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?

Are pupil numbers low?

According to DS at least fifteen of his teachers have left in the last six months

That really isn't normal or a good sign.

Academies don't distribute profits but this doesn't mean that all their arrangements are always fair.

The top executives of these trusts can earn hundreds of thousands of pounds, while having the flexibility to pay their teachers less. I am all for paying for talent. But you don't fix the NHS by paying CEOs more and doctors and nurses less, and you don't fix education by paying top executives more and teachers less.

And the bets thing is there is no accountability.
We can choose not to send our kids to these schools but we cannot choose not to finance them with our tax money.

They don't use the flexibility to pay less - if they did, they wouldn't be able to recruit. They sometimes use the flexibility to pay more, but ime they mostly use standard terms and conditions.

Large multi academy trusts have some of the lowest retention rates and tend to pay their teachers less than maintained schools. Coincidence?

https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/large-multi-academy-trusts-have-lowest-teacher-retention-rates

Well I suppose that depends on whether the op's academy trust is a large one or a small one. Unless she has dm'd that info to you then you have no idea.

There are some good academy trusts and some bad ones. At least the bad ones can be replaced (unlike bad LA's).

I knew before I even read beyond the title that this would in involve a multi academy trust. Most of the ones I know about are slowly imploding.

No one uses the term 'third world' anymore. How many schools in developing countries have you taught in?

About 80% of secondary schools are now academies, and about 64% of secondary schools are part of a MAT, so you hardly needed a crystal ball.

LA schools are also financially challenged.at the moment.

The whole education sector is imploding, and not slowly either

The number of staff paid over £100K in academies is a matter of public record, as are school finances. You can find it all on the schools' financial benchmarking websites.

The "tend to pay less" in that article comes from a self-selecting survey of NEU members. The NEU can hardly be described as a disinterested party when it comes to pay. The Times Education Supplement commissioned a study last year which got pay data from 625 academy trusts. They found that 592 pay in line with the national pay rates, 12 exceed the national rates and the remainder differentiate on small points or provide additional benefits for staff. United Learning runs 90 academies and pays its teachers 5.6% above national pay rates, for example, whilst ARK runs 39 schools and pays 2.5% above national pay rates.

Re pay for CEOs, I have not checked the accounts of every academy trust by any means, but in every case where I have checked, the trust is generating significant additional funding for its schools on top of the money supplied by the government. Harris Federation, for example, received £326M from the government in its last financial year but was able to spend £381M on its schools. ARK Schools received around £248M from the government and spent £288M. United Learning received £480M from the government and spent £571M. I cannot say that is true for every single MAT, but certainly the 10 largest MATs by number of schools are all able to spend significantly more on their schools than they receive from the government. I am not saying CEO salaries are justified, but the evidence is that abolishing academies would reduce the amount of money schools had available to spend on educating pupils.

I think I know where you mean?

North Dorset?

Newish CEO? Follow a string of previous?

Things definitely going from bad to worse - school was on the up, now an embarrassment.

So sad 😔

We have removed our son - kids only get one chance, remove and go elsewhere, there are some better schools in the area.

@morning2ya There are some good academy trusts and some bad ones. At least the bad ones can be replaced (unlike bad LA's).

Local authorities are accountable to the electorate. Last I checked, we are not a dictatorship and we still get to vote at local elections.

What, exactly, is the process to replace an academy trust?

After the scandal at Holland Park school around 2022, the school was "closed" and reassigned to a different trust. The headteacher retired and no one was held accountable https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61325597

After 300 people came forward at Mossbourne, nothing has happened https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5225872-mossbourne-academies-investigations-into-alleged-emotional-harm-and-abuse-why-are-needlessly-strict-academies-unaccountable

Also, if you read the complaints policy of any academy, you will see that they mark their own homework and that not even the Education Secretary can overturn their decisions.

@prh47bridge The article wasn't based only on a survey, but also on freedom of information requests.

Harris Federation, for example, received £326M from the government in its last financial year but was able to spend £381M on its schools. ARK Schools received around £248M from the government and spent £288M. United Learning received £480M from the government and spent £571M

Where does this extra money come from? If you look at the financials of United, the second largest source of funds, after the government, is "transfer from other trusts". No idea what that means.
https://unitedlearning.org.uk/about-us/statutory-information

There are examples where the academisation has not been cost effective:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/16/academies-fuel-explosion-in-school-costs

Take my home town of York as an example: where once the 63 state schools were maintained by a director of children’s services on circa £110,000 and an assistant director of education on circa £80,000, we now have six Mats whose focus is increasingly drawn outside the city boundaries. Together they now employ six CEOs on salaries ranging from at least £130,000 to more than £160,000, six CFOs and several executive heads, and sport a combined wage bill for “key management personnel” that exceeds £7m – money the former education authority could only dream of.

Oh yawn @ParentOfOne. You're obsessed with this and have projected your York experience way beyond its significance.

"Local authorities are accountable to the electorate."
Voting power is a blunt instrument that spreads itself across a multitude of issues - LA majorities have very little dependency on educational outcomes.

"Also, if you read the complaints policy of any academy, you will see that they mark their own homework and that not even the Education Secretary can overturn their decisions."

Codswallop! Academies are accountable to the DfE and to Ofsted, just like LA schools are. The difference is that, if there are financial or educational inadequacies, then trusts are replaced.

