Asked to resign

[Mossiebonbon]

My husband works in a secondary school in pastoral care, whereby each year group is assigned a support member of staff. There are 5 Members of staff with the same role as him, he currently works with Y11.
Next year he has been assigned to work with Y8 , the year our daughter is in. My husband does not feel comfortable working with our daughters year group , potentially having to reprimand her friends for behavior or liaise with parents that he knows personally.

The head teacher has suggested he will have to resign if he doesn’t work with this year group. There is no explanation , to our knowledge, for why the other pastoral members of staff can’t swap to be with Y8. Headteacher just says she wants consistency.

AIBU to think headteacher cannot threaten my husband like this? I appreciate your comments

This 100 times over. He has not been asked to resign at all.

Is this a MAT? Who manages pastoral staff as it’s usually not HT but a deputy head, might get more sense out of them.
To be honest though, if he was a teacher he might have to teach your child. It’s why most people went to different schools to their parent teachers to avoid this.
I think it would be better to have a conversation that if an issue arose then maybe another year manager could step in if your child was involved in something. It might never even come up as an issue as well. Sometimes it’s better to go in with a solution than a problem, especially as there might not even be one.

I’ve been in this situation twice and it’s been ok - largely because my boys were pretty compliant and because I didn’t teach them in my subject (I refused that). Actually, at times it was a real help. Totally get why he doesn’t want to take the year group and I think my slt would probably seek to swap a year, just to avoid any difficulties.

It should not be a big deal for a HT to sort this out. He could take the Y9s while the person supposed to have Y9 starts again with Y8. Yes, consistency is ideal but it can’t be guaranteed, e.g. if a member of staff leaves or moves to a new role. I would suggest he talks to his union and gets advice on how to fix this.

I’m trying to think why the head teacher won’t even consider your dh switching years. Her stated reason is that she wants consistency.

Could it be that the other liaisons have had to work with their children’s year groups and so then op’s dh does too? Or, there is a specific student with a lot of difficulties who will now be in dh’s year group which means the other liaisons have already had to manage that student and now it’s dh’s “turn”—so this request looks like he’s trying to wiggle out of it which means one of the others would have to manage the student twice. ?

Just trying to figure out the possible logic of the head teacher’s position.

She's not threatening him and she can't ask him to resign, but she's making a reasonable request within his contract/job description, so bottom line is his choice is either to do it or resign. This will always be a risk if you're working in your child's school, it's up to him to manage that.

Ideally she'd take his concerns into account, but if that creates disruption for other staff and students, she doesn't need to.

I think this sounds like a head who just dislikes being challenged. There are some like this. I would send a very polite email saying that he was concerned about issues relating to safeguarding and conflicts of interest. The head needs to be aware that he may be disciplining and dealing with sensitive information about students who may also be visiting his home as a guest and friend of his daughter. He will be talking to parents about these issues but also potentially hosting their children. If the head feels this is not an issue then he will of course continue in his role. She is being of course utterly ridiculous.

Can't your dh raise this with the chair of governors? If I was him I'd put my reasons in writing with aren't unreasonable. It's unlikely to be for consistency as he isn't currently pastoral lead for them now in year 7. Once the HT gives their reasons, if it still seem unreasonable I'd go to the chair.

Also, this is not the same as teaching a your child. This is a specifically pastoral role. I think the HT should be able to see that it’s not in anyone’s best interests.

The school has to seek to keep independence, unless there is a compelling reason not to (e.g. short staffed).

Are you sure that there isn’t another issue driving this as Head Teachers (some) will deliberately put up conflict or issues (e.g. changing a teacher’s year group from 1 to 6 for no reason) if they want to clear house.

It’s the HT’s job to manage risk, not staff. It’s also independence as a factor.

I agree it could be a reasonable request but if so, it should come with a reasonable explanation. It would be reasonable to understand what that is so any risk can be managed.

You could always move your daughter.......

I am not sure what you expect really? The pastoral care of a whole school being disrupted (establish relationships altered/tactical planning thrown out of the window) because of one child. Your DH is being precious.

