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.

The problem with TAs and admin staff being cut is it doesnt actually save that much money to cut one as they dont earn much. You have to massively reduce them to save money. Thats how you go from one TA in every class, to a floating TA, mornings only for a year group.

Think of it this way,
-a schools budget is probably around 90% staff costs;
-the payrises (which are well below inflation and have been for years) are about 5% for teachers, 7-8% for TAs, so say staffing increases an average of 6%

• if the school previously had a budget of £1million a year, (primary school of 300+ kids) staffing was about £900k;
• that unfunded rise costs the school an extra £54k ;
• that's roughly the salary of 2.5 TAs (full time), 1.7 NQTs or 1 SLT, when you include employers tax and employers pension the school also has to pay;

-they don't just need to find this money this year, but in all future years;

• many schools can't drop a teacher due to minimum ratios so inorder to balance they will need to cut TAs;
• because staffing is such a high percentage of costs, savings elsewhere, or fundraising will barelyscratch the surface.

And moving to aMAT won't get the school extra funds, that's not how it works, the budget gets given to the MAT to allocate rather than directly to the school.

Schools are fucked unless those rises are funded.

Expect government and media to spin this as "greedy teachers wanting more" though.

That is exactly what has happened in our school re: TAs.

It’s with a very heavy heart this has happened. Everybody, including SLT and Governors, knows this has had a huge negative impact on our children, particularly our pupils with SEND and those with anxiety and MH issues.

We have also completely cut our mentoring programme in the past year. Our school counsellor is down from 5 to 2 days a week. We used to have non-teaching heads of year, but it is now a poorly paid additional responsibility for a group of very overstretched teachers.

We are clawing in services from a stretched and chaotic childrens services, but it isn’t a pretty picture. I’ve just been told we have lost our one day a week CAMHS practitioner as they’ve closed their schools service and our Safer schools police officer, as they have staffing issues.

This isn’t a recent thing. The services that support schools have been decimated over the past 10 years or so, and schools have been chronically underfunded, yet post lockdown there has never been a higher expectation on schools to support children’s whole well-being and mental health alongside providing a quality education. The shit is just really hitting the fan now.

@Givenuptotally Reception classes are supposedly maxed at 30 but once schools start shutting, your LA can direct you to take a few children each over so they don’t have to fund the lost school. We’ve had a few years of 33,32 and 31

@Relocatiorelocation @DanglingMod @Givenuptotally

The infant class size of 30 is a myth. My first year of teaching early 2000s was a Reception class of 35.

I frequently taught classes of year 1s/year2s of 33/34. County used to direct children to us and even though we were overfull, refusal was futile. You'd get the pupil anyway.

It's been depressing watching the way the Tories have striped schools of money, while having higher expectations of what schools should do. SALT services, all but gone. EP service, all but gone. OT services, all but gone. Vision/deaf impairment services, all but gone. EAL services, all but gone. Gypsy/Roma services, all but gone. Schools are expected to deliver this specialist support with no training and then get slammed when it's not good. And all we think of is doing our best for the child at the end of it all.

These 5% unfunded payrises turned our healthy budget into a deficit one by April 2023.

And yet we still go on, as we still try to do the very best for our pupils with the meagre amount we've got. Our own mental health takes a battering trying to sort it, hence so many leadership positions unfilled.

I can only see things turning around under a Labour government. The Tories have shown what they think of state schools by their actions. But they're alright, as they can afford private schools for their offspring.

I genuinely think that private schools should be scrapped. If those in power had to put their own children into the state system, we'd see marked improvement and increased funding overnight. But that's another conversation...

These 5% unfunded payrises turned our healthy budget into a deficit one by April 2023.

I don't think we should be describing budgets before the unfunded pay rises as 'healthy'. Generally desperate measures have already been taken to get them to balance.

Exactly @noblegiraffe. Our local MAT had just about balanced the books, but that was with scrimping and saving, so no extra frills. Now looking at a deficit in excess of £1m as announced by the CEO

Head’s PA is a bit of a misnomer as a job title. Ours is the head of educational visits, does all the letters and co-ordinates all the communication home, sorts out all SLT diaries and the school calendar and co-ordinates all the meetings in school and all the out of

With let’s say 90% of schools running at a deficit, the priority will be to pay staff of course so they’ll come to school and do their job.

