1 teacher to 45 kids

[Noneofmybeeswax]

So last week my DD (9) came home and proudly announced "I was sat in the corridor for Maths today!"
After a little bit of digging it turns out the school changed to a new text book in September which can only be taught in individual year groups but they are in mixed year classes. They are 1 1/2 form entry school and are mixed Y1/Y2, Y3/Y4 and Y5/Y6.
This has meant the Y4 is being taught in a group of 45 in one class with only 31 chairs. After the first 30 minutes, 10 go off with a TA but of the remaining kids 4 are shoved onto a desk outside the door in the corridor and checked on once or twice during the independent exercise.
So tell me YABU (this is a normal group size in schools these days and children don't always have access to a desk in the classroom) or YANBU (every child should have a desk and 45 is too many for 1 teacher)?

That's not the case. The decisions that are in place are still accountable through a school's Ofsted and it is not good enough to say it's the MAT's decision when inspected.

I think PP's point is that MATs themselves don't have a system of accountability in the same way that LAs are accountable. There is a vague accountability to the DfE but it's largely a paper exercise.

The reason we hear about 'Bad' MATs is because the ones who work well aren't news worthy.

Juding from the data it's also because bad MATs are more common than bad LA schools. Not really surprising given that MATs are often very geographically diverse with distant management sucking huge amounts of money from schools for the central organisation and out of touch from the impact of their edicts.

Most people in education want the best for kids and so I'm sure there are brilliant people in MATs doing a good job but that doesn't mean the system is a good idea.

This is what budget cuts and the teacher recruitment and retention crisis looks like in real life. It’s shit! I work in a high performing lovely school - similarly in a leafy shire… we can’t recruit and have vacancies at all levels with more staff leaving at Easter (including me).