Beyond fucking angry about our primary school

Based on what? That’s just not true.

This exact thing happens at a huge no of schools and is largely responsible for the mass exodus of staff. It is almost never the ‘old guard’ ie the experienced teachers who are to blame.

I can save you the time its those damn lazy teachers out for revenge as they were made to work.

Of course non of the supporters of the SLT mentions the lack of evidence, support plans, competency plans and further formal action

As a teacher I definitely agree with pp who say how common it is. It’s definitely the reason I left my last role.
I haven’t rtft yet but I’d be interested to find out why people think YABU! 🤔

LuluBlakey1
Well the LA say there was 'historic bullying'. Ofsted mention it too. Staff might not like that but if it has come to the attention of the LA and Ofsted, something has gone on. Children are now telling Ofsted that it has improved so surely that's good?

I wonder where they got that from?
No record of it before, now there is, Could it be that the Head and governors are covering their arses?

Well the LA say there was 'historic bullying'. Ofsted mention it too. Staff might not like that but if it has come to the attention of the LA and Ofsted, something has gone on. Children are now telling Ofsted that it has improved so surely that's good?

I have only ever seen one Ofsted report that I felt was unjust as an outcome. If the Headteacher felt there was an issue with the team she should have rang HMI at the end of Day 1 when she listened to their discussion- the concerns will have been flagged up then- and told HMI she felt the outcome was likely to be inaccurate and why. An HMI would have intervened at that point and may well have turned up on Day 2 to take part in the process. If she didn't then that's a sign of her weakness as a Head. With the report I described as unjust, the Head did not ring HMI to express her concerns at the end of Day 1 and now admits she should have. She did not even express her concerns to the lead inspector about what they were discussing.

This does not sound like an awful school to me. It was graded as RI with clear areas for improvement that are quite straightforward in terms of actions. The difficult one will be changing the culture amongst staff and governors-all of whom lead this school- your posts illustrate that clearly.

I have a friend experiencing something similar but there seems to be no way to escalate without repercussions. Any advice?

New headteachers will never win all staff over, even in a generally good, happy school with a positive culture. Many people find change difficult. Some, especially this who don't see the necessity for it or don't want change, will find it difficult and may not budge- which increases their unhappiness.

As I said a good Head will win some staff over quickly, some gradually and some not at all. Some will leave quickly and others who remain unhappy will have to be supported to work with change or supported to leave- there are various ways of doing both.

It is clear from looking at Ofsted that this school has been on a slow, downward journey for a number of years. The most recent Ofsted identifies middle and senior leadership issues and significant Literacy and planning concerns and mentions bullying of pupils as a previous concern. The school is not in a category and seems like it could be improved quite quickly. What is emerging is a 'culture' issue. Time will tell whether the SLT are the right people to lead. There will be new staff, obviously and that can be a good thing in building a more positive culture. The remaining staff need to try to contribute positively- I'm sure most are.

It's not a disaster, yet.

These areas are being developed and it doesn’t help that Ofsted continually move the goal posts either. The real weakness is not the teaching staff but those leading. As a PP said, a great leader carries the team with them to achieve their vision. There is no way that 30 people of different job roles including midday supervisors as well as governors left in a short period of time because they were lazy and lacked vision.

The children are miserable and the staff are miserable. There is one common denominator.

Oh hi Chloe.

Inspectors said the curriculum across subjects was at different stages of development, adding that some planning lacked “precision and detail”. Highlighting reading in particular, the report explains that while some pupils can read fluently, it said the weakest readers are not always given the help that they need.
It said: “The books they read are not matched well to the sounds they are learning. As a result, they struggle to decode the words in the books

yeah sounds like it was doing great before eh? The new head is obviously culling those teachers that aren’t performing - and they’re pissed off!

Dr Hodge explained that as a result of the review a number of steps to improve provision at the school had been taken.
These included the appointment of a new external co-headteacher, Chloe Coles, who they said had “immediately” started to address some of the weaknesses.

Yes. She shouldn't be in charge of the school. Best thing I done is remove my son

Worked at a school like this. . . For less than a year. Horrendous. I actually can't really talk about it much even now, 4 years later because I feel so scarred by it.

