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?

@ParentOfOne academies in my area make additional money for their schools through lettings to their local community, or event parking.

You really do sound like a dinosaur on this. Yes, get rid of the bad apples, but don't tar all academies with your tunnel-visioned ideological brush.

You clearly don't understand accounts.

An academy trust has a value that is shown on its balance sheet. It represents the fixed and current assets owned by the trust less any liabilities. If a trust is transferred to another trust, that value has to transfer and is shown in the accounts of the receiving trust as income. However, it is not really part of their income - they haven't suddenly received a load of cash. The fact remains that they received £480M from the government to fund all their schools, including those that transferred in, and were able to spend £571M. However much you wish to deny that, it is absolutely true.

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

I note that you don't think schools should rent out their facilities to generate more income and that they should give away any interest earned on their money. An interesting position to take.

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.

So how many schools are these CEOs running, including those outside York? And how does the revenue they are raising for their schools compare with the revenue that the Director of Education was raising? No, you really aren't comparing like with like. Not remotely.

There is if course nothing wrong in renting their facilities. Any school can do that, not just academies, it's not like there is anything special about academies in this regard. There is a lot wrong in trying to profit from investments.

@prh47bridge Could you please point me to where this extra money came from, and what makes you think that a school which wasn't an academy would have necessarily raised less?

@morning2ya I have tunnel vision? Sure, sure. But I cannot help but notice your deafening silence about how absolutely nothing happened after the scandal at Mossbourne. 300 people complain about emotional abuse, nothing happens, and you don't bat an eyelid. I complain about that, and I am ideological. Sure.

@ParentOfOne , I assume you have no.personal connection to Mossborne, so are reacting to things you have read. I have no personal connection to it either. Therefore, I'll reserve judgement until the outcome of the LA's Safeguarding Review is published. Until then, what I know is that it's a very strict school, which wouldn't be to my taste. Lots of parents have complained about it, but lots of parents seem to like it and have defended it.
In parallel with the Safeguarding Review, there is an independent Complaints Review taking place, commissioned by the school trust, to determine whether it handled complaints correctly. The findings of that might not be published but it will certainly influence how they handle complaints going forward.

Mossborne is what many would call a "Marmite" school. Marmite schools are only ok if parents have choice about where to send their children, but we all know they don't. Not everyone can afford to move house to access a preferred school. If you were to argue that the academy system encourages more marmite schools, I would agree with you - that is its biggest flaw in my eyes. But even that isn't a problem unique to academies - faith schools are also marmite schools, and they divided opinion long before academies came along.

But I don't see what any of this has to do with the OP's post, which is about a well loved school that is imploding. We don't know which school/trust it is, so don't know the full story. You've just used it as a hook for your anti-academy prejudice, and rambling reductionist arguments, as you have done on other threads.

And here is what the public needs to realise. Most public sector money gets spent on the NHS bottomless pit. Education needs to be prioritised and quickly, or we will fail a whole generation. And parents need to support teachers and the school, not work against them. Parents seem to criticise everything and make the job impossible.

@morning2ya You've just used it as a hook for your anti-academy prejudice, and rambling reductionist arguments, as you have done on other threads.

Wrong. Mine is not a prejudice, but an informed conclusion, reached in light of actual, undisputable facts and evidence. You are welcome to disagree, but not to call it prejudice. For reference, the definition of prejudice is not "whatever you disagree with" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prejudice
Anyone whose mental health was wrecked by toxic workplaces will recognise the red flags in those schools. It is self-evident that many who haven't experienced it directly are unable to comprehend. You seem one such person.

On one thing you are right, though, I have hijacked the thread too much.

Back on topic: OP @TossACoinToYerWitcher , it sounds like the rats are leaving a sinking ship.
There may be a few cases where many teachers leave because they disagree with the headteacher, not because the headteacher is doing anything wrong, but, based on what little you have said, this doesn't seem one of those cases.

My advice would be: ignore the marketing speak, look at the evidence. Ignore what they say, look at what they're doing. And look into moving schools. At primary school there is more movement after the first year, at secondary less so, so it may not be easy, depending on where you live, but I would start looking into alternatives now.

@ParentOfOne it is a prejudice because you assume all academies are bad, and any problems experienced by individual academies are because they are academies, and you defend your points by cherry picking academies that are controversial whilst ignoring the many that are well loved and making a valuable contribution to society. If "academy" was a protected characteristic you would be guilty of discrimination. It isn't, and shouldn't be, but hopefully you understand my point.

Your first paragraph answered the question. They're 'cutting costs' (check out the salaries of Academy personnel and see how costs are being cut there) and micromanaging, in the process they are upsetting established teachers who can no longer work in that environment and left.

It's all lack of money. (Sacked school finance officer here)

School finance managers are also leaving through stress.