@morning2ya
The bit on York was a quote from the Guardian (that's why it was in italic), not my own words, nor my direct experience.

Are you saying that that's not representative? Or that it is representative but it's a price worth paying because... what?

It's true that the vote is a blunt instrument and local authority majority may not always depend on how the schools function.
But in what way are trusts accountable to the DfE?
Again: read any complaints policy, and you'll see that not even the Education Secretary can overturn an academy's decision.

300ish people came forward at Mossbourne Academy with allegations of emotional abuse. The result? The DfE is not investigating. The trust commissioned its own investigation (the accused having itself investigated!!!), whose result will NOT be made public. After about a year, still nothing has happened.

Tell me again how academies and accountability fit in the same sentence?

And don't get me started on Ofsted. Holland Park school and Mossbourne were both rated outstanding. If Ofsted can give an oustanding rating to schools which engage in that kind of emotional abuse, it means its reports are worth less than toilet paper.

Lots of schools are making redundancies right now. My school made several redundancies before the summer and I know from teacher colleagues in other schools that this is not unusual.

It's a funding issue.

So true. And well said

"read any complaints policy, and you'll see that not even the Education Secretary can overturn an academy's decision."

After you've exhausted any school's complaints policy (including an LA school policy) the next step is to escalate to Ofsted.

Restructuring middle management can definitely lead to mass exodus of staff. I was Head of English in a large comp when there was a restructuring decision (across the board, not just my subject) and someone who had only ever been a one person department became my line manager but felt his job description was more like overlord. I had been managing a team of thirteen teachers for quite some time and this person had no experience with nor desire to learn about managing a large team or the requirements of a core subject. I no longer controlled the budget for the department and didn’t get to be on the interview panel for teachers in my subject, because that had all been helpfully delegated to this person. The same happened in the maths and science departments - none of the core subjects kept their management and the subject links made little sense. 2 I/c of PE was managing maths. Make it make sense.

Senior management’s explanation was that these teachers didn’t have logical places for career advancement so they invented them. Sure.

So many teachers left, including me. They kept appointing replacements for English who didn’t even see out one term.

Suffice to say this school closed and no one in their senior leadership is still in education from my understanding. Exam results were never amazing but they absolutely plummeted in the year that followed this restructuring. It was a mix of new staff to replace so many who left with a management structure incapable when they had experienced staff so now completely out of their depths.

If a teacher looks like she’s going to break into tears explaining the SEN support, they are stretched to the brink. Look for somewhere else - it will get worse before it gets better imo.

As a teacher I was shocked a family member didn’t know that extra curricular clubs weren’t part of a teachers job. When pressure comes at all sides, often as a money saving exercise, something has to give and sadly it’s often the voluntary bits like running clubs

All this and more well said.
It sounds like the school has a resultant toxic culture which is filtering down to the students.

@Nighttimeistherightime That plan was totally bastardised and education is now in the hands of some very wealthy, very persuasive and very powerful people.

I wonder in how many other countries a carpet salesman entrepreneur (Lord Harris of Peckham, of CarpetRight, sponsor of the Harries academies), or a billionaire politician with, potentially questionable tax affairs (Lord Ashcroft of the Ashcroft Academy https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41878306 ) would sponsor school chains named after them.

Maybe the Italians should have had a chain of Berlusconi academies or Ferrero academies.

The Spanish a chain of Ortega academies.

The French the Hermès academies.

Etc...

Jonathan Pie made a piece about the lack of accountability of academies a few years ago:

Where does this extra money come from? If you look at the financials of United, the second largest source of funds, after the government, is "transfer from other trusts". No idea what that means.

The information is right there in their accounts. That represents the transfer of existing academy trusts to United. These transfers increase the value of their balance sheet, so have to be reflected as additional income. What is more important in terms of funding their schools is the money they have raised from donations and capital grants, trading activities and investments.

There are examples where the academisation has not been cost effective:

That is comparing the cost of a director of education who was only responsible for schools within York and who did not raise any additional money for York's schools with six CEOs who are all responsible for schools elsewhere as well as those within York. It isn't remotely comparing like with like.

Again: read any complaints policy, and you'll see that not even the Education Secretary can overturn an academy's decision.

That is also true for other types of school. With community, VA and VC schools, your complaint generally stops with the governors. Some allow an appeal to the LA, but the LA will only check that the correct process has been followed. They will not review the decision. The only difference with academies is that it is always possible to appeal to the ESFA who will check that the correct process has been followed. Of course, for some matters a referral to Ofsted is possible.

@prh47bridge That represents the transfer of existing academy trusts to United.

OK. So money that the government gave to another trust now goes to this trust?
So saying that

United Learning received £480M from the government and spent £571M

is misleading. Or am I missing something?

What is more important in terms of funding their schools is the money they have raised from donations and capital grants, trading activities and investments

I don't think schools should make money from "trading activities and investments". By all means, they should manage the liquidity prudently and efficiently, but it shouldn't be a revenue centre

That is comparing the cost of a director of education who was only responsible for schools within York and who did not raise any additional money for York's schools with six CEOs who are all responsible for schools elsewhere as well as those within York. It isn't remotely comparing like with like.

Actually it is, because the guy in York was responsible for more than 60 schools. I wasn't comparing a guy running 2 schools with 6 heads running 300.