To ask Headteachers and SLTs is it really that bad?

[Paris2023]

Press since the start of term and now more recently has focussed on schools running out of money. Perhaps having to shorten days to cover outgoings. With more recent news of further austerity and I believe limited funding what do current HTs and members of SLTs think?

what is the solution if more money isn’t available? A lot of money is being swallowed by higher energy bills.

Head reachers - clue is in the name.
Let teachers teach and not promote them to a management role. Let professionals manage budgets - not teachers!

It really only became a thing in the late 1980s and 1990s when the "Care in the Community" bandwagon was at its height and many (expensive) special schools were closed and the push to mainstream everyone. In fact children with learning disabilities did not have the right to an education until 1971 in the UK.

The government seems determined to send the UK back to the 1950s where class sizes were huge (my brother started reception in 1959 with 48 pupils and 1 teacher) and only 10-15% of pupils got 5 passes at O-level (GCSE)

I was in a class of 40 in the 80s! Now classes are limited to 30 in KS1 but schools can be made to take in extra after that.

I am really trying to understand your point, @juggleit. Yes, some schools are cutting teaching and learning support staff but is yours? Are you suggesting that the school has run for forty years with no admin support at all? And are you further suggesting that the new headteacher is advertising for a PA as some kind of vanity project at the expense of teaching and learning?

Exactly. Teachers who train to teach -stick with the teaching.
Admin should be fine people good at admin/ditto management.
If teachers chose to dabble in management they have only themselves to blame if they can’t manage.

Sorry - should have added - leave the budgeting to people trained in budgeting…

@JangolinaPitt How do you feel about the fact that it is governors/Trustees that agree and monitor the budget in schools?

There were certainly classes of over 40 in the 1970s when I was a secondary school - there were only 40 seats so you had to get there early

Would simply be better to have professionals overseeing the management and admin of schools - ‘governors’ and ‘trustees’ are an outdated concept. Make them accountable civil service.

Fascinated by how many people can remember how many were in their classes 40 years ago!

Notwithstanding whether it was the 70s, 60s, or 80s when there were classes of 40, those numbers became very rare. And now are creeping up again.This is not a good thing.

I’m part of finance at MAT and we set our budgets with the Heads of each school. Our role is professional support, setting and monitoring budgets, cost different options etc but I couldn’t do my role without the HT. Where we have a budget deficit we work with the Head to identify different options etc. The Head knows the school, children and staff and where their priorities lie. We also have a CEO who is an ex- Head so understands the pressures, priorities etc who has the ultimate say. I don’t see any other way of it working, I wouldn’t like to determine staffing and purchasing priorities as that isn’t my expertise.

I work in a secondary school where up to now we have been able to balance the budget partly because we are in a city centre and have modern buildings and facilities that can be hired out. We still have a round of redundancies a few years ago.

I don't see how any school can get through this year without going into debt.

Different context - my friend is deputy manager at a leisure centre. She says they have only just started to break even again after covid but with heating bills etc they might have to close.

Ah but your Year 2 firm teacher’s ill so someone needs to cover at short notice. No supply teachers, they’re hard to find at the moment and you can’t afford them either. Handy the headteacher can cover eh?

If a school goes into debt this year it’s operating on a deficit. On the MAT side what would happen or are schools not allowed to operate on a deficit?

It won’t be if, it will be when.

The energy costs and pay rises have thrown carefully balanced budgets into chaos

I remember my class of 40 in the 80s because there was quite a fuss about it at the time. It wasn't the normal class size.

In theory a MAT could be judged as not being able to manage its finances and need to be taken over by another MAT. However, if 80-90% of MATS are going to be in deficit not sure what happens then! All MATS are hoping that the Government will recognise the perilous state most schools are in and do something about it, but no-one is listening at the moment. Parents need to be campaigning to their MPs, NHS gets most of the headlines but Education is in dire straits

That would mean paying them. Where does that money come from? Are they going to be truly independent if they're employed by the body (ie, the state) that also pays for the school?

The entire education system has been systematically moved away from being handled by the civil service and into independence through academisation because the government doesn't want to pay for civil servants to provide the services - governance professionals, payroll, HR, admissions, teaching, supply staff, caretakers, cleaners, TAs, etc. The governors are the nearest thing to having an independent voice and broad experience, often at C suite level, that's cost free to both government and the school.

Yes our school with new head have cut TA positions
Of coirse the school has had admin support and very good at it too.

Some parents raised an eyebrow at the advert for a PA to the head.
Budgets are so tight it seemed an extravagance as I has said before - our primary has been amazing with brilliant SLT and a very happy one at that and there wasn’t a PA in sight. I’m not knocking the PA’s, maybe they are worth their weight in gold in a larger school - maybe it is a vanity appointment - jeez who wouldnt want a PA In a senior management roll. I suppose my point is the heads just got on with the job and managed without them.
An earlier poster responded to my audacious comments about PA’s and listed a lengthy list of school admissions processes and schooled me in the PA’s responsibilities; It was bloomin mind boggling!! Just why - ask yourself why is this so fucking complicated!!!!

Like most issues with Government and the civil service and laborious processes - it seems it’s more about the process that the actual end result. Some critical thinking and an overhaul of software solutions to make processes efficient and cheap - ie limited labour cost
Do you know what? Why rock the boat? Why solve the problems; keep that train chugging. If you run out of money in the private sector that’s called bankruptcy. 🍷

OK thanks. I’ve read that twice and I think I’ve managed to glean your point. Is the 🍷 because you’ve started early today?!

The end result is data. Data that demonstrates compliance with legal requirements, with moral ones, with proof that children and adults are not being harmed.

The software solutions are a vast improvement upon having to either store thousands of sheets of paper and not be auditable. Better than then having to manually input everything to then be auditable. Better because the data can be shared easily at the click of 'upload' or 'send encrypted'.

There are many software packages that work together/more or less integrate. Doesn't change the fact that there are people at both ends who need to oversee the processes and act as an alarm - once everything's done by AI, people will soon miss the instinct that leads to a 'hmmm, I'll run this past the DSL'.

The alternative to keeping things going is the sudden closure of a school because they don't have the money to pay staff or keep the lights on. Which means kids have nowhere to go or to learn. It happens. And the children suffer as much as the newly redundant staff do - it's foolish to think that schools don't suffer this. They do.

I'm baffled that a primary school runs with no admin support at all. Absolutely bamboozled. Who answers the phone? Who deals with the dinner money? Who does medical room cover? Who writes/copies letters? (let alone the myriad of other stuff EVERY primary has to deal with).

I bet the admin support was there, just called something else.

Own of my friends bought her class jotters and pencils. I think it’s pretty bad.

It’s that bad. And now we have a billionaire as a PM- I’m sure he’ll be all over reversing the damage the Tories have some to our state schools.

Retired headteacher here.
It’s appalling. My experience over 20 years was that schools are only funded well under Labour. If you care about schools vote the Tories out!