To think executives earning £500,000 in a failing state secondary school system is utterly shameful?

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How is this anything other than an absolute disgrace? This is public money and where all your taxes are going, while state secondary schools are an absolute shambles. The whole academy and free school system set up by Michael Gove is an absolute joke. They are royally taking the piss out of hard-working tax payers, parents, and the pupils who attend, many of whom are being completely failed by the current system.

England’s best-paid academy trust boss has been handed a £25,000 pay hike – taking his salary to over half a million pounds.

Harris Federation CEO Sir Dan Moynihan has become the first academy trust chief executive to cross the £500,000 threshold, latest accounts show.

He took home between £515,000 and £520,000 in 2023-24, up from a range of £485,000 to £490,000 the previous reporting year. This represents an increase of just over 5 per cent.

It is Moynihan’s second pay rise in a row. In 2022-23, his wages rose from between £455,000 to £460,000 to at least £485,000. This represented his first uplift in pay since 2018-19.

The trust – which has frequently been at the centre of controversy for its executive pay figures – has six other unnamed members of staff earning more than £190,000.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/moynihan-becomes-first-500k-academy-ceo/

I thought schools were seriously strapped for cash and did not even have enough money to employ specialist subject teachers or rebuild dodgy crumbling concrete classrooms? Let alone the textbooks, materials and school trips which were all routinely provided at one time.

As a comparison, the head of Eton earns less. I imagine Harris academies are not particularly like Eton.

YANBU.

We don't have Academies in this way in Scotland but you are not comparing like for like with your private comparison - this guy is in charge of 50 odd schools, not one.

You’re absolutely NBU.

Don't Harris schools get pretty good results? I know there methods are marmite.

I don't see how you can compare it to Eton which is 1 school but yes it's a very high salary.

YANBU OP I think there needs to be much more oversight of MATs in general and that there should be a maximum size for a MAT (which should be significantly smaller than the size of the average LEA).

It's a ridiculous amount of money, but the guy is in charge of 55 schools, 44000 students and I presume a huge budget. You can't compare it to a single school headteacher, no matter how prestigious.

Sure, but why do we need a layer of management above individual headteachers or a chain of schools at all? Headteachers earn maybe £90,000 on average - I don't mind that per se, but surely they can just each run individuals schools without a layer of management above them? As it was done for many years before the academy system was created?

It seems such an incredible waste of public money which could be put back into teaching and resources, or building a lot more schools to bring overall numbers and class sizes down.

I don’t know OP. I agree it is a massive salary but in general I think academisation has largely been a success story. I was extremely sceptical when they were first set up but the improvements in results have often been very impressive. I would imagine the salary is on a par with the CEO of a private school chain but I think there should be close scrutiny and salaries tied to performance.

Well why not take 5 minutes to think about it? What is the point of an academy chain? One is to standardise good practice across schools. To do that you do need a person at the top to make it happen.

Does he actually have anything to do with the schools?

Its just the same as any large business XEO really.

Totally agree. It is a reflection of all that is wrong with this country with wealth concentrated in the hands of the few who exploit the rest.

I think it has been a huge disaster. The chains are very good at manipulating facts and figures, and excluding or encouraging off-rolling to make themselves look better, but the reality is that 20%+ of children are being failed and that is having will have massive implications for society.

news.sky.com/story/lost-learning-at-record-high-school-exclusions-continue-to-rise-especially-among-poor-study-shows-13209602

https://www.teachingtimes.com/why-are-2-million-children-in-england-failing-to-attend-school/

Agree OP. It's a ludicrous salary. I wonder what a TA in a Harris academy is paid.

What is the point of school inspectors then? Why does it have to be so standardised? School should be able to have individual characteristics and not be on size fits all, particularly when one size most certainly does not fit all.

Scrapping Ofsted and setting up a replacement which puts pupil wellbeing and mental health at the heart of inspections would cost less.

I'm not a fan of academies, but you seem to be seeing him as just a headteacher. He's not. He's basically the CEO of a huge company with 55 premises and a huge number of staff and 'customers' working in a very complex area with high responsibility.

I suspect that if you matched his role and responsibilities to that of a similarly sized business, his salary would be on a par with it, as it should be.

Schools should not be run as massive private commercial businesses.

It's STATE EDUCATION, funded by the taxes we all pay, not fucking Unilever.

Yet Labour are pushing the 1 size fits all model. That's what they want hence their 'inclusion' agenda etc.

Yes, because a TA is doing exactly the same work with the same responsibility 🙄

A role that is completely unnecessary. We have a state system, Local Education Authorities who can oversee schools, given the funding to do so properly. Academies and free schools are not and were not ever needed.

The word CEO should not be spoken in the same breath as state secondary education.

What an absolute waste of money. What a joke.

They were there for the very point you made: "schools should have individual characteristics"

It seems excessive but there are a lot of schools so presume a huge budget and number of employees.

Round here Harris have taken a lot of poorly performing schools and really improved results. We looked at one for DS. I was impressed with the teachers. My one concern was that they had a very narrow ciriculum which wouldn't have suited DS. I wouldn't be devastated if he went there and he would achieve good results but education would be less well rounded and he would likely need to move for 6th form

Please don't bring logic into this or facts into this, this is just to be outraged without actually thinking about it. Of course anyone who's job is directly or indirectly funded by people's taxes should be happy with any scraps given. It's also foolish to actually think about the role and the level of responsibility and just compare the pay to completely different job roles ie TAs.

In your opinion maybe. In my area lots of schools both primary and secondary were absolute shite before they became Acadmies. It's simply not true that LAs managed the education system better, nor is it the case that someone working for them who had the same portfolio as this guy would be on a terrible wage.

It really isn't.

The facts are that these roles never existed for 150 years of education, taking so much public money. Educational outcomes are not being improved for the majority of children, no matter how they manage to twist the statistics, and most academy schools are an absolutely appalling experience for their pupils- some who manage to do well in spite of school, not because of it. Schools have no money and teachers are leaving in droves. There is absolutely no need for any level of management above a head teacher. There is need for state oversight and a return to proper accountability.