I left, supplied for a bit, then covid hit, I had kids, so haven't been back to teaching. However, if I do go back, I'd definitely be wanting to supply there long term and getting a true feel for the place first. A one day interview is not enough to see how toxic a place really is. But then again, maybe I'll leave teaching altogether 😒I wonder who was brave enough to talk to a newspaper. It would have been a similar story to the school I was at, but they were very careful to cover their tracks, so I was scared to raise it. Awful. Getting flashbacks. Leaving this thread!

My kid was in a school like this. We moved them. Honestly it wasn't til we moved we realised how traumatised we all were by the place.

To my knowledge. there was no historical bullying - im sure the prevouse SLT might have something to say about this - I'd be raging to have such spurious claims put out there.

It was just such a happy school - not perfect but did its best.
Interestingly the Governors minutes used to be on the website but were taken down not long after the Ofsted report.
The chair of Gov wrote a letter after the result from Ofsted outlining that ‘They were aware of areas needing improvement.…etc.. Where was this mentioned
In the minutes? It wasn't, because I read every single one and, nothing!
Ofsteds reputation is completely on the line at the moment. Most sensible people put the result down to bad luck on the day!

@LuluBlakey1 are you the head in question? It's a school, not the military fgs! Change should not come at the expense of peoples’s mental health!! Some of the Staff have been traumatised by their experiences - people in power have no idea how intimidating they can be.

@cansu i agree with everything you said
@Mutters123 agree with you also
@Cookiecrisps 💐 sorry you had an awful experience

@EllieDen you have hit the nail on head! The board of Govenors are 100% culpable. In matters such as described in the article - it demonstrates, that this stucture of voluntary Govenance may fail due to its intrinsic nature of being made up of school parents who do not wish to whistle blow! It seems, everyone has been a bystander

Thank-you for all other posters adding their insights and experiences- it seems we still have huge mountain to climb within our school management.

I hope all those affected will collaborate and take this forward towards a thorough investigation.

We were a happy school. Outstanding and dedicated teachers have been lost to other schools and some never to return to the classroom 😔. You have not been forgotten 🌺

Personally, I would deregister my children from that school.

As an ex primary teacher this does not surprise me one bit.

I’ve seen it happen in most schools I’ve worked in. Schools can be truly toxic places.

This happened in the school I worked at as an HLTA. After 20 happy years I just had to leave, as had 75% of the staff by the end of the new Head’s first year.

That number of teachers leaving is a clear message. What's even more telling is that TAs and admin staff have left too. These are the people whose jobs are poorly paid - they often live in the community and work there because it's convenient. The school must be awful for people to give up a convenient job with school hours.

By the way, I've been a teacher for 25 years and I can count on one hand the number of lazy and coasting teachers I've met. Even the poor teachers I've come across have been hard-working and had good intentions, and the burnt out ones were trying their best.

We’ve had similar about DS high school… head teacher is toxic and from what I’ve heard half the staff hate her… the school has been in the local news several times the last week over other stuff so hopefully she gets pushed out.

There is little doubt that the Board of Governors must have been aware of a serious problem that resulted in 22 staff leaving in such a short space of time. It would be interesting to have an understanding of which governors participated in exit interviews, to have sight of these records in any investigations/actions that were undertaken to address the problems as a result of their findings. If nothing was done and they buried their heads in the sand or turned a blind eye, then the governors are equally culpable in promoting and allowing this toxic culture to remain unchallenged and need to instantly resign for dereliction of duty. How can one with any credibility act in the best interest of promoting the health and safety of children whilst being a silent and colluding in the abuse of staff caring and teaching these children?
What hope or belief could anyone reasonably hold that this kind of leadership could have a child’s best interest to the forefront if such challenges arose. An appalling situation to be allowed to continue- where is the accountability? Neither do I believe that this is a historic problem, it seems to be that the resignation of 22 staff within a short period of time should simplify the identification of the root causes.

@Puzzledandpissedoff

What % of staff the 30 are (in any case the school must be huge?!!)

A quick google of the school shows the PAN as being 420 with current numbers being at 386 pupils.

30 members of staff is excessive given that the school won't have 30 teachers at any point in time as it would be classes of 14 pupils, so its a high number of teachers, support staff and associate staff that have left since the head started.

Unless you are still going to push the narrative that its the staff and not the head.