to be a headteacher right now - is there money enough in the world?

[whatcolourisyourwednesday]

I was just thinking how much I'd want to be paid to be a headteacher this week.

Flirted with the idea of a cool million a year. But have concluded there isn't enough money in the world.

Just think:

• all your vulnerable children more vulnerable
• all your chaotic families more chaotic
• all the most opinionated parents more opinionated than usual
• risk of long term harm if you choose any option. No option that is clearly lower risk.
• and entering a massive recession that will make your previous funding decisions seem trivial.

Nope. would rather sweep the streets.

What they get paid is enough. They have difficult decisions to make but so do thousands of other jobs every day.

Have thought this a lot lately and l work in a school....my poor Head Teacher, l wouldn't do that job for any money in the world.

"so do thousands of other jobs every day."

honesly, not like this I don't think. A sudden combination of your world turning upside down with a tenfold increase in demands, problems and scrutinies.

All the professional tools in the toolbox have been taken away from them apart from bloody online learning.... every single one.

I agree with you OP. I think headteachers have a very tough job at the moment.

I've been really impressed with ours though.

No. They don't get paid enough in normal circumstances (especially smaller/medium primaries and smaller secondaries.

honesly, not like this I don't think. A sudden combination of your world turning upside down with a tenfold increase in demands, problems and scrutinies.

How is that different though for other senior managers in health, social work (child protection anyone), children’s residential care etc etc? I agree they’ve got a tough road but so do many professionals, who also hold an incredible amount of risk, and they are well paid for the job they do.

There are many jobs you couldn’t pay me enough to do.

Agree.

Juggling the interests of so many, with very poor guidance, each with unique circumstances of staff situations and combinations, space, resources, family needs, key worker kids, vulnerable families, numbers, and on and on.

Whatever you do to try and make this work, you'll deal with endless criticism for it, from above and below. And if it goes wrong, as this experiment happens, you'll be the one holding the can.

I think more a difference of emphasis than disagreeing with each other Jelly? it's just that schools are what i know.

I was always of the opinion that I wouldn't be prime minister but these days it seems like you don't have to do as much as a head.

I saw the ex chair of governors of our kids' primary today.

No prizes for guessing the first she said to me! At least a chair of governors is less known/visible to all and sundry.

"the first thing"

I work across health, education and social work as well as third sector organisations in child protection and I honestly don’t know any senior managers in those sectors who are having an easy ride of it. I think schools tend to be more visible to the wider population, and have more noticeable impact on daily life for most folk (and a hell of a lot of criticism going by threads on here), but my goodness there are a lot of very tough jobs made much tougher at the moment.

honesly, not like this I don't think. A sudden combination of your world turning upside down with a tenfold increase in demands, problems and scrutinies.

^

Like everyone else who has a job, and who suddenly has to adapt?

Talk about an inflammatory post!

Off the top of my head : child protection social worker who can't access vulnerable children due to restrictions?

Yanbu.

I have never thought head teachers get paid enough. Some of them are on the kind of money that, in the private sector, some people get paid without even being at any sort of management level.

I am in an academy. Not only is my headteacher directly accountable for every single child in the school, their safeguarding, their wellbeing, their academic progress etc. She is also ultimately responsible for all of the staffing (a team of about 70) and any HR issues that may come up, the entire budget of the school, the curriculum being taught across the school, in the end is solely accountable to OFSTED (as in the buck stops with her on any issues) and the reputation of the school, which can even filter down to things like local house prices, is in her hands. And she is (or was) essentially managing a huge building project as well, as we were having loads of work done and being an academy, the LEA doesn't get involved as far as I can see.

And that was before any of the Covid stuff.

No wonder they are struggling to fill headteacher roles these days.

My role OP covers NHS/MH/ social services/probation/prisons/youth offending/education/safeguarding/Police.

I've had very few difficult decisions to make but hundreds of my colleagues have, and some more difficult and with potentially greater conseqences than head teachers.

Not to say that HTs are not having a shit time or that it's a race to the bottom but to single out one area worthy of a million pound salary when SO many other public sector workers are doing the same or more, but they don't even come into the public conciousness, is divisive.

No I would not want to be a head teacher or to do many of the other jobs that people have mentioned like social worker etc (I actually used to be a social worker). I don’t see the op mentioning head teachers specifically as suggesting no other job is hard.

I do thing generally head teachers pay should be higher (excluded some of the academy groups that pay very high salaries to their heads/principles).

I was just thinking how much I'd want to be paid to be a headteacher this week
How dare you think about this without also thinking about how much you'd want to be paid to do every other job

I know a head teacher and he is not very well at the moment with stress. His school can't reopen as they don't have enough staff or space and the abuse he has had off parents is awful. He is fine with people being upset and complaining but he has been sworn at, threatened and his car headlights were smashed the other night- may or may not be connected. He has been talking about either getting signed off or resigning. He also has his own children who can't go to their own school for similar reasons but apparently he doesn't understand how difficult it is for working parents.

That's privelige for you Thinking a not very hard job (relatively) should be paid a million pounds salary. And not even knowing about, or if you do, thinking about, the numerous others with harder jobs.

I include myself and my colleagues in that too. We're well paid public sector workers, it's not like we're cleaning public toilets for minimum wage or working in a mine

I think increasing numbers are being signed off with stress. I know some former colleagues who have decided to retire as soon as they can. Mass exit at Christmas.

"I was just thinking how much I'd want to be paid to be a headteacher this week
How dare you think about this without also thinking about how much you'd want to be paid to do every other job"

ROFL! It's water off a duck's back. I'm on mumsnet not in a team meeting. If I want to think about one thing at a time and post, I shall :)

Well I’m a childminder and have all of those exact same problems just in a smaller scale. But then I don’t have colleagues to mull things over with, a governing body to help me or a pay packet anywhere near theirs. So no, I don’t think Headteachers have it any harder than any other right now. I imagine there is shop managers currently pulling their hair out about organising reopening too for example.

Completely agree OP. Feel desperately sorry for them at the moment. They have the safety of not just every pupil,and staff member in their hands, as they always do, but also the pupils’ families, staff’s own families and children. And in the case of staff, they’re actually not allowed to afford them the same protection as any other worker. No need for proper social distancing, only the ‘bubbles’ and no PPE.

And the schools that are struggling aren’t those that are badly run or with toxic cultures. They’re just those unlucky to have a high proportion of pregnant, or severely asthmatic or immuno-compromised staff.

I would challenge anyone to absorb the amount of too late, too contradictory and downright batshit ‘guidance’ from the DFE and then have to tell a TA living with a spouse who is only clinically vulnerable, not extremely vulnerable: “Sorry, we need you in to provide childcare to 15 five-year olds, and you won’t really be able to talk to colleagues or have a proper break and you need to try to stop the children sharing stuff and we haven’t quite worked out what we do about covering you if you need the loo” without feeling like this ain’t what they signed up for.