The education system is flawed in so many ways…and yet the DfE still want their pound of flesh. Unfortunately, people aren’t willing to do it any more or go the extra mile for minimum wage and minimal appreciation (I remember the times when staff would volunteer on trips, parents evenings, induction evenings, fundraising events etc. but NOT any more). Recruitment at the moment has never been so difficult.
School staff, whether support, teachers or leaders are going above and beyond daily with huge responsibility on their shoulders that one tiny wrong move can cost them/the school everything they have worked hard to achieve. Who wants to work in this environment for pittance? The local living wage and minimum wage has risen so much so that basic jobs that require no qualification and little experience are now on the same level as those that do.
Schools are struggling and have been for a while now, to recruit leadership roles because of the tiny salary difference due to the increase in teacher salaries and not in leadership salaries - would you want that responsibility on your shoulders when OFSTED call for little more pay than your fellow teacher with no accountability to OFSTED? I would also add that not all SLT are as bad as they are made out to be, at the end of the day they have targets that the school needs to meet, courtesy of the DfE.
And let’s not forget to mention the huge increase in SEN children that require one-to-one support and absolutely no funding due to the time it takes to get EHCP/ SEN diagnosis that school budgets can’t fund alone, and even then the funding doesn’t even cover the cost of one TA.
Schools have suffered during covid and children are clearly way behind and the government catch up funding doesn't even touch the surface, yet schools have to be accountable for the way the pittance of funding is spent; more pressure for SLT.
There’s no money for the buildings that were built in the 50’s and 60’s where the toilets are dilapidated, facias rotten and security systems inadequate, there’s no money to improve technology such as whiteboards that don’t work any more and are 20+ years old.
As someone else said, working in a school is “full on” and that is so true, so much so that staff don’t even benefit from one weeks’ holiday and most are ill during that time from the stress of the weeks before; and you may laugh at that if you don’t work in this environment but I kid you not!
And to top it all off, the DfE want all schools to be part of an academy - the worst thing that ever happened in the history of Education and the treatment of school staff.
This is the sad reality of the education sector and it doesn’t appear to be getting better any time soon.