SCHOOLS in the Pershore pyramid have been consulting about joining together in a multi-academy trust.

A MAT sees a single trust take responsibility for managing a collection or 'family' of academies.

In this case, the governors of Pershore High School, Cherry Orchard First School, in Pershore, Inkberrow First School and Norton Juxta Kempsey First School, in Littleworth, near Worcester, have expressed an interest in forming a single trust.

The four schools, made up of three first schools and a secondary school, want to create a MAT that would fall under the Church of England Diocese of Worcester.

The schools have written to parents saying they share "vision, aims, ethos and values."

A consultation into the idea will be run into the autumn with parents, staff, unions, Worcestershire County Council and the diocese all being consulted.

Any changes are unlikely to take place before the new year.

A MAT can help schools share best practice, save money by centralising services, pool their resources and focus money on areas where it is most needed and give flexibility with staffing across the schools.

The MAT will receive master funding as a single entity, staff will have one employer and the trust is responsible for the performance of all of the schools.

However, there are different structures that can be put in place and each school can have its own governing body and may receive supplemental, individual funding.

Pershore High School headteacher Clive Corbett said: "We had a meeting with all feeder schools and we agreed that we would make different arrangements with the different schools.

"We agreed the bottom line is we would continue to work together as a pyramid but, within that, to accept the fact there would MAT arrangements people would go into.

"We are proposing a MAT with three feeder schools.

"We wanted to take a more consistent approach within the education of our children.

"We feel as a high school we have a lot to learn from our feeder schools and we can learn from each other and become better schools together.

"We want to work in collaboration.

"It's exciting times and early days."

Mr Corbett said the idea presented opportunities to share resources which could lead to savings as well as to benefit from the experience within each individual school.