For trust leaders

How well does your trust actually run admissions?

The FAME audit grades your trust on the four things that decide whether you fill seats, stay compliant, and run admissions as a trust instead of a collection of schools.

F

Your FAME score

Single grade plus a score for Forecasting, Admissions, Marketing and Engagement.

P

Peer benchmark

How your trust compares to others of similar size and the top quartile.

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30 day plan

Three priority actions plus a 30 day plan to take to your next board meeting.

Start your audit

12 questions. About 3 minutes. Honest answers give you a better plan.

Trust name

Type to search the trust register. Or type any name freely.

How many schools in your trust?

2 to 5 schools

Small

6 to 15 schools

Medium

16+ schools

Large

Auto-detected from the trust register.

Free. No login. No spam.

FForecasting

Question 1 of 15

Forecasting

Question text appears here

From the sector

F

Forecasting complete

Three more pillars to go.

62

Above the trust median Above the median on Forecasting. The foundations are in place.

Audit complete

Your FAME report is ready

Tell us where to send it and we'll show you the full scorecard now.

FAME grade + 4 pillar scores Peer benchmark 30 day action plan

A copy is emailed for your records. We don't share your details. Unsubscribe any time.

B

FAME grade

Medium trust · 6 to 15 schools

Your Trust

Strong fundamentals with clear, fixable gaps. A focused 90 day plan would move you into the top quartile.

⬢

Your trust archetype

Federation in Transition

Description appears here.

How you compare

Your trust against the average for trusts your size, and against the top quartile.

Your trustBased on your audit responses

Top quartile, the targetWhere the best-run trusts sit

Trust medianTrusts of similar size

Your biggest gap to the target is in Marketing.

Why we show this: these benchmarks are our current best estimate from the trusts we work with, not a published dataset. As more trusts complete this audit, we will replace them with real sector figures and tell you when we have.

Your three biggest wins

Prioritised by impact. The order to tackle them in.

Your 30 day plan

Concrete first steps. The fastest way to move the dial.

AG

1:32

Amanda's take · 90 seconds

"I just looked at your scores. Here's where I would start."

Your weakest pillar is your fastest win. Most trusts do not see it that way at first.

There are three things you can do this term without buying anything.

If you want a peer reference from a trust who solved this, I can introduce you.

Amanda Grainger is Applicaa's Head of MATs & Customer Success Director and has run admissions reviews with trusts across the country. Prefer to read? The 30 day plan above is the short version. The video is the human version.

Cost · we are not going to make you ask

What Applicaa MAT Management costs at your size

Most edtech makes you book a call to find out. We do not, because by the time you have done the audit you have earned a straight answer.

Why we show this: Because a CFO should not have to take a sales call to put a number in a budget paper. If pricing rules us out, we have saved you the meeting. If it does not, the meeting is more useful.

What that works out to per pupil

— per pupil, per year

What trust leaders actually say

Real customers. Real roles. The unedited version.

SK

Before Applicaa, I had a spreadsheet from each school, all in different formats, and a Monday morning that started with phone calls. Now I have one view, every Monday at eight, and I act on a falling pipeline in February instead of in September.

Sarah K, Chief Operating Officer · 9 school trust, South West

"The thing I value most is not the dashboards. It is that I can see our admissions profile across every school by FSM, SEND and CLA. When the Inclusion grade lands, I have the evidence ready."

Director of Education · 14 school MAT

"We saved a school from going below PAN because we saw the dip in November, not the following October. That alone paid for the platform across the trust."

Chief Executive · 6 school MAT

"We pulled three part-time admissions roles back into one central function, and the process got better, not worse. The hours we have given back to schools are the real saving."

Chief Finance Officer · 11 school MAT

Honest answer

Should you actually book a call with Amanda?

A booking should not be a default. Here is who gets value from this call, and who does not. We would rather you opt out now than waste 30 minutes in a fortnight.

Yes, book it if

You are responsible for admissions or MAT operations and want trust wide visibility you do not currently have.
You are growing by acquisition and your operating model has not caught up.
You can name at least one of your three biggest wins above as a real, current problem.
You have the authority to decide, or to introduce the person who does.

No, do not book it if

You are happy with how admissions runs across your trust today and the audit was curiosity.
You are looking for a single school MIS replacement. That is not what we do.
Your trust is mid-restructure and the next six months are about people, not systems.

The champions

Trusts already running FAME at top quartile. Worth a call with their teams, if a peer reference helps your board.

Forecasting

White Horse Federation

All schools' application pipelines visible at central level. Year on year tracking that lets the trust act on a falling pipeline in February, not September.

Admissions

Weydon Multi Academy

One admissions process, one set of templates, one set of data fields. Compliance audited centrally, applied identically at every school.

Marketing

Aspire Academies Trust

Open day to enrolment tracked end to end. Live application feed across every school. Outreach planned from one trust dataset, not nine school instincts.

Engagement & Efficiency

Leigh Academies Trust

One platform across lead generation to enrolment. Required admissions data mandated in electronic forms, transferred directly to the MIS. One central admissions function for the trust.

Next step · your move, on your terms

Three ways to take this further

A 30 minute call is one option, not the only one. Pick the path that fits where you are.

Whichever you pick, we send you the short version of what we would cover beforehand, so the conversation is useful from the first minute and never a cold pitch.

30 minutes · with Amanda

Book a MAT review call

Walk through your three priorities with Amanda Grainger, Head of MATs & Customer Success Director. Leave with a concrete plan for your next board meeting.

Pick a time

6 minutes · we send it over

See the platform in action

Ask for a short walkthrough of what trust wide admissions visibility looks like inside Applicaa. We send it to your inbox. No call required.

Request the walkthrough

20 minutes · peer to peer

Talk to a trust like yours

Ask to be introduced to a leader at a similar trust who solved the gap you scored lowest on. We will check who is available and make the introduction.

Request an intro

Save my report as a PDF Share this with my team Try the audit again

How we score. FAME stands for Forecasting, Admissions, Marketing and Engagement, the four operating dimensions that determine whether a trust runs admissions as a single trust or as a collection of schools. Each pillar is scored from your responses on a 0 to 100 scale, then combined into a single FAME grade. Benchmarks are based on aggregated responses from trust leaders and adjusted for trust size. Champion trusts are referenced for the practice being illustrated and do not constitute an endorsement of this audit by those trusts. Prototype for internal review.

Want to know more before you decide?

The questions we are not afraid to answer

The things competitors usually make you book a call to ask. Here, on the public site.

Cost

Applicaa pricing in detail

Problems

When Applicaa is not right for you

Comparisons

Applicaa vs Bromcom vs SIMS vs spreadsheets

Reviews

Trust leader reviews, the unfiltered version

Best of