School suddenly gone to pot - what’s going on?

[TossACoinToYerWitcher]

DS just started Year 9 and has been happy there until six months ago, when the wider academy trust announced it was restructuring as a cost-saving measure, by combining Heads of Department with a neighbouring school.

The impact seems to have gone way beyond the stated couple of redundancies. According to DS at least fifteen of his teachers have left in the last six months.

We just did the open evening with DS2 who’s in Year 6. Things have changed. A lot of the stuff they sold parents has just vanished. Their much-vaunted pioneering STEAM program (which my son loved) has fallen silent, as the teacher running it left and no-one’s picked it up. Same with Drama club - the teacher left and it’s now cancelled. In fact the school now only has two non-sport clubs: reading and science. All the others just stopped (and not through lack of pupil interest).

They made a big show of having a climbing wall and climbing club. But now the teacher who taught it has gone and so the climbing wall just sits there. No-one can use it.

DS2 was going to join his brother but has SEN needs. School made a big song and dance about their ambitions to become a SEND hub which would have been perfect. But when we asked how that was going I swear the teacher looked on the verge of tears. She just started apologising profusely and asked us to understand that money was tight.

I’m just shocked at the change in six months. I know there’s currently a high turnaround of teachers but this seems on another level. I can’t understand how things seem to have fallen apart over such a short period of time. Can anyone offer any insight?

"Money is tight", "restructuring" and "cost saving measure" are probably the root of the problem... Education in general is in crisis and even if there was money to throw at the problems it will take years to fix.

You've answered your own question. This is what happens when the profit motivation replaces the public service one. The private sector should be kept away from education full stop.

I would be looking round for other schools. This is going to take a few years to turn round and your son doesn’t have that time to waste.

Sounds absolutely awful, OP. 15 of your DS' teachers leaving is a very bad sign. I used to be a governor of a comprehensive with about 1300 pupils and we had about 5 to 8 teachers leaving every year. (Not including maternity leave and sickness).

What’s going on is the inevitable consequence of allowing individuals to create massive organisations to run schools. Yes, Academy Trusts are non profit making but they give enormous salaries to those at the top meaning there is an endless stream of willing people, usually quite young, very inexperienced who are flown in to ‘fix’ schools. They start with streamlining the budget— dropping courses with low numbers,cutting SEN and SEMH provision, drastically altering curriculums. Then they squeeze every ounce out of the school day; extra CPD to ensure staff are teaching the way the trust wants them to, meetings, working parties and briefings to fill up their 1265 hours.
They take ideas (often from America) and create whole systems which they apply generically to all the schools in their trust, so they can market their schemes and initiatives to create revenue.
Experienced teachers will often leave to try and find a school which fits their ethos; maybe an AP or tutoring. Anything which doesn’t prescribe every second of their practice in the classroom. Younger teachers are often unqualified or apprentices in the Trust system and are sold a career plan which sees them as senior leaders in their 20s and 30s, without ever leading subjects or having any in depth knowledge or alternative pedagogy.

Head Teachers used to have long careers, working their way up and doing a myriad of roles before running schools. They knew their communities, had links with the area and a genuine passion to improve life for all the families they supported. The better Trusts try to maintain some initiatives and support existing systems but the pressure to be cost effective and to adhere to the Trust’s ideology makes this very hard on the ground.
So, in answer to your question, what’s happening is experienced teachers are becoming disillusioned and leaving in droves. The teachers’ pension has changed so that younger staff do not get the lump sum that older staff do, so they have far fewer options; older staff are taking retirement early and finding other jobs. Those left have every hour of each day laid out for them and limited PPA, so clubs do not run. Trips that used to be run in term time now have to go during the school holidays and staff do not want to, or can’t give up their family time to run them. Factor in the lack of support staff and how hard the remaining ones are worked, usually for a pittance, and you have a perfect storm. One predicted many years ago, before we allowed huge trusts to take ownership of very valuable plots of land across the UK.
Some of the improvements I have seen were long overdue and really work , but many were already starting way back with 90s Labour Party initiatives for academies, City Technology Colleges etc. That plan was totally bastardised and education is now in the hands of some very wealthy, very persuasive and very powerful people.

ex teacher

it’s not uncommon.

schools change. Often that change is quite sudden, driven by a change of head teacher or change of trust.

one school I worked at, we got a new headteacher. She came in all nice and trying to get in with the staff but as the months went on it didn’t last.

she made several members of staff cry. She put a couple of teachers on capability. They left, and within the year lots of others had left. I left as well because it was clear that the school I’d enjoyed working at wasn’t there anymore and it was time to move on.

at secondary the head of dept job is mostly essentials that need to be done regardless of whether someone is paid fir it.

so either it doesn’t get done (and a lot of the organisation of the school collapses) or it does get done and the teacher concerned gets fed up with doing it unpaid and gets a promotion at another school.

either way “nice to haves” like clubs go by the wayside.

look at other schools. It’s really hard to bring a school back once this has happened.

This, all of this. It's the expanded version of my post earlier. Thank you for taking the time to write it @Nighttimeistherightime

I’d be concerned about the teachers leaving but I wouldn’t move schools because of lack of clubs personally. How is your son doing generally?

Academy trusts are non-profit!
It sounds like this one has a deficit and that the (presumably necessary) changes they have introduced to manage it have gone down like a lead balloon with staff.

@TossACoinToYerWitcher you could ask the school for its recent governing body minutes to get more details. If they're not on the school/trust website you should just be able to email the school office to request them (no need for a Freedom of Info request as they're public documents).

@TossACoinToYerWitcher how many schools are in the academy trust? Presumably the one it is merging departments with is in the same trust?

Academies are education charities so not for profit

Sad but true.

There are third world outdoor classrooms where education is better than here. What an embarrassment the UK has become.

They can’t make profit from government money used directly to educate pupils in their schools. They do however make huge amounts in other ways. Why would they do it otherwise- altruism? How would they be able to pay their CEOs and senior staff such generous salaries and perks?

The CFOs and CEOs of some MATS are dealing with many million £ budgets. Do you want someone unqualified and inexperienced to manage those?
A HT of a single school isn't going to have the required skills or knowledge.

Academies are charities. They cannot distribute any surplus. They are third sector entities, not private sector.

A change of management can easily completely change a school. I’ve worked in schools where everyone started leaving because they changed the Head. And the Trust will always prioritise them over other staff as they will have invested time and money pushing them up the ladder into that role.
Unfortunately the attitude of SLT is always that it’s fine and they’ll just get better (younger/cheaper) staff. The lack of concern is scary.
And yes extra curriculum activities just stop because SLT will just assume someone else will ‘pick it up’ but not check or do anything about it. Then be shocked when a club hasn’t run for 2 years.
There are so many heads who have almost no idea what is going on in their school, and when things look bad, just move onto another school.

2 HT from the school l taught in went to be CEO’s of MATS.

Where did they get the experience from then?

I understand that. However, to believe there isn’t a financial imperative is naive at best.

Absolutely.

Many secondary schooI heads already earn above £100k. However, it's a significant step up to run several schools rather than one school, so they deserve the additional pay.

In my experience, most academy trust CEOs are former heads, just as many LA education directors are former heads.

No there aren't. Don't be ridiculous. What do you think happens to children with SEN in the "third world"?

By the way, that term is outdated.

It's an academy. They're using the money to pay their CEO.

I'd start looking for other schools.

This is true. And these MATs know that there will be pupil wastage, getting to the point where the school is better.

Don't let your children be among the wastage.

@TossACoinToYerWitcher

If you name the school and the trust then you'll get more useful responses.