1 - 2 October 2026, The Apex City of Bath Hotel, Bath
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Registration Desk45 mins
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Main Room5 mins
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Main Room20 mins
Trust leaders are navigating an increasingly complex landscape, balancing outcomes, inclusion, workforce pressures, sustainability and community needs. Leadership is rarely about choosing between right and wrong, but exercising judgement between competing priorities and responding to unexpected challenges. This keynote explores how leaders can remain agile without losing sight of what matters most. It will consider the importance of staying anchored in purpose, values and culture when making difficult decisions, and why deeper collaboration across trusts and the wider education system will be essential to tackling the challenges facing trusts.
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Main Room40 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Outcomes & Impact
SEND provision is one of the most complex and high-risk challenges facing senior leaders in MATs. Rising numbers of pupils with SEND, delays in EHCPs, and limited local authority capacity mean trusts increasingly need to design inclusive systems from the outset. Government policy signals a shift towards mainstream inclusion, supported by substantial investment, yet school leaders remain concerned about funding sustainability and clarity over future SEND provision. This keynote panel will explore what true inclusion looks like in practice and how trust-wide cultural and systematic shifts can be achieved. What does mainstream inclusion look like beyond rhetoric, for example: in staffing, curriculum, environment, and leadership culture? How can trusts embed inclusion across leadership, teacher development, and workforce planning amid training and workload pressures? How can trusts maintain high outcomes while expanding inclusion? What frameworks or partnerships can enable this? How should leaders balance funding realities with the ethical imperative to provide equitable education for all learners?
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Main Room20 minsThis customer-led discussion focuses on the importance of investing in Magma centrally. Phil Banks, CEO of St Christopher's Multi-Academy Trust, will share why the trust chose to invest in Magma Maths at a central level and what they hope to gain from doing so as they embark on their journey with Magma.
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Main Room30 mins
Our signature ‘Dragons’ Den’ session provides each solution provider with an opportunity to deliver a 60 second pitch, explaining why they are here and how their services can help tackle some of the sector’s ongoing challenges.
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Networking and business meetingsNetworking Area75 mins
15 minute meetings with suppliers who are offering solutions most relevant to your challenges. Please check the schedule on the back of your delegate pass for your meeting timings.
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Main Room20 minsReading and writing underpin every student outcome, but most trust leaders still lack precise, actionable insight into what pupils can and cannot yet do. In this session, Dominic Bristow—former teacher, Director of Education and founder of 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬—will share how their DfE-backed programme is helping trusts grow beyond the reliable insight of 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬' AI marking towards rapid writing improvement at unprecedented scale.
As the sector prepares for a renewed focus on the English curriculum, Dominic will draw on new evidence of impact in 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐮𝐬’s longest-standing trust partners to show how trustworthy, transparent assessment automation can support stronger moderation, sharper CPD, better-targeted intervention and clearer strategic insight across a trust. The session will give MAT leaders a clear view of where writing assessment is heading—and how they can help shape a model of improvement that is granular, rigorous, teacher-led and ready for the curriculum moment ahead.
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Main Room30 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
Collaboration between MATs remains aspirational in many areas, particularly in secondary education, where competition and growth strategies create tension. This session unpacks the challenges of partnerships, trust mergers, and inclusion coordination, exploring how to balance cooperative approaches with market realities. Leaders will share practical solutions, highlighting where regional cooperation succeeds and where it fails. When does collaboration add value for MATs, and when does competition or growth strategy get in the way?
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Breakout Room 130 mins
- Outcomes & Impact
Recent research highlights low engagement and attainment among disadvantaged pupils, particularly white, male working-class students. As trusts grapple with rising expectations and equity goals, building a strong sense of belonging and reducing disengagement are central to improving outcomes. This session will focus on strategies that foster belonging, reduce disengagement, and embed equity across schools. Leaders will share actionable examples of interventions that improve outcomes while maintaining high expectations.
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Breakout Room 230 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Workforce, Skills & Culture
As AI usage continues to be embedded across the education sector, many trusts have developed digital and AI strategies that reference inclusion and accessibility. Yet, for many leaders, a key question remains: how do we move from strategic ambition to meaningful change in the classroom? This session explores how schools and trusts are using AI in practice to remove barriers to learning and improve outcomes.
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Breakout Room 330 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Finance & Sustainability
MAT boards are facing increasing pressure to move beyond compliance and exercise confidence and strategic clarity. Trustees must navigate the balance of guiding vision, holding executives accountable, and safeguarding public resources, while maintaining operational focus. Yet, blurred boundaries, uneven capability, and increasing complexity around finance, SEND and risk continue to challenge many trusts, particularly during merger, growth or crisis. This session will explore how modern governance can unlock strategic value, strengthen executive leadership and build board capacity for the future.
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20 minsCybersecurity is a board-level risk. A serious cyber incident can affect safeguarding, payroll, finance, communications, teaching and the day-to-day operation of every school across a trust. This responsibility cannot site with IT alone.
As a senior leader, you need to know what protections are in place, challenge the assumptions behind them and ask one critical question: Have we actually tested this?
