Would you work for a MAT?

[partydownseason2]

Hello all,

I’m a reception teacher and have been in my school for 4 years now (since I qualified). It’s a really lovely place and I’m mostly happy but there is zero chance of any promotion or development. There is nothing else I can do there and I’m already feeling stale.

I’ve been looking at other schools and seen quite an interesting role with room for development at an academy. Are they all awful? Are they a good place to boost your career but not stay too long?

Feeling torn but also ready for something new.

Academy trusts can be amazing, but they can be awful. From my experience - steer clear of the trusts that are national - very impersonal and 'one size fits all'. Local trusts can be amazing with lots of skill sharing and teacher development, but that isn't true of all.
Some trusts set their own pay policy which could mean you don't get the teachers pension or progression, others still follow the burgundy book so pay is just like a local authority school.

Depends which one. I left a secondary school which was part of a huge MAT last year and wouldn't touch any of their schools ever again - they have a lot of primary and secondary schools and they have definitely put me off.

The school is now part of a smaller MAT which, one of the students told me, is run by "evil robots" so I guess they're not much fun either - despite being smaller.

Do your research - find out what you can from people who work in their schools and then decide.

I work for a small MAT and it's much better than I expected - had heard a lot of horror stories. It seems to have enough money for everything but all the schools are in areas where they get a lot of pupil premium money so that might be a big factor.

Smaller local MATs can be lovely. I didn't notice the difference when we set our up and converted.

I agree with others saying avoid national chains if you can. I've just read something horrible online about the way one of our local schools who've been taken over. Plus, the way this larger MAT seems ro operate is to fill the PRU and then each time the PRU try to reintegrate children into mainstream, the school picks a fight with them over something stupid to get a reaction so that conveniently they can sling thr child out to the PRU again (which stops other schools in our area being able to send a single child there). Horrible horrible MAT.