Music provision run consistently across every academy in your trust

One place for the trust to oversee visiting music lessons while each school keeps running its own timetable. Fair rotating timetables, registers, parent sign-up and consent, trust-wide reporting and one fee schedule, with an optional share going back to each school that opts in. We are pre-launch and looking for pilot trusts.

Request a pilot See how the trust view works

One teacher, one morningIllustration, not real data

TimeIn classMusic lesson

09:00Maths
09:40English
10:20Break
10:40Science
11:20Humanities

Pupil Afollow

Pupil B

Pupil C

Pupil D

Day ends 12:00, every week

Week 1. Pupil A is taken from Maths.

Classes Pupil A has missed so far: Maths

For multi-academy trusts

A trust is set up as one organisation with each academy beneath it. Trust administrators see every school, school administrators see only their own, and a teacher who works across several sites can be given access to all of them. The trust keeps one consistent way of running music, with one fee schedule and one place to look, while each school keeps its own timetable and its own choices, such as whether to opt in to a school share.

Central oversight: trust administrators see every school from one place
Per-school autonomy: each school keeps its own timetable, rooms, teachers and pupils
Trust-wide reporting across every academy is being built with pilot trusts
One fee schedule for the trust, with the school share switched on school by school
Onboard one school at a time: start with a single academy and add the others when you are ready
Teachers who cover several schools managed in one place

Example structure, not a real organisation.

For each school in the trust

Every academy gets its own private space beneath the trust to manage terms, periods, rooms, teachers and pupils. The school's music lead decides who teaches, when lessons can run and how they rotate, then the system produces the timetable, the registers and the parent communications.

Set terms, holidays, timetable periods and rooms once
Invite teachers and record their availability and absences
Import pupils from a spreadsheet, then link parents by invitation
Teachers take registers and add notes, including who cancelled a lesson
Parents will see what they have signed up to and what they owe

The problem with music across a trust

Each academy in a trust tends to run its visiting music in its own way. One school has a spreadsheet, another keeps paper registers, a third has an arrangement with a provider that nobody at the centre has seen. Trust leaders struggle to answer simple questions: how many pupils are learning an instrument, who is teaching where, what parents are paying and how much of it comes back to the schools. Pupils in the same trust can get a very different deal depending on which gate they walk through.

Every school keeping its own timetable in its own spreadsheet
No single view of who is teaching, where and for how long
Pupils pulled from the same lessons, week after week, in each school
Different fees, different providers and different paperwork from one academy to the next
Little or no income reaching each school's own music provision

How rotation works

Each lesson is placed into one of the periods the school has made available for it. Every week, each lesson in a teacher's day moves along by one slot, so a pupil is not always taken from the same class. The order of the day is kept, breaks and gaps survive, and the teacher finishes when they always did. Group lessons share a slot and move together, pupils you want to keep fixed stay fixed, and holiday weeks are skipped automatically.

Fair by default: lessons move one slot each week
Gap-preserving: breaks and the end of the teacher's day stay where they were
Group lessons move together
Holidays and term boundaries are respected, with a cycle length you can cap
Pupils can be excluded from the rotation and stay fixed

Same slot every week

Pupil A misses Maths six weeks running.

Week 1Maths
Week 2Maths
Week 3Maths
Week 4Maths
Week 5Maths
Week 6Maths

Rotating

Pupil A misses a different class each week.

Week 1Maths
Week 2English
Week 3Science
Week 4Humanities
Week 5Maths
Week 6English

Illustration of one pupil over six teaching weeks, with half-term skipped. Not real data.

One fee schedule across the trust

When a parent pays for lessons, each payment is split by percentage and every split is recorded. The trust agrees one fee schedule with us, so every academy is charged on the same basis. A platform fee funds the software. An optional school share sends a portion back to the school as a profit share, and it is opt-in: switched on school by school, and off unless that school chooses it. The remainder goes to whoever delivers the lessons: the tutor, or the school itself if it employs or contracts the teachers directly. The exact split is agreed and written down before any lesson is billed, and we will talk through it openly with pilot trusts.

A parent pays for lessons

The payment is split by percentage and every split is recorded

Platform feeFunds the software, on one schedule for the whole trust
School shareOptional, opt-in, set per school
RemainderTo the tutor or to the school, as each school chooses

Proportions are agreed with each school and are not shown here.

Card payments will go through a regulated payment provider
Payment status will reflect what has actually been received

Safeguarding and data

This software holds information about children, so we are designing it around that from the start. We collect only what is needed to run a lesson. Each organisation's data is kept separate from every other organisation's at database level, so one school or trust cannot see another's. Sensitive actions are written to an audit log, and parent consent will be recorded against the exact wording they agreed to. A draft data protection impact assessment, data processing agreement and retention policy are ready to share with pilot schools, and reviewing them with you is part of the pilot checklist.

Data minimisation: only the fields needed to run lessons
Separation between organisations enforced in the database, not just the app
Audit log of sensitive actions
Parent consent will be recorded against versioned wording
Draft DPIA, data processing agreement, retention policy and Age Appropriate Design Code assessment available to review

Help us shape the pilot

MAT Music Manager is pre-launch and not yet in use in any trust or school, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. The organisation and school structure, data separation and fee model are built. The rotation scheduler, registers, parent sign-up, billing and trust-wide reporting are being built with pilot trusts. We are looking for a small number of trusts to pilot it with, starting with one or two schools, so that what we build fits how you really work. Tell us a little about your trust and we will get in touch to talk through what a pilot would involve, including terms.

Pre-launch: pilot trusts shape what gets built first
Start with one academy and add the others at your own pace
Pilot terms discussed directly with you
No obligation to proceed after a conversation

Questions

Is MAT Music Manager available now?

Not yet. It is pre-launch and we are recruiting pilot trusts. If you request a pilot we will talk through what is ready, what is still being built and what a pilot would involve.

Can each school still run its own timetable?

Yes. Every school keeps its own timetable, rooms, teachers and pupils. Trust administrators can see every school, while school administrators see only their own.

Do all of our schools have to start at once?

No. Schools are onboarded one at a time, so a trust can pilot with a single academy and bring the others in when it is ready.

Does a school have to take a share of lesson income?

No. The school share is optional and switched on school by school. If it is off, nothing is held back for that school. Either way, the remainder goes to the tutor or to the school, as the school chooses.

How is children's data protected?

We collect only what is needed, keep each organisation's data separate at database level, and log sensitive actions. Parent consent will be recorded against versioned wording. A draft data protection impact assessment and data processing agreement are available for pilot trusts to review.

Is this a different product from School Music Manager?

No. It is the same software, presented for trusts. A single school can use it on its own as School Music Manager, and a trust is one organisation with several schools beneath it.