The Rodillian Multi Academy Trust
The Rodillian Multi Academy Trust is a trust of four academies, an alternative provision independent school and a University Technical College (UTC) based in West and North Yorkshire.
Conquering an Unstructured Feedback Approach
When working on our stakeholder feedback strategy, we came to the conclusion that the schools in our trust had done a lot of ad hoc surveys and there was a lot of feedback being collected on a need basis, which created a bit of an unorganised approach to surveying. So, we were in need of a more structured approach that included a centralised tool for surveying across the schools in our trust.
The Need for Benchmarking
We knew we wanted to have a fresh approach to stakeholder feedback surveys, so the ability to create a benchmark for us as a trust was critical – to be able to see the state of things in our trust at the moment.
We’d come across Edurio by reputation in the sector, through the CST and others, but the key selling point was the benchmark feature that allows us to see how schools within our trust are doing and the additional national benchmarks for further analysis and insights into sector trends.
Overcoming Headteacher Reluctance
It’s our first time working with Edurio and we’re running staggered surveys across all stakeholder groups to get a baseline. So we started with a parent survey, are currently active with a pupil survey and plan to run a staff survey a bit later this year. Running this process for the first time, the biggest problem was getting through to the school principals that this is not something to fear. We held a lot of discussions about it to get them on board, but we will have to wait and see how the analysis goes and what actions we end up taking based on what we see in the results.
Maintaining Independence, Common Vision and Collaboration
We want the schools in our trust to remain independent and to be able to make decisions that best suit their community and culture, but we have some non-negotiables as a trust and will drive that common vision. I think we’ll need to get everyone in the same room to talk about the results and to see where we go next. By getting all of the principals, directors and other key decision makers together we’ll be able to see what needs to be done in the short term and plan for the long term. Hopefully this will also allow for some sharing of best practices as to how schools communicate with parents, how that community building happens.
Excitement for Upcoming Surveys
Overall, we’ve had a very good experience working with Edurio so far, and we’ve still got surveys coming in the months ahead. Our customer success manager, Ance, has been great and we look forward to continuing working with her on the next surveys.