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?

@radiatorpipe

I'm a primary head on £54000, and top of scale too!
I'm also SENCO and DSL.

I do feel a smidge undervalued 😥

No one needs to do French…it was hated when I was at school 40 odd years ago, can’t remember a word of it and never used it once, same for German…not needed in todays day and age. Drama is a waste of time as well, go into college and uni and do these specialist subjects and leave school for things that will be needed, maths, sciences and English!

You're joking right? How big is this school.

Not normal in my area, this seems like the school has much bigger issues with their finances

Lovely! Just because you didn't need it doesn't mean other don't. You really think someone can just waltz into uni and study a specialist subject with no previous knowledge of experience?

Yes, unfortunately, it is.

I am a middle leader in a secondary which serves a very deprived area. I was talking to our head the other day and she was saying how tight the budget is. This isn't because we are spending unnecessarily, this is just paying to provide what we need to ensure our children receive a good education.

Ideally we would have more TAs and pastoral workers but there isn't the budget.

An awful lot relies on the good will of staff because there isn't enough money to pay for things.

You can't seriously think it's ok to cut office staff and ask teachers to take that on too, on top of everything else!

Not here

Yes. I am in an SEN school. It is at break point. I repeat. It is at break point. People need to listen to those who are at the front. Although my politics may not always agree with @noblegiraffe , she has repeatedly endeavoured to bring the issues facing education to everyone. SEN schools cannot recruit teachers or support staff. There are simply none applying. None. The staff that are left are burnt out. @radiatorpipe . I am sorry. But sadly this is, in fact, normal. Look at the rolling vacancies in your local schools.

This is why teachers are striking. We must back them as parents.

People like different subjects shock

@Throwncrumbs and if children struggle with Maths and Science do we not offer them anything else? How will people know whether they have aptitude for subjects if they don’t do some of them at school first.

I'd commented earlier saying I'd not seen quite such drastic cutbacks at my daughters school, but we've not yet had our end of term newsletter so could be in for a shock I guess. Plus, they've not tended to announce staff cuts so I only know things like German has been withdrawn, my daughter has been taught Chemistry by a series of substitutes all year, and some kids have no permanent maths teacher, from what my daughter tells me. I don't think most parents of secondary school children would necessarily know how bad things are as kids tend to complain anyway, and they've got nothing to compare it to as they don't know how things were in the 80s when I was there.

It's normal for Tories. They know they're out at the next election so are breaking as much as they can before they leave.

@Jason118 I agree but it's a lot now for anyone to really put right at this stage. Especially considering the fabric of a lot of these buildings after so many years of neglect. My own daughters school has had very little work done since I left in the 80s. They still have the same massive single glazed windows, so it's like a greenhouse in summer and freezing in winter - especially now they can't afford to heat it. Plus it's full of asbestos. I can't even imagine the cost of bringing it up to standard.

Why do you think the poster is joking? That is quite normal in my experience- a head being DSL is almost universal , and SENCo becoming more common. In many primaries, the Head is the only person not to be full time in class, so they pick up all the roles that are totally incompatible with being in class all day every day. Pay looks fairly normal too?

Because that isn't normal. I've never seen a senco be the head. DSL yes but there should be at least a deputy too so 2 responsible for safeguarding. The pay for what this poster is doing is a pittance hence my question as to how big the school is.

I’ve seen that combination of roles in schools up to 2 form entry equivalent, though I agree it’s more common in small schools - 1 form entry or below.

Yes, class teachers will be DDSLs - often a couple of them - but the main role tends to require a significant amount of time out of class at short notice, and in primaries it is common for the only person to be able to manage that is the Head.

When I started teaching, SENCo was often a role with a 2 or 3 day non-class based timetable in primary, maybe even full time in larger primaries. Maybe a deputy head was non-contact as well, or would take on both roles. Increasingly, the deputy head role has disappeared or become ‘in name only’ for someone with a full time timetable or perhaps 1 extra afternoon out of class, and the SENCo is either the Head or someone getting 1 extra afternoon (do teaching 4 full days, 2 sessions PPA rather than 1.

The critical thing is for schools to have a teacher, if possible qualified, in front of the class for 9/10 half days each week (the 10th PPA session is now almost universally taken by a TA, HLTA or a sports coach). One non-ckass based member of staff, usually the Head. And all other roles shared amongst the class teachers - subject lead, year lead, DDSL, pastoral - or piled on the Head -DSL. SENCo is either a class teacher or the Head.

I recently went for a Science job at one of the top achieving state schools in the country (and has been for 20 years). Historically it's been incredibly hard to get a job there.

I was one of a handful of applicants - the only one they bothered to interview.

I left a school which had 5 Science vacancies that year.

In between I worked supply at a good solid school that hadn't been able to get a qualified Science teacher for 5 months.

It's only going to get worse because we just aren't getting enough good trainees and record numbers leave each year.

My daughter has no permanent Chemistry teacher. She's in year 10 and in her last tests was getting 70-90% in Biology and Physics where she has permanent teachers and only 46% in Chemistry. Apparently this was good though as the average was only 35%.

Now, I'm no expert in Chemistry, as I didn't take it myself at GSCE, and I was never as studious as my children, but I'd have thought you'd be aiming for a similar understanding as the other sciences? And a similar score?

I'm really glad my youngest child is at the end of state education to be honest. Although, that sentiment does help my future Grand Children, nor the future generation who'll be expected to support our ageing population .

@Foxesandsquirrels
210, single form entry.
No deputies, I have 2 key stage leaders who are a godsend and get a TLR each ( one is English lead and one is maths) .
And yes, I'm on L9, main England pays scale

This.

We as a country seem to be happy with a situation if it isn't affecting us directly and there's almost a disbelief that people are telling the truth.

When it then affects people personally they are up in arms about it screaming "how the fuck did we get here" 🤦🏼‍♀️

I'm grateful for everything you've raised over the years.

I'm just sorry not enough people listened.

Because sharing real experience and being honest about the state of education isn't what a large part of the public want to hear. They're not interested in truth and much prefer a nice slogan that confirms an already held bias e.g., teachers are lazy.

It also doesn't help that the tories use the full weight of their propagand machine to keep peddling misinformation and outright lies every time the issue is raised.

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

you’re happy for children on free school meals, some of whom may only eat whilst in school, to be given frozen, heated up food?

when is it you think teachers have time for routine admin tasks? (and see class size issues, below)

if there are no MFL teachers to be found, how is French going to be taught?

If there is not enough money in the budget to pay for kids to be in a class size of 30, class sizes are going to increase. 3 classes of 90 kids or 2 classes of 45?

and all of the above is just going to lead to more teachers walking away.

be part of the solution

a) don’t vote Tory
b) write to your MP and make him/her aware.

c) support the strikes