Under-the-radar efforts by St Mary Redcliffe Secondary boss, Bristol’s worst dressed man, Del “Loadsamoney” Planter and a hapless gang of allegedly Christian governors to hand one of the two remaining maintained schools in Bristol over to a dodgy private national Multi Academy Trust chain take an interesting turn.

On Sunday, the school’s parent / friends group enthusiastically wrote to parents announcing

“The Friends of SMRT had two Staff Guest Speakers in their last committee meeting who shared their opinions on [the academisation] matter. Please read our Meeting Minutes from the January 20th, 2026 meeting attached to see what they said.”

The two speakers were the NEU representatives from the school and they were not keen on the plan. Pointing out, among other things:

Staff concerns are financially related with funding not being MORE but being centralised to save money. If 5% of the school budget goes on the admin hub then 8-10 members of staff will lose their jobs.

And the central team at Lighthouse [academy chain] will be paid significantly more than the existing Senior Leadership Team at SMRT and there will be another level of management meaning our uniqueness could be eroded as well as the autonomy of staff.

They also explained:

The NEU has about 115 members within the staff body which equates to about half the teaching and support staff. Before Christmas there was an indicative strike ballot of the members over the proposed changes to staff terms and conditions following Academisation. The ballot ran from the 7th – 19th December and the 89% turnout voted 92% in favour of taking industrial action should no further consultation take place.

So is it any surprise a further email landed for parents today announcing:

Dear Members,

I write to notify you that the Minutes of the Friends of SMRT meeting held on 20th January, 2026 have been withdrawn and treated as void. Please await the completed and updated minutes for this meeting to be re-sent to you.
Kind regards

What’s going on? Are parents not allowed to hear what trade unions think about Del’s amazing plan to rip off his staff?

Other concerns around Multi Academy Trusts MATS include:

• MATs are less accountable to parents and the community
• Pupils in MATS are more likely to be taught by an unqualified teacher (unqalified teachers are cheap!)
• Academies lose automatic support from the council. SEND, school improvement and speech and language therapy services could all be lost, with no guarantee a MAT could offer the same support
• Teacher pay is worse in academies
• But MAT CEO pay is soaring (workers get less, bosses get more!)
• Academies undermine staff terms and conditions (pensions, holidays, benefits for workers, especially the lowest paid, are all threatened)
  

Just last week the The Arthur Terry Learning Partnership, a 24 school MAT, was exposed ‘top slicing’ Pupil Premium and EHCP money meant for vulnerable and disabled children and using it pay the six-figure salaries of the partnership’s bosses.

How Christian. Taking from the vulnerable to give to the wealthy. What’s not to like?

Those minutes in full:

Academy Consultation
Two guests were invited to the meeting Mr Max White and Ms Daisy Carter – both are
teachers within the school as well as NEU representatives. The NEU has about 115 members within the staff body which equates to about half the teaching and support staff.

Before Christmas there was an indicative strike ballot of the members over the proposed changes to staff terms and conditions following Academisation. The ballot ran from the 7th – 19th December and the 89% turnout voted 92% in favour of taking industrial action should no further consultation take place.

The Governors launched the consultation process at the end of November and staff believe they have not had sufficient opportunity to raise their concerns – D said they were in attendance to find out if parents and carers felt the same.

SB explained: The process started in December and will continue until 5th March (this an extended 10 week timeline to give time for greater consultation). Detailed papers are on the website and there was an in person meeting held last week at school to which only 5 parents attended.

There has also been drop in sessions for staff to get more quantitative data from staff. They have received a reasonable amount of feedback so far and have responded to questions posed.

The Christian ethos is crucial to the decision regarding whether or not to join a multi-academy trust but there is always a risk so they have looked at other schools experience and taken advice from the Diocese etc. The Governors believe that Lighthouse is the only Trust that could guarantee that the ethos doesn’t change. Stephen encouraged parents to look at the website to find out more about them.

The next stage is to consult with students, continue to ask staff and more information and
more feedback is needed. Not many parents attended the last in person meeting so all those
who were there encouraged people to attend the online session to be held on 3rd February.
This meeting will be recorded so anyone not able to attend can listen back. As per the in
person meeting there will be a presentation from Lighthouse and an opportunity to ask
questions. Parents need to voice ways they would like to engage with the process and present their views.

The in person meeting didn’t flag the concerns from the staff and attendees said they would
be interested to hear feedback from staff at other schools.

The key message from the Governors was that NOTHING has been agreed as yet and it is a two way decision, Lighthouse may choose not to engage with SMRT.

An attendee raised the point that it was not clear what the advantages and disadvantages
were of being part of any multi-academy trust. The feedback came back that the Trust is
already supporting lots of organisations providing education so they have experience but we
are SMRT are already doing this so the Governors need to ask the same question.

There is also a financial element as the Trust has an admin hub which offers economies of scale which isn’t the case with local authority. The Trust enables opportunities to meet with the LEA more frequently.

A question was raised: why is the decision being taken now, what caused the change?
Government policy has already told us that the education environment will change even
though the “how” has not yet been announced. So we are not looking at the status quo vs a
multi-academy option but rather local authority versus multi-academy trust.

It was commented that it would be good to have Bristol City Council present their option as many parents have mentioned there is no point in commenting as the decision is inevitable.

The Governors have not made the decision quickly but have been testing the water with small partnerships to see how it works in practice and the result has been positive so we need to decide if we take that a step further. These partnerships started in 2024 with staff
exchanges and it has proven successful in terms of HR, finance and even the recent OFSTED review.

D explained that many of the staff concerns are financially related with funding not being
MORE but being centralised to save money and if 5% of the school budget goes on the admin hub then 8-10 members of staff will lose their jobs. And the central team at Lighthouse will be paid significantly more than the existing SLT at SMRT and there will be another level of management meaning our uniqueness could be eroded as well as the autonomy of staff.

The Government have said they are no longer forcing schools to become academies but there are not many left and soon parents/pupils and teachers will lose the choice.

A question was asked about the timelines: once the Governors have made a decision to go
either way consent has to be given from the diocese and then the head of the LEA so the
earliest anything would happen would be the Autumn.

Parent Governors are there to hear and give voices to the parents so what can they do to
encourage feedback? The option for a survey was raised as it can be easily accessed,
translated into different languages and provide quantitative data. This seems a good
approach for both parents/carers and staff.

There was a need to point out that Lighthouse has several primary CofE schools in its Trust
and that SMRT is really strong educationally so we have a lot to offer but there is a difference between primary and secondary establishments.

S was keen to explain that email responses to the consultation have all been on very
similar themes to those discussed this evening. The consultation process is still open and
staff, parents/carers and students will be asked for their feedback before a decision is taken
and a recommendation is made to the Diocese, the Lighthouse Trustees, the regional Director of Education and the DofE.

There was a concern raised as to how students would be “asked” as many of them won’t
understand what an Academy Trust is. The response was that Lighthouse’s experience in
other schools and the teaching staff at SMRT will ensure that its age appropriate.

Finally attendees asked if when the decision is announced, it could be stated how a balanced view of the decision will be taken ie what criteria were used and how they weighed up the decision. Presentation vs consultation transparency of views and how the local authority side would have weighed against it.