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?

@Caterfly well said! OP, you might also want to try getting in touch with the local teacher union to see if they are willing to share any colour. They might tell you to get lost but I'd consider it worth a try.
They are not unbiased, of course, and their feedback must be taken with a truckload of salt, but, still, it may be useful

@ParentOfOne , those 300 "complaints" you keep mentioning were gathered by a campaign group, started by parents who felt their formal complaints to the school weren't handled correctly. If Ofsted had seen that many formal complaints raised, then they would have investigated. Given the circumstances it is right for a Safeguarding Review to take place, but it will take a long time to do due diligence on all of those documents.

Separately, the school has put out a statement saying it is taking the matter seriously and has commissioned an independent review if its complaints handling procedures.

In the meantime, it is completely wrong of you to repeatedly state that "nothing happened" following the campaign group's actions or that the school is "marking its own homework". It is also wrong of you to derail a thread that has nothing to do with what happened at Mossbourne.

If you knew anything about abuse, you would know it's not uncommon for more victims to come forward only once someone else has already found the strength to do so.

Your attitude is similar to those who say: "she cannot have been abused, she's making it up, otherwise she would have come forward earlier".

Shame on you.

300ish people coming forward. Including former teachers. All making it up? Again: shame on you.

Complaining about an allegedly "vexatious campaign" is NOT taking it seriously.

So they should be paid more than the prime minister who runs the country?

That's not a legitimate comparison, and never is. Prime Ministers make millions in consultancy work and public speaking and autobiographies. School leaders don't.

@hawheresthebmareviewnow as much as I dislike the concept of academies, that is the wrong comparison.

A PM's salary is only an advance on future earnings. Look at how much Boris is making between conferences books etc.

Regardless, pay peanuts, get monkeys. Low salaries are one of the reasons the public sector struggles to hire and retain talent.

I support paying teachers and headteachers more. What I don't support is paying a few unaccountable executives more, who pay their staff less.

@ParentOfOne you are being ridiculous. Take a step back and breathe. Nobody is saying that their complaints are not justified. I am saying that you won't know the full story until the review is complete.

DC school it was head leaving succesion of temp heads in covid and lots of staff loses.

Couldn't just move schools as DD1 was at GCSE years and other schools in area had no places. It still not picked back up - they open HT recuitment twice and had 4 lots of temp HT in that time.

6 -7 years later - 2 younger ones now through it's completely different school and not one we'd have sent them to - still stuggling to keep staff.

I don't know what's happened at your DC school - but eldest may now need more support in GCSE years to get through - but I'd look else where your younger one - at least see what your options are.

Sounds like most schools unless you are paying for private where you have choices.

But often these 'CEO's' arent really 'running' all those schools.

Each school still has its own headteacher, and those headteachers arent paid any less just because theres now trust CEO above them.

All academisation has done is created another layer of highly paid management staff above headteachers that was never needed, taking a portion of money off each school in the trust to pay the CEO when that money could have been spent on resources or in classroom staffing.

The point being made was that the execs in education deserve the high pay they get from public sector as they run multiple schools. My point is that the PM is paid less than these execs in the public sector to run the country and running the country is harder!
Ex-pm’s may make lots of money after being PM, but being PM is not a job for life, and ex-PMs have limited employment opportunities once booted out of office, as they can’t rotate leadership of other countries like execs in public sector do. Those opportunities also depend on how successful they are and their contacts they have. It’s not payment for running the country though although it may reflect the challenges of running a country. It’s also not the explicit reason they run for office because they get paid lots once voted out of power. (Most cling on and try to stay in post as long as they can!)

This is naive and untrue. The CEO is coordinating many services like HR, Procurement, Governance, as well as maintaining the educational ethos across the various schools, preparing joint policies, organising cross-school links, and managing budgets across the schools. They are usually ex-heads in my experience, just like LA education directors are often ex-heads. The trust I'm most familiar with also employs senior teachers as education advisers for core subjects, who work with all the schools to maintain high quality. The CEO runs all of this and works very long hours, just as the HTs do.

I replied to another poster but Boris could have earned that sort of money before being PM. Also no guarantee that they will earn lots and limited opportunities afterwards. It’s the highest public office.

The point is that execs are paid so much because running multiple schools in public sector is apparently harder than running the country. I know some execs are paid 600k in multi academy trusts with class sizes of 60.

Salaries reflect how hard it is to recruit the right people to do a job well. You could pay a prime minister half that amount, or even zero, and still have plenty of people wanting to do the job because of the side-benefits of power and influence that come with the role. But it wouldn't attract people from all backgrounds because only the already-wealthy could afford to take it on.

Schools are struggling to recruit heads at all, never mind experienced heads.

Trust CEO positions need to encourage experienced heads to step up, so are paid accordingly. They need suitable experience.

The rich and famous figureheads people sometimes complain about "sponsoring" academy trusts tend to be trust chairs in voluntary positions, not CEOs. They are not paid.

@morning2ya The rich and famous figureheads people sometimes complain about "sponsoring" academy trusts tend to be trust chairs in voluntary positions, not CEOs. They are not paid.

The point is not whether they are paid (Ashcroft is a billionaire, Harris is a multi-millionaire) but whether it is appropriate for politicians and businessmen to create their own (state-funded) schools. Again, I don't think an Accademia Berlusconi or an Ecole Sarkozy would go down well in Italy or France.