No, I am not going to delve into the accounts of each academy to see where the money is coming from. At the end of the day, that doesn't matter. The important thing is that academisation has allowed schools to have the freedoms that we know are associated internationally with good performance. It isn't necessary for all schools to have those freedoms. Research has shown that, if a school has those freedoms, other schools in the area also perform better. As a result, England is climbing up the PISA tables whilst Scotland and Wales, which do not have academies, are going down. There are good academies and bad academies, but abolishing academies and returning to the previous system will damage our children's education.

Choose a different school for ds and move your dd before year 10.

I can’t understand how things seem to have fallen apart over such a short period of time.
because an academy trust does not want to spend money, and has teachers working across two school for the same pay and more importantly the same amount of time, they were on for one school. Anything they don't have to fund, they wont fund. So staff will be stretched beyond anything reasonable and told to do it ‘for the students’ and the word ‘goodwill’ will be said at every undirected-but-compulsory meeting. So more and more staff who can will leave. You will be left with broken staff who have lost all self confidence and cannot leave, more sickness so more supply.

@morning2ya it is a prejudice because you assume all academies are bad

Wrong. Your poor text comprehension skills are not my fault.
I have never said nor implied that.
The school I'd like my kid to go to happens to be an academy.
In fact, it's a rather moot point because the vast majority of secondary schools are now academies!!!

I have criticised the model and the philosophy underpinning it.

I disagree with having rich politicians and entrepreneurs sponsoring state-funded schools. The Italians would rise up in arms at the thought of an Accademia Berlusconi.

I disagree with the general philosophy that schools can thrive only if they are de facto unaccountable. We have seen it with Holland Park (trust changed, no one held accountable) and Mossbourne (nothing happens). This doesn't mean that this stuff happens in every academy. But it means that, when it happens, the model is unfit for purpose.

I disagree with the philosophy whereby the only way to achieve good results is by creating a hostile environment for special needs kids (I have seen it with my own eyes) and the paternalistic patronising mindset whereby the only way "poor" kids can thrive is with batshit crazy petty capricious discipline, as if that were the only alternative to chaos.

@prh47bridge The important thing is that academisation has allowed schools to have the freedoms that we know are associated internationally with good performance.

We know this? Really? How? What would prove it?

What you call freedom I call complete lack of accountability, which has allowed emotional abuse in places like Holland Park school and Mossbourne Academy

. Research has shown that, if a school has those freedoms, other schools in the area also perform better.

Can you please share such research?
The LSE famously painted a much more nuanced picture in its research https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/Assets/Documents/PDF/Research-reports/Academies-Vision-Report.pdf

Why would it be necessary to allow the kind of emotional abuse of places like Holland Park and Mossbourne? Many (most) academies thrive without resorting to batshit crazy policies.

We know this from independent research that looked at what features were common in school systems that performed highly in PISA and were missing from school systems that performed poorly. I don't have time to dig it out at the moment, but the research found that schools in high performing systems had greater freedom over curriculum and budgets, could compete with other schools for pupils and so on. The research also found that, where some schools have these freedoms, the result is generally improved performance for all schools.

I'm not sure what accountability you thought there was in community schools, but your comment about no-one being able to overturn an academy's decision also applied to community schools. They are not run by the LA. They receive their funding from the LA (which top-slices the funding for services they provide) and the LA appoints one governor. That's it. Unless there is evidence of serious safeguarding concerns or the school is failing, the LA has no ability to interfere at all. It doesn't matter who you elect to sit on the council, they can't make any difference.

I get that you don't like Holland Park or Mossbourne. Some parents do. And, even if they are bad schools, that doesn't make the whole academy system wrong. If children are being abused, the school can be dealt with in exactly the same way as a community school.

Does the school name start with P?

This usually happens in schools when there is a change in management and restructures. The change in management and restructures always come with new ways of working, expectations change, often workload is increased. For some staff they don't like change and sometimes change brings toxic management and conditions.

If management are toxic the people who can leave do leave. Such a high turnover suggests there has been significant change in management and ways of working. I worked at a school who became absorbed by a large MAT and under executive headship and restructure. It very quickly became a very toxic place to work, lots of performance plans brought in for the "expensive staff", lots of bullying of staff. They lost 18 staff out of 25 in 6 months. The remaining 7 staff were on sponsored work visas and the executive head basically told them you leave and we will let the visa people know you are no longer in our employment.

@prh47bridge So you dismiss the London School of Economics research because it contradicts unspecified research, which you don't have time to dig out, confirming your prejudice. That's textbook confirmation bias.
One of the key points of the LSE research was that schools in multi-academy trusts do not have this much-flaunted freedom or autonomy

If children are being abused, the school can be dealt with in exactly the same way as a community school.

Except that's not what's been happening.

Holland Park school was assigned to a different trust; the head conveniently retired. No one was held accountable; no trial, no exclusion from teaching, not even a fine, nothing. That's not accountability - that's brushing inconvenient truths under the carpet.