This session will show MAT leaders how to test their cyber defences, incident response and recovery plans before a real attack does it for them. We’ll cover the questions you should be asking, what good testing looks like and the results you should expect: clear gaps, clear ownership, prioritised actions and confidence that your trust can respond and recover -
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Breakout Room 120 minsAs schools embrace AI to drive efficiency, productivity and innovation, MAT leaders are facing urgent questions about oversight, safeguarding, data protection, accountability and risk.
Join ParentPay Group for the launch of the GDPRiS AI Governance in MATs 2026 Benchmark: the first sector-wide study exploring how trusts are responding to the governance challenges created by AI.
Drawing on benchmark data from MAT leaders across England, we’ll explore what good governance looks like, where the biggest gaps exist, and how trusts can strengthen oversight without slowing responsible innovation.
Attendees will leave with a clearer view of how their trust compares with others, the governance questions they should be asking now, and the next practical steps they can take to use AI responsibly across their schools.
This session is designed for trust CEOs, CFOs, COOs, governance professionals and school leaders who need to support AI innovation while maintaining clear oversight, accountability and assurance. -
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Breakout Room 220 minsThe DfE Estates Strategy is reshaping how schools and trusts manage their estates, with mandatory data standards on the way. Hosted by IRIS Education, this session breaks down what the strategy requires, what readiness looks like in practice, and where the sector is showing the biggest gaps between confidence and reality.
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Breakout Room 340 mins- Strategy & Leadership
Get practical advice on your trust’s governance challenges. Speak one-to-one with governance experts from the National Governance Association about a governance question, challenge or priority within your trust.
Bring a specific issue you’re working through or simply something you’d like to sense-check. You can pre-book an appointment or drop in during the event, and if you need more time, NGA can continue the conversation with you afterwards.
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Networking lunchDownstairs40 mins
An opportunity to connect with your peers and suppliers to talk over the learnings from the event. Lunch is served buffet style and a range of options are available to cater for different dietary requirements.
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Main Room40 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Workforce, Skills & Culture
Executive leadership stability is becoming a critical governance risk for MATs. Rising turnover among CEOs, COOs, and CFOs and inconsistent succession pipelines are prompting boards to ask difficult questions about organisational resilience: “What happens if a key executive can’t continue tomorrow?”. With a limited talent pool and competition for leaders who combine educational and commercial expertise, succession planning is no longer a procedural exercise but a strategic priority. As trusts scale and founder CEOs transition, building internal pipelines and strengthening board oversight will be a defining issue for 2026 and beyond.
- Developing future executives, not only headteachers
- Managing interim dependence and unplanned exits
- Preventing burnout and building resilience at the top
- The board’s role in executive sustainability and succession planning
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Main Room20 minsSchool budgets remain below 2009/10 levels in real terms, while staffing costs keep rising — and simply adding more central headcount isn't a sustainable answer. In this fireside Q&A, Daniel Giardiello (Robin) and Luke Mulhall (King's Group Academies) explore how agentic tools are starting to change that equation, freeing up capacity rather than adding it. Luke will share KGA's own journey standardising systems, transforming data and trusting AI with real work, including compliance tracking with Robin — speaking candidly about the caution it takes in a live trust, and what he'd tell another MAT leader starting today.
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Breakout Room 120 minsThe Way to Cyber Health gives Multi Academy Trust leaders a practical way to understand whether their organisation is resilient. The presentation begins with a question: how do you know your trust is cyber healthy? It introduces a non-technical executive dashboard covering control, operations, external exposure and resilience, before drilling into the health of data and AI. The focus is not technology for its own sake, but protecting students, safeguarding information, supporting teachers and keeping schools operating. Leaders will explore how to measure evidence, understand critical dependencies, prepare for disruption and make decisions before, during and after a cyber incident. -
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Breakout Room 220 minsSafeguarding expectations for multi-academy trusts are changing fast. In this 20-minute session, Callum Johnson from Verkada breaks down what Martyn's Law and the latest KCSIE guidance actually mean for your trust. You'll see how modern, cloud-based security - cameras, access control, vape sensors, and guest sign-in - is helping trusts strengthen their safeguarding posture, support their duty of care, and simplify day-to-day work for estates and safeguarding teams. Expect real school examples, practical takeaways, and a look at what's now possible. Leave informed, prepared, and genuinely curious
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Main Room20 mins -
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Breakout Room 120 minsSecurus and PrimeTel will give valuable insights into current best practice around Cyber Security and technology. Presenting what the Education sector can learn from the corporate world, and why Cyber Criminals see the sector as a valuable target in 2026. Gary and George come with 40 years education sector experience, but with a fresh look at the current landscape. -
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Breakout Room 320 mins
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Main Room20 minsBeReady is a trusted delivery partner to hundreds of Multi-Academy Trusts, providing fully funded, trust-wide staff development built “by schools, for schools” and directed by subject matter experts. This session spotlights a fully funded career pathway that enables colleagues without an existing degree to achieve QTS, strengthening recruitment and retention and supporting strategic workforce planning across your trust. SEND and safeguarding training are embedded throughout BeReady’s programmes, helping MATs build consistent inclusive practice, improve outcomes, and increase capacity to meet rising levels of need.
