The government wants schools to join multi-academy trusts, but I’ve seen the dark side: a culture of fear, failure and back-stabbing. I won’t work in one again

There is a scene in Star Wars where Darth Vader and his entourage sweep through a corridor of the Death Star. As they pass, uniformed underlings step back against the wall and avert their gaze. Others busy themselves, prodding at terminals and frowning until the caravan of evil has gone. This is how I felt working in a multi-academy trust (a group of academies governed by a single set of directors, otherwise known as a Mat).

My first contact with the trust was at a job interview. I knew that the school had been forcibly turned into an academy as the result of a poor inspection, but the headteacher was so warm and likeable that I accepted a senior leadership post without hesitation.

I was surprised by the feel of the place – it didn’t seem like a school clawing its way back from chaos (and I’ve worked in several of those). It felt like all it needed was some training to modernise its day-to-day teaching practice. The staff were already familiar with the high expectations and hard work required. Many key changes had begun to embed and these strategies only required minor adjustments and some focused monitoring to ensure that progress would be made.

The first term passed enjoyably. The headteacher was a man with a well-set moral compass, a clear vision, expert knowledge of teaching and the soft skills needed to bond a team.

Then it was mentioned that the school’s membership of the trust would be legally formalised in the next term. At the time, no one was bothered. The trust’s involvement so far had been limited to an inspection by their advisory team and a handful of headteacher meetings.

But then it emerged that staff representatives would be required to attend a residential conference, hosted by the Mat, in a country hotel. As a member of the leadership team, my presence was mandatory – all senior staff needed to become “aligned” with the organisation’s values and priorities.

When I arrived, I was astonished to see the number of attendees and the quality of guest and function rooms (this was a level of expenditure I had not come across while working in local authority schools).

The CEO’s opening speech was not so much eye-opening as hair-raising. It started with a regurgitation of some half-digested management buzz phrases, such as having a “no-excuses” culture. However, rather than meaning that all present would take full responsibility for pupil progress and wellbeing, this was presented as a means of introducing severe repercussions for not following orders. The room was silent. The CEO went on to outline the trust’s vision for world domination as “a solution provider for governments”.

Things then escalated into a half-shouted rant on the importance of people skills – imagine Basil Fawlty berating Manuel about the importance of being sensitive to the needs of colleagues and stakeholders. The subtext seemed to be that, although pupils, staff and parents were important, they were only important because they were the key to controlling as many schools as possible and, ultimately, moving the business to international status. By the end of the conference, I was deeply concerned about the nature of the beast I had been working for.

What I saw back at school only confirmed my suspicions. Despite the school making good progress, the head resigned. Although the reasons were unstated, it seemed clear that he had fallen out of favour with the high-ups.

The staff were devastated and we began to lose quality teachers (who were replaced by less effective but cheaper counterparts). The head was replaced by someone who only had two terms’ experience as a deputy but who had the right connections in the Mat.

We had three deputy heads in the next two years, and they were all woefully unequipped for the post. Their lack of experience and tendency to pull rank rather than manage effectively meant that morale plummeted even further and more resignations followed.

Endless leadership meetings were given over to trivial nonsense – such as how best to hang paper showing modelled calculations on a string “washing line” – at the expense of strategic actions.

There grew a culture of back-stabbing, arse-covering, “spinning” of outcomes and bullying. People were claiming undue credit or slating colleagues to senior Mat staff to save their jobs. Leadership treated middle managers with contempt and the language around “difficult” staff was completely unacceptable. I heard senior leader use the phrase “I’m going to get that bitch”.

Everyone worked in fear – the sudden disappearances of those (at any level) who fell out of favour could only result in this. The culture created even more of the deceit and aggression that had seeded it.

The high staff turnover was very disruptive for the children, especially those whose needs required stability of attachment and predictable routine. Unsurprisingly, Sats results nose-dived.

After two years I finally moved on. I resigned without a post to go to and my career progression has stalled because of this, but that will right itself in time. In my present job, I am happy in a way that I don’t think I could ever be in an Mat.

Working for a Mat taught me a great deal – being surrounded by such toxic working practices has strengthened my beliefs about what is appropriate in a caring, vocational profession. There may be Mats out there that understand how to embody the core values of learning organisations but, having spoken to many other teachers, I don’t think my experience is uncommon.

The extraction of schools from local authority control seems to have created a series of fiefdoms whose self-made princes are almost totally unaccountable. One of most troubling aspects of all this has been that the schools in the Mat I worked in are being improved at a slower speed than if they were in the hands of an effective local authority.

I saw a struggling school built up quickly and effectively and then had to watch as it was systematically destroyed. A timely inspection visit would have prevented this, but conversion to academy status guarantees freedom from Ofsted for 12 months, in which time anything can happen.

Prior to being part of an Mat, the school would have been regularly monitored by local authority advisers. The leader would have been held to account. As things stand, we are all Obi Wans, biding our time in the mountains of Tatooine.

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