Glossing over MAT problems
With news today that a MAT has asked the DFE to simply take back the 21 schools they were looking after we are once again left asking the question "What problem do MATs solve?"
The MAT CEO was earning £25k a month, the MAT had been handed £5m or so to expand and yet they can suddenly say goodbye? What happens to the money they were paid? As far as we know the problem was that they were worried the schools they had taken over weren't improving fast enough.
Well why would they? The problem, once again, is that the rules of the game have been accepted when anyone applying a simple amount of critical thought could see the rules are stupid.
There is a massively strong correlation between pupil intake, exam results, and whether a school is judged to be any good or not. Why would sticking a new badge on the blazer, wholesale changes to the management team and disruption to the running of the school lead to sudden, drastic improvements?
No doubt the basics of infrastructure, administration and safety can be cleared up quickly, if these are problem areas, but the teaching, learning and culture won't turn around overnight. Just as moving a "problem" child between foster homes every few months probably isn't a good idea I don't understand why disrupting the teachers (the ones actually doing the work), removing the heads (who I have great sympathy for) and rebranding would actually have an impact.
We seem to be asking the impossible, giving people who promise the impossible lots of money, then, when they fail, trying to seek someone else who promises the impossible.
I know there are successful MATs, successful charter schools in the US and successful state funded but independently run schools all around the world. However there are usually factors that explain this success be it; additional funding, a particular intake, change in the local demographics, a big pool of specialist skilled staff, school choice in the local area so the non-compliant can be driven out. There will always be outliers who take what they are given, work with the same budgets as everyone else but get great results. Unfortunately being outliers, they don't scale to a system wide approach.
Successful MATs seem to pick and choose very carefully. I would be surprised if there weren't analytics teams looking over the demographics and geography of each potential school site. My blog comparing the new school system with football analytics is getting more pertinent by the day, there is even a transfer market with MATs on the look out for the best school deals. And why wouldn't they?
Put it this way, Cambridge, is due to get a new free school, on the eastern side of the city. Not a brick has been laid so far. Somehow, somehow, the West London Free School Trust has been awarded the rights to occupy the new free school about 70 miles from their existing schools. Because I can already tell you the school will be excellent, a family house locally will cost you £450k+, the major employers are a massive biomedical research park, ARM who design computer chips and arguably the best university in the world. The new school will probably offer Latin until 14 and compulsory straw boaters, marketing itself as the academic choice whilst those who don't sign up should probably use the existing schools. Why aren't academies like the West London Free School Trust forced to take on the struggling schools with poor demographics in Wakefield before being allocated £10m+ new buildings in the richest areas of the country?
The MAT CEO was earning £25k a month, the MAT had been handed £5m or so to expand and yet they can suddenly say goodbye? What happens to the money they were paid? As far as we know the problem was that they were worried the schools they had taken over weren't improving fast enough.
Well why would they? The problem, once again, is that the rules of the game have been accepted when anyone applying a simple amount of critical thought could see the rules are stupid.
There is a massively strong correlation between pupil intake, exam results, and whether a school is judged to be any good or not. Why would sticking a new badge on the blazer, wholesale changes to the management team and disruption to the running of the school lead to sudden, drastic improvements?
No doubt the basics of infrastructure, administration and safety can be cleared up quickly, if these are problem areas, but the teaching, learning and culture won't turn around overnight. Just as moving a "problem" child between foster homes every few months probably isn't a good idea I don't understand why disrupting the teachers (the ones actually doing the work), removing the heads (who I have great sympathy for) and rebranding would actually have an impact.
We seem to be asking the impossible, giving people who promise the impossible lots of money, then, when they fail, trying to seek someone else who promises the impossible.
I know there are successful MATs, successful charter schools in the US and successful state funded but independently run schools all around the world. However there are usually factors that explain this success be it; additional funding, a particular intake, change in the local demographics, a big pool of specialist skilled staff, school choice in the local area so the non-compliant can be driven out. There will always be outliers who take what they are given, work with the same budgets as everyone else but get great results. Unfortunately being outliers, they don't scale to a system wide approach.
Successful MATs seem to pick and choose very carefully. I would be surprised if there weren't analytics teams looking over the demographics and geography of each potential school site. My blog comparing the new school system with football analytics is getting more pertinent by the day, there is even a transfer market with MATs on the look out for the best school deals. And why wouldn't they?
Put it this way, Cambridge, is due to get a new free school, on the eastern side of the city. Not a brick has been laid so far. Somehow, somehow, the West London Free School Trust has been awarded the rights to occupy the new free school about 70 miles from their existing schools. Because I can already tell you the school will be excellent, a family house locally will cost you £450k+, the major employers are a massive biomedical research park, ARM who design computer chips and arguably the best university in the world. The new school will probably offer Latin until 14 and compulsory straw boaters, marketing itself as the academic choice whilst those who don't sign up should probably use the existing schools. Why aren't academies like the West London Free School Trust forced to take on the struggling schools with poor demographics in Wakefield before being allocated £10m+ new buildings in the richest areas of the country?
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