To think school heads should be contactable in school holidays

[EloiseMinch]

A secondary head is likely to be on 70k+ and a primary head of 50k+. Those are high salaries for positions of senior management responsibility. AIBU to think they shouldn't just cut off completely in the school holidays?

Maybe some heads really are working in the holidays but I know the head at DC's school definitely doesn't. She is, for example, completely uncontactable from the end of one term to the start of the next.

And the matter was being dealt with, by the Deputy Head. But that's not good enough apparently! ( as he couldn't agree to the PTA paying for an extra TA!)

YABU and a goady fucker

£70k for having ultimate buck stops here responsibility for hundreds of pupils and staff is not that much money. They do not have 13 weeks “holiday” they have 13 weeks of non term time but they work for the majority of that. They’re just not at the beck and call of parents.

If an issue is so desperately urgent that it must be dealt with immediately, why on earth did you leave it until the school holidays?

Ds head may have call to email me over the summer as we are waiting on changes to EHCP which If the council pull their finger out should happen next month.

Ds class teacher has said he will email me some information at some point over summer

However I in no way expect that from any of them and would only make any contact with them myself if it was something urgent which really couldn’t wait!

You are naive and ridiculous OP, you're not reading very good posts by teaching staff and they are not put on Gods good earth for you

You need to get your head from your arse and go and give your child a nice summer

I have read the thread, thanks Maisy. I asked the question again because I can't quite believe this isn't just a goady wind-up.

Teacher here, been lurking but I’ll bite - I won’t say YABU as that has been quite thoroughly covered by other posters.

A) Lovely idea but totally and utterly unrealistic as pointed out by others.

B) They probably will be, but the school will not inform you of that.

C) If they’re all in one class surely your son can just be moved to the other? Write a letter requesting this or ring on the inset day in September.

I have some mild sympathy as the head teacher sounds largely absent and that must be frustrating, but at the same time annual leave is annual leave and I don’t think you should expect them to interrupt that or be contactable. I’ve seen the hours that good heads put in, and there’s a reason they struggle to recruit headteachers nowadays, it’s a tough gig despite the good salary. IMO they deserve every minute of the holiday just as teachers do.

I do a lot of work with schools and think that it is not unreasonable for one member of SMT to be contactable during school holidays. Life doesn't stop when school closes. Not holiday jealousy at all but when most of us take holiday we arrange cover. Many schools do this already but others just completely shut down.

Heads are usually on different contracts and don’t get same holiday entitlement. It’s one of the reasons it is difficult to recruit heads.
I know many, many heads at both primary and secondary stages and not one is on holiday for six weeks during the summer.
Some would risk their jobs if they didn’t appear on results day.
Most have vast amounts of administration to catch up with, meetings to plan the year ahead, meetings with MAT or LA.
I think many would be lucky to get three weeks and even then they’d have their laptops with them. Certainly in some MAT groups a poor Ofsted report or poor public exam results will result in almost immediate termination of the heads employment.
Many premises have building work over the summer and it is usually the head who project manages that and keeps it on track for completion before term starts.
Heads are very contactable - just not by parents (or their own families).

Makemineboozefree
Absolutely goady.
Towards the end of the last thread I predicted flounce, massive drip feed or have the thread pulled for being outing.

A PP said that almost all OP's threads are about how horrendous this school is.

I've already asked OP what her plans are now the consensus on 2 threads is they are monumentally unreasonable individual.

If you contact the school via the main email I guarantee the HT will be reading them at some point during the holidays. They may choose not to answer you though.

If they’re all in one class surely your son can just be moved to the other?

Salsa, as the OP's son is going into Y2, it is possible that he can't move into the other class if it already has 30 children in it. It wouldn't be reasonable to force another child to swap just because OP wants her child moved,.

There is a huge shortage in head teachers and the shortage is set to get worse. In part because 50k is a tiny salary for the training/experience required to be a head teacher or for the responsibility and most professionals can earn more elsewhere, in less demanding jobs. It may seem a lot of money to some but friends' children got that as starting salaries in city jobs in their early 20s.

If you don't like your son's head teacher maybe you'll finally succeed in your vendetta and she'll quit, then like a number of schools, there will likely be no replacement for several years or the post will be merged with another school and there'll be even less time for the running of your son's.

Why anyone would be a head teacher and have to deal with parents like yo beats me and I imagine you're not even the worst of the bunch.

news.schoolrecruiter.co.uk/blog/englands-headteacher-shortage-a-recruitment-crisis/

I don’t think they should need to be available but I am in a position where an appointment I have been waiting for several months for regarding my child’s development has just been sent to me, it’s in school holidays and I’ve been sent a form I am supposed to get the school to complete before the appointment and obviously I have no way of doing that. Like I said I don’t expect them to be contactable but I am a tad concerned not being able to have this form completed might cause issues at the appointment we’ve waited months for. Hey ho.

I think the OP's issues with reading comprehension and logic make it CRYSTAL CLEAR why she couldn't consider becoming a HT herself. I suspect your HT has threatened the admin team with slow, agonising death if they let you have her email address.Spend the holidays teaching your irritating child some social skills.

Aside from all the other reasons surely PTA funds are there to benefit the whole school not just your child's class? Besides which are you PTA chair or even an active member - how do you get to decide how they spend that money?