This is naive and untrue. The CEO is coordinating many services like HR, Procurement, Governance, as well as maintaining the educational ethos across the various schools, preparing joint policies, organising cross-school links, and managing budgets across the schools.

What experience do you have of large organisations with multiple layers of management?

What is naïve is to assume that the very top is always directly responsible for what happens further down the food chain.
There are cases where this is true, and cases where it isn't.

The same in the corporate world: there are cases where the Head of Europe has hired the right country heads, is on top of what they do and is directly responsible for their success. And cases where the Head of Europe is a clueless bureaucrat and single teams further down the food chain function well in spite of, not because of, this Head.

There is a sketch with Mitchell and Webb, where the teacher says something like teaching sucks, and the headteacher replies: "Yes, dah, that's why I'm a headteacher, I only do admin now". It's comedy, it's an exaggeration, but my point is that we must be careful not to overpay those at the very top, who are multiple steps removed from the actual functioning of a school, while underpaying those on the front lines.

I haven't read the thread, but will go back through and read- however my thoughts as a secondary school teacher who's been through a MAT takeover are:

-If you've seen big changes as a parent, it's likely way more is going on behind the scenes, teachers may be leaving due to things you aren't even aware of. MAT takeovers are often really horrible and do lead to high staff turnover. In a few years it can settle down, but at the start it can be really messy.

-A good HoD is worth their weight in gold to everyone, losing HoDs in a school makes things really hard in terms of cover, behaviour, organisation- HoDs do a lot. Not having a HoD in the school every day will cause more workload for other staff, meaning they may leave and also less time to run clubs. Sometimes also just a critical mass of staff leaving makes things tricky, and more people will leave because of the knock on impacts.

-There is one particular MAT in my local area that has a really poor reputation in terms of how they teach staff. There are a few national MATs with poor reputations for staff wellbeing too. Often you will find that some teachers won't want to work for some MATs, making recruitment harder.

-If there's no HoDs in this school, where is the career progression for staff? This will impact both retention and recruitment.

In terms of SEN funding, that is terrible everywhere, but a more stable school will be better for your child. The problem is it's hard to predict which schools will still be stable e.g. 3 years down the line. If you have a choice, look for one that has had the same head for at least 3-4 years, that's normally a good sign! Also look on TES and e-teach in the spring term and avoid schools advertising loads of vacancies across multiple subjects. Obviously people leave every school but 5+ vacancies in a range of subjects is a bad sign.

Would you consider moving your older son before GCSEs?

Read the long post above by @Nighttimeistherightime and you'll understand better.

@ParentOfOne I have a lot of management experience with multi-level organisations and I'm also a school governor for an academy. I know what I'm talking about. CEOs run academy trusts.

Ashcroft & Harris are Chairs, not CEOs.

The UK academy model mirrors models in other countries. I don't like all aspects of it (see my comment about marmite schools in a pp). There are some benefits over LA schools and some disbenefits. Whatever their pros and comms, I don't like people spreading misinformation about schools online.

@Postapocalypticcowgirl The problem is it's hard to predict which schools will still be stable e.g. 3 years down the line. If you have a choice, look for one that has had the same head for at least 3-4 years, that's normally a good sign!

Fully agree! @TossACoinToYerWitcher , If the same trust runs other schools, too, maybe try to look into what's happening there.
Has a new trust taken over the school? Is it always the same trust? Is it cutting in other schools, too? That may give you some indications.

@morning2ya Whatever their pros and comms, I don't like people spreading misinformation about schools online.

Please, do tell me what misinformation I would have spread - or retract and apologise.

@ParentOfOne look back through you own posts and my multiple corrections of them.

@morning2ya ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... Your poor text comprehension skills are shocking.
You really think that you have corrected me. You deny the evidence even when it slaps you in the face.
Goodbye

I understand perfectly well without the need for snippy comments. Legally they are charities and not for profit.

BTW I will say that whilst some academy CEOs are definitely making money out of the situation, it's worth bearing in mind part of the problem is that schools are underfunded and any academy brings certain roles in house, which then have to be paid for from the general funding pot which doesn't help. But even the most altruistically run MAT in the country will be having to make difficult decisions at the moment due to costs- and there are rules about academies not posting deficit budgets year on year.

Financially, the fact is that per pupil funding has not kept up with costs and also doesn't take into account capital costs such as IT replacement etc. The whole way schools are funded needs to be looked at at a national level IMO.

But nonetheless there are lots of schools without this level of staff turnover too, and I'm not sure arguing about funding is sooo helpful to OP!

Yes- unfortunately I've worked for a school where everything was fine- one bad ofsted and then a MAT takeover and that school was a mess for about 6 years- it's just coming out the other side now. I did leave that school so arguably part of the problem! Ironically, the school was fine for most children before the bad ofsted- there were some issues with SEN, which led to the poor ofsted and I'm not saying that was okay, but the majority of children, even with SEN had a good experience of school.

Another school local to me was taken over by a MAT about 3 years ago- they've since effectively closed the sixth form, and loads of staff have left (they're the local MAT I wouldn't work for!). The way they have treated students at that school, never mind staff, is awful and other local schools (like us) end up having to pick up the slack. They were previously an LA school.

I don't know how I'd advise parents choose secondary schools these days because your child is potentially there for 7 years and a lot can suddenly change!