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Networking and business meetingsNetworking Area75 mins
15 minute meetings with suppliers who are offering solutions most relevant to your challenges. Please check the schedule on the back of your delegate pass for your meeting timings.
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Main Room30 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
Fast-paced, peer-led conversations focused on the challenges trust leaders are facing right now. Ahead of the event, delegates will submit the issues they most want to discuss, which will be used to create a series of focused table topics. Choose the challenge most relevant to your trust and join peers to explore what others are experiencing, approaches being tested and lessons already learnt. Each table will focus on identifying practical ideas, useful questions and actions leaders can take back to their trusts.
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90 mins
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Drinks reception and networking dinnerDownstairs135 mins
Networking sessions – throughout the event we host a networking lunch as well as a dinner and drinks reception to give you ample opportunity to connect with your peers and suppliers over the learnings from the event. Dinner is served in formal-style seating to a set menu. Our delegate team will speak to you to ensure we cater for any specific dietary requirements.
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Main Room5 mins
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Main Room40 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Finance & Sustainability
The government's proposed reforms represent one of the most significant changes to school funding in a generation. As funding shifts from EHCP-led top-ups towards mainstream budgets to support earlier intervention and inclusion, MATs will need to adapt their financial planning, commissioning arrangements, and SEND provision. Alongside changes to the National Funding Formula and deprivation funding, trusts face a complex transition period before reforms are fully implemented. This session will explore how leaders can manage risk, plan for greater accountability, and position their organisations to deliver sustainable and inclusive provision in a changing funding landscape.
- How should trusts adapt financial planning for the new funding model and what are the key risks during the transition period?
- How can MATs make effective use of pooled funding and local commissioning arrangements?
- What opportunities exist to develop Inclusion Bases and specialist provision?
- How might changes to deprivation funding affect trust strategy and resource allocation?
Chairperson
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Main Room20 minsAI is moving fast. But driving real change and getting teachers on board is hard. In this session, Vicky Mallinson, COO of Olex.AI, speaks with Samantha Jayne, Head of English at Clevedon School, part of Futura Learning Partnership, about what it takes to embed AI-assisted marking and feedback across a Trust. Samantha shares real stories from the classroom - what changed, what they learned, and how faster, more consistent feedback is helping close the gap between writing and progress, from Year 7 through to Year 11.
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Main Room40 mins
- Workforce, Skills & Culture
As regulatory frameworks evolve, trust leaders face heightened scrutiny at trust and school level. The new Ofsted inspection approach, alongside increasing intervention and regional variation, is prompting concerns that more schools may fall below expected standards and that recovery will become a defining leadership challenge. Leaders must prepare for sustained improvement journeys and manage stretched internal capacity. This honest discussion will examine how MATs can navigate the shifting accountability landscape and respond decisively when inspections do not go to plan.
- How can leaders secure support and maintain morale during periods of intense pressure?
- What strategies help build productive relationships with Ofsted and regional teams?
- What does effective post-inspection recovery look like, and how can improvement plans be sustained?
- Who supports the trust when capacity is stretched.
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Main Room20 minsDiscover how Multi-Academy Trusts can reduce workload, strengthen compliance, and drive consistent improvement across all schools through a single, integrated platform. This session will explore practical approaches to centralising professional development, governance, compliance, and people development while maintaining local autonomy.
Attendees will gain insight into how trust-wide reporting, streamlined processes, and education-specific AI tools can improve oversight, reduce duplication, and align workforce development with strategic priorities. Delegates will leave with actionable ideas to enhance efficiency, support accountability, and achieve greater impact at scale across their trust.
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Networking and business meetingsNetworking Area60 mins
15 minute meetings with suppliers who are offering solutions most relevant to your challenges. Please check the schedule on the back of your delegate pass for your meeting timings.
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Main Room30 mins
Developing a diverse and representative leadership pipeline is central to sustainable MAT growth, especially for trusts serving varied communities. Yet systematic barriers persist in recruitment, retention, and progression. Delegates will learn how trusts are nurturing inclusive leadership, overcoming systemic bias, and ensuring succession pathways reflect the communities they serve. Participants will hear practical examples of workforce planning and culture change from leaders actively transforming their trusts.
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Main Room40 mins
- Strategy & Leadership
- Outcomes & Impact
As curriculum and assessment reforms take shape, trusts face important decisions about what should be consistent across their schools and where autonomy should remain. This session will explore what a strong trust-level approach to curriculum looks like in practice: how trusts can build shared expertise and expectations without unnecessary standardisation, strengthen curriculum leadership across schools, and ensure local context and community needs continue to shape what pupils experience.
- What should genuinely be consistent across a trust’s curriculum, and where should schools retain autonomy?
- What does effective curriculum leadership look like at trust level, and how can trusts spread expertise and strong practice between schools?
- How can trusts maintain coherence while ensuring curriculum decisions remain responsive to the communities their schools serve?
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Main Room5 mins
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Networking lunchDownstairs55 mins
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