To despise MATs (Multi Academy Trusts)

My daughter is a secondary teacher in a MAT and loves it. She has found the school very supportive (it’s her first job) and the staff and pupils all seem happy.

A friend of mine used to work as a school business manager in a LA primary with a very poor headteacher and weak governing body. She was delighted when it was taken over by a MAT because for the first time someone other than her was challenging the head’s poor decisions.

But surely a school’s sole purpose is to churn children out with as high a grade as they can achieve. That is the measurement of success. These results help the children get better, well paid jobs.

hopefully a lot of schools are caring, certainly my children have very caring schools with high grades. But ultimately as a parent I want my children to come out with the highest grades possible. The caring I can give at home.

I am a supply TA. On a long term posting I had the misfortune to watch an aggressive MAT takeover. I loved the school, it's ethos, it was the school with the best staff ratio I have worked at. New MAT came in towards the end of my alloted time there. Slashed staffing levels based on their other schools without looking at the particular challenges of this school, made sweeping changes to the method of curriculum delivery with no understanding or consideration for the high EAL demographic and didn't listen to those who worked there and understood the needs of the area. I was genuinely shocked at how staff were treated and generally how it was done.

The CEO was paid more than the annual cost of all the TAs whose contracts they refused to renew. So sad, needless.

But as others have said, I am sure it depends on the MAT.

My DC school has improved a lot under a MAT. All the schools around us were dire and there wasn’t much choice. Then it got taken over by a MAT and the improvements could be seen within a few months. It’s now a highly sought after over subscribed school.

So it’s worked for us

I think it very much depends on the mat. Oasis are a mat who are excellent ime.

My dc are in one and I love it! Things like Duke of Edinburgh, music performances, theatre etc are shared between the four schools which has really opened opportunities for them. It seems extremely well run and resourced

The problem now is the Local Authority has no money. They take a top slice greater than many of the academy trusts and provide very little in return. There are not enough schools staying in the LA to pay into the pot making it bad value for money.

I agree, it should have never been a policy but it’s too late now.

I've worked in 2 LAs . In one, the LA support for schools is so inadequate MATs make a really big difference. Heads and staff feel far better supported and students, parents and results can see the improvement.

In the other, we still have c. 80% maintained schools.

The marketisation (and consequent enshittification) of public services.

Totally agree. They make their own rules up and stick to them no matter how unreasonable. They’re a disgrace.

It’s a tragedy that education has been turned into business, with the emphasis on profit, in the sense of ever increasing results, expectation, workload, demands, data, curriculum and anything else you can think of.

Where’s the caring, where’s the humanity, where’s the support?

Having some experience of dealing with education authorities of old (in the last century), they were an argument for their abolition by their awful performance. Poor administrators and managers seemed to be the only people they recruited.

That does not make what the OP highlights any better, but I can see why the academy route was chosen instead.

It was meant to put more money into education. Instead it put more money into the top of the food chain. For any school in an academy you can look for the report for the Chair of Gov and find out how many people in the trust are on more than £80k, £100k etc. it’s a disgrace, I don’t know why there’s not more public outrage about it!

Absolutely agree!
Can employ unqualified teachers too. I wouldn’t work in one or send my child to one.