School budget cuts- is this normal?

[SummerDuck]

So a letter has come out from DS’s school titled “Plans for the next academic year”. Basically due to teacher pay rises, inflation and government funding freeze, there will need to be changes in how the school operates.

The school are proposing 20 teacher redundancies with the drama and French departments closing. There will be a “reset” of catering provision with reduced staffing and a heat from frozen offer.

School trips are being “paused” while most office staff will go, with teachers picking up some of these tasks. Is this the norm bod for state schools?

Yes I'm afraid so.

The highest you can go on the main physical (mp6) is 38k.

Any higher and schools seem to be trying to oust and replace with nuts. Local governor openly mentioned this!

74,100 for the responsibilities of a Head Teacher is an absolute disgrace.

I was surprised at that, it's low. My sibling is a deputy head of a big London secondary (there are a few deputies) & is on about 90k.

The pay for Heads is based on the size of the school, so smaller primaries will be lower paid, which sort of makes some sense, but I don't think a school twice as large is actually twice as much work. There are so many other variables.

This- absolutely this. It’s not about the pay per se but what you have to do or put up with for the pay. The pay is dreadful compared to the responsibility and what you are expected to do.

I have recently left the NHS after 20 years and was so tired of people telling me and colleagues that increased pay doesn’t increase retention. It absolutely does.

It pays for the physio you need as a result of working conditions, it pays for a holiday each year to refresh you, it means you don’t have to work a second job so you are not exhausted. It pays for good quality food so you have the energy to work.

Reduce the workload or increase the pay. That is what will increase recruitment and retention. Public sector staff are so tired of being told that pay doesn’t matter whilst Tories give their mates billions of public sector money.

This has been happening slowly for years.

MFL going from 3 language options to 2 to 1 as teachers aren't replaced when they leave.

Drama, Music, Art and Technology no longer being offered at A Level or GCSE to save money.

Experienced teachers who leave being replaced with NQTs.

Core subjects being taught by non specialists.

School trips and other enrichment activities being cut.

This has all been going on since I started teaching just over a decade ago. None of it's new, but because it's happened so gradually over the years, it's become normalised and therefore unnoticed by many.

This all began with Academies. Removing schools from centralised LA control was sold as a wonderful opportunity for schools to manage their own budgets and so on. But the reality is, having to sub contract your own services as an individual school costs a huge amount more than it does to sub contract as a Local Authority on behalf of several schools. It also costs a hell of a lot more money to have bloated senior leadership teams and business managers and so on - things that were never necessary under LA control - and once private companies and 'charities' started setting up Academy chains and realised they could take a very nice slice of the pie to line their own pockets, the mass bleeding of public money from schools into the hands of investors and charlatans began. Treating schools as nothing but businesses was the death knell of education in this country.

It makes me so angry what has been done to our schools by greedy politicians and their cronies. It's truly criminal.

Teacher strikes aren't just about pay. They're a protest against the wholesale pillaging of schools for profit, to which so many people in this country seem to be utterly blind. The government have done to schools exactly what they've done to the NHS. It's about time we stood up and did something about it.

The pay for Heads is based on the size of the school, so smaller primaries will be lower paid, which sort of makes some sense, but I don't think a school twice as large is actually twice as much work. There are so many other variables.+

I agree with that because regardless of school size there are certain things you need & workload as you say won't necessarily be smaller.

I don't vote Labour or Tory, but 13 yrs ago we didn't have the mental health or the migration crisis we have now.

Weather we like to admit it or not, these 2 things are hugely expensive to fund and obviously cuts have had to be made (Schools/NHS/blooming potholes etc..)

I think whoever is/will be in power is only going to have to make further cuts in order to fund these issues as they are not going away time soon.

You've also got to take into account that in smaller schools, headteachers often have to do subject leader roles and teach part of the week too.
Actual classroom teachers in smaller schools often have bigger workloads due to the subject leadership issue as well.

I have to say that for me pay was never the issue. It was workload. No amount of extra money would have made staying up until 1am every night and working all weekend worth it for me.

I moved to independent school teaching primarily for the better work life balance. Independent schools have a much reduced teaching timetable and smaller class sizes, which makes the amount of work you take home much more manageable, and the longer holidays mean you get proper breaks rather than just time to clear the decks before the next term begins.

Obviously it's lovely that I'm paid twice as much in the independent sector as I'd be in state. But the money has never been my primary motivation in moving across - it's the desire to have a life outside of work. Being able to go to the cinema or theatre or out for dinner/drinks with friends after work rather than straight home to finish my marking, and not having to think about work at all between Friday night and Monday morning, are luxuries worth their weight in gold to me after the hours I used to work in state.

Teacher's pay is well above average in most parts of the country and the benefits of the holidays and pension make it a financially attractive profession for many. However, when you add up the hours you do in state, many teachers are actually working for less than minimum wage. That is the madness of the workload in so many schools. It's unsustainable. Give schools more money to hire more teachers, reduce class sizes and lighten timetables, so that the working day can finish at a reasonable time and weekends can be free of marking and planning, and I think a lot of teachers would be very happy with that over a pay rise, to be honest.

Class size is a massive factor for me.

30 kids is a lot of kids, and is so much more challenging in so many ways. Far more micromanaging, the marking is ridiculous, and you've just too many needs to try and meet at once.
Not to mention the likelihood of children falling out and issues needing sorting being much higher.
It's too much mental load.

Even paying one salary for someone on 25k costs 40k per year. Fundraising is not going to bring in enough to pay for staff salaries

Our head is now going to be head of another school too so part of the week in each school, teachers leaving are not being replaced and the kitchen staff are just serving meals next year that are bought in ready made not cooking on site.
The secondary we feed into an academy specialising in dance and drama are not offering either subject next year as they can't get the staff.

Heads of bigger schools have more responsibility but the workload may not be any more. They may have more support staff or have a non teaching deputy head to help

@Dotandtime
Do your teachers do the cooking and washing up as well?

I think it's a retention crisis not a recruitment crisis. A huge number drop out after a year or 2 post graduation. What proportion continue to 65?

Sorry, I don't understand? I quite often wash up, as business manager and TAs help in the kitchen to cover absence, but I don't think that's what you're asking?

I think it's a retention crisis not a recruitment crisis.

The figures don't agree with you at secondary.

I can understand the need to make some cuts- I have no issue in principle with running catering more efficiently or asking teachers to carry out some office tasks. However, increasing class sizes and axing subjects are too far in my view.

Whe are teachers going to fit in office tasks? Can you do an office job on top of your own full time job?

How exactly do you expect schools to run full services when the money isn't there to do it?

However, increasing class sizes and axing subjects are too far in my view.

Do you think they'd be doing it if they had any choice?

That's really lovely. I'm sure the headteacher is very grateful for your understanding. I'm sure they also agree with you that the rest is too far. In fact, I'm willing to bet on the fact they think it's all too far!

When you say ‘too far’, you mean ‘government underfunding has pushed it too far’, don’t you, not ‘the school is taking it too far for no good reason’?

No school wants to be in this position - and tbh it is likely to push them into a negative spiral, where already overloaded teachers burn out or leave when further lumped with admin tasks, leaving a smaller and smaller curriculum offer.

That is the Government’s fault, not schools’