At Mossbourne, 300ish people came forward, a year has gone by, and nothing has happened. Again: the very opposite of accountability.

The point is not whether I like or dislike these schools.
There are plenty of schools which I dislike but which do nothing wrong and which can be perfect for other kids.
The point is that no school should be allowed to emotionally abuse its children and get away with it. Those who don't mind are unfit to be parents and should be stripped of their parental responsibility.

A few decades ago we might have had a similar conversation on corporal punishment. People like you would have told people like me that headteachers know best, that if I don't like it I can send my kids elsewhere, etc. Well, those people were on the wrong side of history. I trust time will show that the bootlicking apologists who enable the kind of emotional abuse I have criticised were on the wrong side of history, too. And no, I do not care if you feel offended or triggered: like I said, anyone whose mental health was wrecked by toxic workplaces would recognise the red flags. I can only hope you won't have to live it yourself in order to finally understand it.

@ParentOfOne the reason that "nothing has happened" at Mossbourne is that the case for emotional abuse is not proven, and won't be until the LA's Safeguarding Review has concluded.

@ParentOfOne - The LSE paper to which you refer is not research, but in any event it doesn't disagree with anything I have said. I am not saying academies are perfect and I agree with some of LSE's criticisms, but I don't agree with all their points.

Holland Park school was assigned to a different trust; the head conveniently retired. No one was held accountable; no trial, no exclusion from teaching, not even a fine, nothing. That's not accountability - that's brushing inconvenient truths under the carpet.

You really think it would have been any different if it was a community school? I don't see anything in what happened that would have led to anyone being tried for a criminal offence, but one member of staff was cautioned. Contrary to what you say, at least one teacher was excluded from teaching. I don't know who you think should have been fined. If it was a community school, the head would have been replaced and possibly also the governors. So pretty much what happened to it as an academy. Note that the complaints spanned 18 years and the school was a community school for 9 of those years.

@prh47bridge You really think it would have been any different if it was a community school?

I don't know for sure - community schools have almost disappeared.
Also, "other people might do it, too" is not the strong argument you may think it is.

One teacher excluded from teaching is laughable, because that wasn't bad behaviour by one teacher only, but an institutionalised climate of emotional abuse.

@morning2ya That the review is taking so long is a huge problem.

Also, what wasn't said and what didn't happen is in itself very telling.

Mossbourne senior management could have, I don't know, made a statement that holding seminars on how to instil fear in little children goes against their value and ethos, and any staff caught doing do would be promptly expelled. They said no such thing. They complained about a vexatious campaign. This is what child psychologist Naomi Fisher said https://x.com/naomicfisher/status/1868632261110677896
How do you interpret this? My interpretation is that Mossbourne condones this kind of behaviour. Yours?

Imagine this playing out in the workplace: image 300 people coming forward with accusations of abuse, and the company making a statement complaining about a "vexatious campaign".

Someone from the Department of Education could have said that they would launch an investigation because these allegations, if true, would be unacceptable. No such thing was said.

Some council members complained, but they noted that the school is autonomous and there was little they could do.

@ParentOfOne yes, the review is taking a long time, but unbiased people with no first-hand experience of the school should wait for the outcome before judging.

The psychologist in your link defines the word vexatious as "an action which is brought without sufficient grounds, purely to cause annoyance" but she has cherry-picked that definition without knowing anything about school governance. The word vexatious is routinely used in school school complaints policies in line with government guidance, and is defined by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator as shown in this screenshot from the guidance:

@morning2ya the policy you mention is meant to address lunatic parents who become obsessed and obsessive.

In that case, we were talking about ca 300 people coming forward with similar accusations, not with a handful of people repeating the same complaint over and over again. So what you posted is utterly irrelevant. Maybe you'd like to retract it?

I stand by my point: an organisation which doesn't deem it appropriate to mention that holding seminars to instil fear in children is contrary to their values (not to mention to common sense and basic human decency) is one which de facto condones emotional abuse.
Those who disagree are unfit to be parents and should be stripped of parental responsibility.

Also, "other people might do it, too" is not the strong argument you may think it is.

The point I was making is that your belief that it would somehow have been different if it was a community school is mistaken.

One teacher excluded from teaching is laughable, because that wasn't bad behaviour by one teacher only, but an institutionalised climate of emotional abuse.

Suggest you go back to school and learn the difference between "one" and "at least one". I haven't checked the exact number, but it was easy to find information about one who has been excluded and received a police caution. There may be more who have been disciplined.

I think you'll be right if you've noticed an overall change, but concentrating on extracurricular clubs isn't helpful. It's not the biggest issue and why should staff give up their time for free on top of their jobs? Historically they've always happened, but through good will. Sounds like there's none left because of the way they're treated and the conditions of their employment.