Next steps. Let’s find out who the next Education Secretary will be- then the lobbying begins. I will be writing to my local MP today.

article in The Times:

of schools will run out of cash next year, National Association of Head Teachers says www.thetimes.co.uk/article/12a8b12a-52fa-11ed-b965-3a5f647316f8?shareToken=8c0c32815ced36c7bce2ba3239318d7a School deficit

90% of schools will run out of cash next year, National Association of Head Teachers says

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/12a8b12a-52fa-11ed-b965-3a5f647316f8?shareToken=bfb9274fcd3ce3f753da2b6d7fc51da5

My school is taking on new staff

I myself am perplexed as to why a head shouldn't have a PA .

Last year our large school had 2.5 FTE SENCOs, now one. Also 3 teacher redundancies across two departments. Last year we had 16 TAs ; we now have 8.

Often the PA also runs the entire admissions system, dealing with hundreds of applications, the data transfers, the file transfers, the safeguarding transfers, the keeping the LA updated of every application and its position on a waiting list this week, all transition admin, etc. If you don't have admissions, you don't have a school. So if the PA does that, well, yes the budget is there - because without one, the school closes because there isn't any income.

Our HTs PA is amazing. There is no chance that school/SLT could function without her. I’d say she’s the most well known person across parents too!

To put it in perspective for some people, education is in an even worse state that the NHS and we all know how ramshackle that has become.

I don’t doubt the support a good PA provides in a school - I really don’t.
BUT many people
are talking about having to cut teaching positions in their schools but the PA stays?? It’s madness!!
Our school have operated really well with good ofsted results for decades without a PA.

We have a new head who has stated that this PA position is required. In my industry if we can’t afford staff then we do the tasks ourselves- it’s stressful and unhealthy but this is the reality of the private sector. Many staff have left and have not been replaced and we cover the work.
This isn’t meant to be a head teacher bashing post due to employing PA’s - schools
need more money this is quite evident. But this isnt the bloomin reality is it? It’s quite sickening how far education budgets have fallen. 😒

Then the school has had relatively expensive teaching staff carrying out admin tasks, @juggleit , which is poor value for money and takes them away from their core purpose of learning and teaching.

Well quite. The tasks the PA will be doing will have been being done by others more expensively.

Schools are in a terrible position; there isn’t nearly enough in the press. The NHS gets the headlines (and is also buggered) but education is in equally dire straits. The, what is it, 4 education secretaries this year have done nothing.

We have a new head who has stated that this PA position is required.

And the problem here is that you think you know better than him how to run a school.

so to be clear - if you’re in charge of budgets then the PA stays and the teaching staff get slashed - My point was WHO do you prioritise!?
i wasn’t going into finite details about all the bloomin tasks a pa carries out ffs which is cheaper than a head teacher doing them.
Schools have functioned without a PA in the past and it’s likely they will have to in the future because all the rest of the staff will be picking up the ducking slack . That’s the shit reality. If you have worked in the public sector all your life you have no idea what a grim reality it’s like on the other side. This is what is happening in my field!!

If you have worked in the public sector all your life you have no idea what a grim reality it’s like on the other side.

I haven’t worked in the public sector all my life but I wouldn’t assume to be able to tell your boss which of their staff were necessary or not just because I’ve worked in the private sector.

That would be quite presumptuous.

Maybe if this person had been hired and were sitting around all day on their phone while some crying teacher was given their P45 then you could point to that, but for now all you have are opinions based on your own sense of knowing better than someone actually doing a job.

How are teachers going to pick up the slack?
I'm picking up enough slack thanks.

Schools haven't generally functioned without a head's PA. She (invariably) just used to be called the head's secretary.

www.yourschoollottery.co.uk

Has anyone looked at this? A school in our next village do this and have had good uptake and they basically pocket their share - all they did was Initially advertise it on Facebook and the school website and then the this organisation do the rest.