I would suggest the vast majority of kids have very little to do with the Head of Year....unless they are particularly troublesome/troubled background. And surely if something does occur specifically with your DD he just needs to agree a way forward in advance (so her tutor is the main point of call and then if a realy HOY issue it is potentially taken by the Pastoral Head.

As above, unless your DD has real issues I cannot see the problem

So there are 3 choices

1. Your DH fulfils his job - and calls for support if an issue arises
2. You DH resigns - either completely from the school because he does not feel he can do 1)
3. You move your daughter because your DH does not feel he can do 1)

HareRaising it is very unreasonable. Teaching your child's year group is very different to a pastoral role. This person will be dealing with very confidential information. How would you feel if the parent of your child's friend knew the ins and outs of say your child's mental health needs, Send, how they had been racist or bullied someone? How about having to attend a meeting about poor attendance or behaviour with a school friends parent? Perhaps you had been ill or you had been in an abusive relationship. Would you really want this? No.

Yes, this. The Head's lack of flexibility seems odd to me, but then, I have never taught in the English school system, so wouldn't really know what's what.

I was thinking this - that perhaps for whatever reason she doesn’t actually want to accommodate him, because if she really valued him and wanted him to stay I imagine something could be done.

He needs to contact his union.

Please don't say he's not in a union.

Depends how the pastoral system in the school works.
Do the Head of Year change year groups every year or do they stay with their year group until the end of Y11?

If they stay with their year group that would mean 150 children (guessing at year group size) who already have a Head of Year who they know and who knows them, having to swop to accommodate your husband not wanting to be in charge of Y8. So their HOY would have to take Y8 so your husband could take their year group instead. It disrupts 150 children + another HOY.

That hardly seems fair when your husband's year group (Y11) have left and he is the freed up HOY.

However, if they change the HOY every year in the school, which would be unusual and not in any child's best interests, it makes no difference if he takes another year group

But, I bet his contract/job description says at the end, something like 'and carry out any other task reasonably required by the Headteacher'. This is one of those tasks and hr has to do it.

I think the union should be contacted for support/advice. Whilst a teacher for one individual subject might not be able to avoid teaching their child and friends, this is very different.

Ht mentioning resignation is not a good look.

My first thoughts were that it’s quite late in the year to be addressing this. Is it the first time the DH has brought this up? And as per pp, I’m surprised that the Dh isn’t line managed by a deputy head or pastoral lead? It’s possible that the Ht just felt a bit ambushed in the moment and reacted poorly. Ideally, this would have been discussed via line manger before Easter holidays.

As an aside, schools work in so many different ways, so this person may or may not be a teacher, may or may not be a HOY.

It is often the case now in schools that local people work in secondary schools, many as support staff, and as such (now that teachers are much less often in pastoral roles) are often in jobs where they are aware of confidential info about children and families. A good school will make that whole area part of their training and induction of staff so that they are absolutely clear what is expected of them. It's no different to your child having a GP you might know, or a friend's parents being social workers, nurses, doctors or any other profession where they work to care for/support people. In my experience the biggest issue for the support staff HOY is the behaviour of parents who have challenging children and who think they can treat the member of staff with less respect because they are local.

I think he can contact his union for support re his options and how to approach the negotiation, I doubt very much that they'd get involved with the actual decision. IME unions will tell staff the school has done all it can/should where that is the case.

He could raise a grievance if it can't be resolved informally. Ultimately, whilst it may not be ideal, he's not being asked to do anything outside of his contract, so I can't really see the governors overruling the head.

Maybe and it is maybe, it would have to be done very carefully, parents would complain if they knew the parent of a child in the year group was to be HOY......?

I agree 💯 with you

You are quite right. He may not be a HOY. He may simply support the HOY to manage aspects of the work with the year group- in which case it is even less of an issue for him.

I don't think having access to confidential information about families you know is an argument that can be used. He'd effectively be saying he can't be trusted to deal with that professionally.

A lot of schools have a dedicated year 7 head