This headteacher is right - so why suspnd her

[Whysomanyexcuses]

This headteacher has said what many parents have been saying yet suspended .....
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8463765/Sunderland-head-teacher-suspended-saying-staff-sat-home-doing-lockdown.html#comments

We need more head teachers like this - our children have been failed.

YABU - she should say nothing - let it go - ignore the ones who have done nothing to help children
YANBU - she is correct to say it as it is - children have been let down

When you say it is the heads responsibility to ensure the teaching staff do their work it makes them look a bit dim

FFS how dim are you? :o

That is their job.

justasking111
Not sure what any head can do if teachers are working from home.

They could use various online platforms that allow them to monitor what work is posted by staff members. SMHW, google classroom etc.

They could listen and respond to parents that contact them.

They could get the inline managers to monitor what is being put up in the various departments.

They could even get teachers to put in time sheets if they were complete arseholes

there are many ways monitoring could have been done, but this seems to be about several members of staff actually standing up to her.

The Head is responsible for ensuring teachers do their job to the standard expected, to provide support, advice, training as needed.

To challenge poor teaching, poor behaviour, attendance, etc.

To interview and dismiss staff.
The buck lies with them.

Website data tells you how many children are accessing the learning and when. The Head can see what is on the website and the standard and frequency of the work.
If it is poor or not challenging it is their job to act
The Head will review any jobs staff have been allocated at home. Training is online and they may be learning new skills.
The Head/SLT should be in regular contact with their staff and using the time to develop and get Ofsted ready, refine work and get ahead.

I absolutely think that some teachers have been working hard throughout lockdown. Others though have been doing very little and I think this head is right to call them out.

Of course heads are responsible for making sure their staff are working but there is only so much they can do when the unions have been uncooperative and quite happy to facilitate laziness by banning online lessons and even marking.

None of the papers mention the school became inadequate under her watch.

That's because it doesn't fit the narrative does it?

quite happy to facilitate laziness by banning online lessons and even marking.

Neither of those things are true (as ahs been said a million times on MN but then just repeated), but also are not relevant to the issue this headteacher raised which were specifically to do with presenteeism, it seems.

BostonCheers

They only went to the union because she was being a dick.

How unprofessional of her. It is her job to manage and support her staff to fulfill their roles competently. I think her staff were right not to roll over and come into school to work on unnecessary tasks, or tasks that could be done at home. We were told to work from home if possible, traipsing into school when not physically teaching would be ridiculous. I agree with the staff who did not want to place their children into childcare, adding to the numbers of children and therefore the numbers of staff needed. In my part of Scotland the children of teachers were not sent into the school hubs and you worked from home to keep numbers down.
I teach and have been busy. I agree there has been a difference in what home learning has been sent between schools. Up to management and local authorities to direct this.

I'm beginning to wish they'd furloughed school staff.

In many schools furlough was not an option you could take.

I don't think it was in any. Why not? Because teachers were, and are still, required to continue educating as best they could within the constraints that the Government imposed.
Yet according to MN and the DM, they've all been sitting (or "sat") around doing fuck all. If that were the case, then furlough might have been a better option. Might have put a limit on all the bashing anyway.

I think furlough should certainly have been pursued as an option for teachers unable or unwilling to work @CallmeAngelina.

Nope. All or nothing.
You don't think teachers have done anything for the least 3 months? See how much you'd be moaning if we'd all been furloughed then. At least we could have got out in the garden like the rest of the world.

@Thisisworsethananticpated

But as always a minority gets lumped in with others with justifiable reasons- shielding, childcare etc

Not Necessarily

We know some teachers are working their butts off , I know some
But we also know some teachers are chilling at home , I also know some !

Also this childcare is a red herring
We are many of us WFH , I work such long hours I really can’t do homeschool some days
I don’t , work has to prioritise

So yeah I get a bit annoyed when teachers can’t work cos if kids but I have to ! It’s not an excuse for anyone , work is unfortunately a priority over home school

The teacher hasn't stated they cant work due to childcare, just that they cant come into the school building a additional day due to childcare. I'm sure like everyone else they are having to attempt to balance working at home with children. But like a majority of the population, when all childcare is stopped, how are they expected to suddenly find a additional day childcare? Theyve already shown willingness by already coming in 2 days and having to balance childcare.

For the last blooming time, you CANNOT FURLOUGH public sector workers.

Given that she's due to leave in a few weeks, I suspect that she said this on the radio knowing full well that she'd be suspended so that she could spend the last three weeks of term sitting at home doing nothing on full pay.

Teacher bashing post...lets put two options, one option which suggests teachers are bad and a second option which suggests teachers are worse then bad.

YANBU - you only have to look at how many threads that have been here from anxious parents about the quality of teaching or non-teaching their children have received to know that many feel what this head teacher is saying resonates with them.

And on every thread, you get the same people coming along to say - you're teacher-bashing.

She and the CoG gave notice in January with Ofsted due?

Wouldn't you want to go out in a blaze of glory rather than leave a sinking ship?

Is this a way of providing a scapegoat for a reduced Ofsted grade? IDK?

It's not fair to say that this a Teacher Bashing Post. I absolutely don't think that teachers are either "bad" or "worse than bad". The truth is that some (DD's school for example) have been pretty amazing. Secondary, online Zooms most days, full timetable (home PE is interesting!) and additional enrichment tasks, work set and marked, feedback, exams etc. They've done their absolute best and we are very happy and relieved.

BUT there are others that simply haven't done their best, or anywhere near. Another secondary in our city hasn't done anything like as much as ours has, and yet the parents aren't apparently allowed to criticise them, even though they feel their children are being left behind.

This is the truth, and yet we're not allowed to say so? Really?

Of course you are allowed to say so, there would be little on Mumsnet if you were banned from doing so! But you are not, as head of a school, permitted to go on local radio slagging your school and your staff off!

It is neither necessary nor wise to speak your mind ALL the time. She is the mos in charge and by questioning her staff’s competency, she has also called her own abilities into disrepute. It is very poor management.

Her problem seems to be that her staff wouldn’t come into school to do their appraisals / create online work. Both of which could be done at home. When the government were saying: work from home - she was expecting her staff to come to work to do work that can be done at home. She could have asked the appraisals to be done online and she could have checked they were setting work online - why didn’t she?

Spanieleyes - I absolutely agree with you that a Headteacher needs to act professionally when representing their school. Regardless of her views, to make them known in such a public forum was not the right thing to do (whoever may agree with her).

My comment was referring to Whacks493's comments that this particular post is a Teacher Bashing Post where the only options are that teachers are either bad or worse. Some teachers are wonderful, some aren't.