For Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), a website isn’t just a collection of individual school pages; it’s an opportunity to showcase the collective strength of all the schools under your trust and present a unified vision to the public. A cohesive, well-designed website plays an important role in uniting your schools, aligning them with your MAT’s values, and creating a consistent experience for parents, students, staff, and each of your school communities.
Creating a MAT website that unites every school in your trust is no small task. Fortunately, our team of expert education website designers has strategically built and created hundreds of MAT websites, so we know exactly how to strike the right balance.
With years of experience and proven methods, we’ve mastered the art of giving each school its own unique voice and identity while bringing everything together on a unified trust website.
In this blog, we share 6 top tips to help MAT leaders create a cohesive main website that makes a great first impression and showcases your trust and all the schools within it in its best light.
A strong, unified trust website does more than align your branding—it brings your whole community together under a shared vision. As the saying goes, “stronger together,” and a cohesive online presence reinforces that message. Connecting your schools through a consistent website shows that your MAT is united in purpose and goals, creating a powerful, collective identity that resonates with students, staff, families, and prospective schools looking to join your MAT.
Each school within your trust should be featured on the same page on your trust website, for example, on an ‘Our Schools’ page, or via a ‘Family of Schools’ bar within the top navigation of the website.
While each school has its own unique identity, showcasing them together on one page and incorporating the same logo or colour scheme can highlight that they all belong to the same trust, creating a sense of unity and connection.
Your trust website should act as a central hub, offering visitors an overview of the trust and its mission.
Include:
A centralised hub ensures visitors to any school’s page can easily access information about the broader trust.
Make it simple for users to move between individual school pages while maintaining the sense of being part of a larger trust.
This easy navigation helps show how each school works in synergy with the trust.
Use your website to highlight how your schools work together as one unified trust:
These efforts reinforce the idea that every school is part of a larger, unified organisation.
A cohesive website isn’t just about design—it must also be functional and user-friendly.
A website that’s easy to use reflects your trust’s professionalism and commitment to all stakeholders.
Keep your MAT website fresh by regularly updating information.
A well-maintained website demonstrates that your trust is active, engaged, and committed to providing a great user experience.
Make managing your trust’s websites easier with a “bespoke and clone” model. This means creating a main website design that’s tailored to your trust’s brand and values, then reusing it as a template for each school’s website.
Here’s why it works:
This approach lets each school keep its own personality while making sure everything ties back to your trust’s overall brand. Here are some great examples of our “bespoke and clone” approach:
Whether you're starting from scratch with a new website, tackling a specific challenge, or just looking for a brand refresh to create unity, we’re here to support you.
We’ll make sure your MAT website stands out for all the right reasons. Not only will it help your MAT shine, but it will also elevate all the schools within your trust.
Contact our MAT website team, and let’s create a MAT website that brings all your schools together and helps them collectively shine online.
Or download our free Headteachers Guide to School Websites to unlock tips and insights for creating effective and engaging school websites across all the schools in your trust.