, behaviour system, or assessment approach.
High-performing trusts do something smarter:
They keep local autonomy — but impose a shared translation layer.
This means:
- One agreed definition for every trust-wide metric
- One methodology for calculating attendance, exclusions, progress, behaviour indicators
- One set of analysis rules (e.g., which groups are compared, what constitutes a significant difference)
- One approach to benchmarking and visual narrative
- One set of expectations for how schools interpret and respond to their data
Schools keep their systems.
The trust owns the standard.
This is how comparability becomes fair, reliable and meaningful — without limiting schools’ operational choices.
4. Standardisation unlocks trust-wide insight: patterns that no school can see alone
When methodologies align, something powerful happens:
Trust-level patterns emerge.
You begin to see:
- which schools are improving fastest — and why
- where disadvantaged pupils thrive (and where they don’t)
- whether behaviour interventions are truly working trust-wide
- which groups are driving attendance shifts
- whether subject-level results align with curriculum changes
- which schools need targeted support now, not in six months
This is insight that no school alone could compute — because patterns only appear at scale.
Standardisation makes that possible.
5. Schools stop firefighting, because data no longer feels like a compliance task
a) Schools stop submitting multiple “versions” of the same thing
They export once. The rest is handled by the trust’s data standard.
b) School leaders become more confident in the numbers
Because school A and school B are now talking the same language.
c) Conversations shift from blame → improvement
You move from:
“Your persistent absence looks too high.”
to:
“This group is significantly different — let’s explore what’s driving it.”
This is how culture changes.
6. And in the end, the impact is simple: better decisions, faster
When MATs fix inconsistent data, they don’t just tidy spreadsheets.
They:
- reduce workload for every school
- speed up central reporting cycles
- surface the root causes behind KPIs
- support schools with evidence, not criticism
- make strategic decisions with confidence
- build trust between central teams and school leaders
The real cost of inconsistent data isn’t the time spent cleaning it.
It’s the opportunities missed because leaders couldn’t see the story clearly enough.
Fix that — and the trust becomes measurably more effective.