Why on earth have you left these issues until the holidays to want to go mail the Head?

And of course there is a complaints procedure - it will be on their website.

It is unmonitored in the school holidays. Rubbish

Bakedbeans,

Honestly, send that into school - to your child' last teacher, the head, the Senco, the front office, whoever you have the e-mail for. Someone will get that done for you - it's the kind of thing pretty much every teacher I have ever worked with would do unless they were physically abroad without e-mail contact.

derxa, I agree - there is a difference between 'unmonitored' and 'monitored but carefully filtered'!

DH is a Secondary deputy head, paid approx £70k for working 195 days a year.

During his holidays for 9 days each year he will lead a Ski Trip, which he is not paid for. He could go with his friends after all who in their right mind wants to go to Austria with a bunch of teenagers in a coach but he does it for them.

During the Summer holidays he will be working 2 weeks at least on site, sorting out the A level and GCSE results, enrolling them in the 6th Form, helping those who need to go through clearing, generally being there on site to help. Again, unpaid.

He will go to your childrens shows and sports days and cheer them on, help them achieve their full potential, but as he can't have holidays or odd days off in term time, he is very unlikely to be able to attend our children's special days. Last week I ended up videoing part of our DD leavers service as there was no way he could come.

But now in addition to the crazy hours teachers are expected to work, now people want them to be contactable during their unpaid days off.

If you think teachers get too much holiday, pay them for the number of days you expect them to work (at least 1 more months pay a year), pay them overtime for all the hours work they do at the weekend, and before 8am or after 6 pm and let them have time off during the term time so they can go on cheap holidays too.

Teaching is a hard job, it has a right rate of burnout and people leaving the profession, if it was such an easy well paid job with great perks everyone would want to do it but so many teachers are leaving the profession each year.

I agree can't.
We have a team of skeleton admin and site staff in during the holidays (who do their own thing and also keep the place open so we can get in).
Emergency information would get to the relevant person, but anything else waits.

This is an issue that should have been raised by a formal complaint a long time before the end of the summer term. A complaints procedure that should have been looked up ages beforehand, or at least long before the deputy head was involved.

Lack of planning and foresight does not justify interrupting someone's holiday, if the HT is on holiday that is. Personal email addresses are just that, not work email addresses.

In any case everyone should have a holiday, regardless of salary, and not just for their good health. Years ago I remember auditors telling me that someone who takes no holidays is sometimes someone who has something to hide.

Thanks cantkeepaway I’ll give that a try.

I know for a fact our head has spoken parents on weekends etc about urgent issues. Also there has been a sad case in the news involving a child being murdered and her head and teacher spoke at her funeral and issued a statement so they are clearly contactable about serious matters.

cant Fair point, I teach secondary and am used to class moves being quite easy to facilitate!

Haven't read the full thread so don't know what has been said, but wanted to have my say!

My MIL died on Boxing Day last year and her funeral was arranged for the second day of the new term of DS3 and DS4s primary in January. Because of an 8ish hour journey and the timing of the funeral we had to travel on one day, hold the funeral on the following day and return on day 3, therefore we needed the first 3 days of term off. (Secondary had gone back a day earlier so there were staff to contact to take DS1 and DS2 out of school)

We had no way of contacting sons primary other than the usual phone number and the office email address. No emergency contact at all, either a teacher or some sort of an emergency email address.

I tried ringing to leave a message but the out of hours system informs you the school is closed and to ring back when term starts, no option to leave a message (same went for the secondary system).

About a week before the funeral I emailed the office with the details so the school had them so I didn't have to repeat them, also said I would ring on the inset day\first day children returned to talk to someone to have the absence authorised (or not!). No answer on the inset day, no reply to email either so had to wait until school opened to the pupils to ring back. It being day one of new term office was busy before school so never got an answer on phone, thankfully our (very nice) head teacher rang my mobile while we were travelling and confirmed they had the email (I didn't know if anyone had seen it) and authorised the full three days absence. He had been aware MIL was dying and knew there could have been an emergency call from family to say "Come now!" and had said to leave a message on the answer system if it happened overnight, but you can only do that during term time, not in holidays!

At a very stressful time it would have been really useful for us to of had an emergency email account to contact or mobile number to leave messages on. Even if they are only checked once a day, maybe senior staff and office staff could take turns monitoring it so it doesn't fall to one person, then we could of had a quick email back just confirming school knew of the situation and it was alright to remove the boys for the funeral. Instead, we were concerned that school would think 3 days was unnecessary and we could not discuss the absence with them until after we had started our journey. The absence wasn't authorised until after we had left, so if it wasn't authorised it was too late to do anything about it!

I agree there should be some way of contacting school (not necessarily the HT though) during holidays in the case of genuine emergencies. Unfortunately there will always be parents who would misuse it, telling about little Johnnies' snotty nose at the beginning of the six weeks holidays just in case he doesn't make it in for the first day of the September term.

Most things can wait until the school reopens, school staff are human too so they need a break from work (and all the petty niggles they have to sort out).

BakedBeans,

If you title your e-mail 'Urgent - Information needed for medical appointment by X date' or whatever, then it should be clear even to an admin or site team member of staff screening the e-mails that something needs to be done during the holiday, and it will be forwarded on.