People management

[ThePerkyCoralPoet]

Realistically, I need to be careful with the amount of information I put out. However, I am at my wits end.

I moved school in November of last year. The school is a train wreck. The head of department handed in his notice in December so when I joined I joined as his joint lead. I then took on the whole team and it’s a mess. We have 3 individuals that are very aggressive and don’t want to co operate with the department as a whole. I have 2 others that are doing whatever they want to and actually choosing not to teach. I’m exhausted. Literally I’m so unbelievably stretched I’m near enough falling asleep on my way home.

Yesterday we had a new and very senior member of staff join us as part of the team. They are very experienced and we’re looking for a new job so have now started here. Technically they don’t teach at their headship level but have agreed to do so until we have the new appointed member of staff join after Easter.

So I planned all of their lesson. Left the room readily resourced yesterday, then in a departmental meeting of 8 this individual looked directly at me and said “so where are my resources then” any I said “they’re in the cabinet, I mentioned that on the email” this individual then raised their hand at me as if to say I was over reacting and said “okay I was literally just asking”

This infuriated me. I already feel as though they think I’m incapable and I just didn’t like the tone. Given work has been really stressful lately I’m not sure if I’m over thinking now and being unreasonable. I later went and had a chat with them generally about their teaching experience etc, but I don’t know if just struck me as very rude.

I've not worked in education so am not sure of the protocol, but if staff are not doing their job clearly it's time to take them into a formal meeting and tell them what you expect, set a clear time frame and to give them, in writing, that if they don't start to achieve those targets, then disciplinary action will start. You are not there to be there friend. My father once sacked 54 guys including his own brother for repeated lateness...different industry and different times but you have to draw a line in the sand.

With the new guy...he was told in an email...things are easy to miss, he was asking a question. It's new to him. Personally I'd bite the bullet and apologise to him (even if you don't think you were wrong). Try to get him onside if he's going to be part of the leadership team. Explain you are struggling with the team, your relatively new yourself and have been dropped in it.

Sadly some of the team are friends with upper senior management. So getting them in a disciplinary is going to be nigh impossible.

New staff member- email I got was “resource needs to be made available to me at 8:30 am” I acknowledged ir and said yes it will be and it will be in the cabinet” they saw it. I did speak to them shortly after the day ended to catch up, but I feel like they look at me and think I’m entirely incompetent.

Fine 're the friendship but I'd still go down that route. While you may not get anywhere you have covered you behind by logging you r wish to tackle the issues. You have effectively passed the issue upwards and any come back you can point to your written request for action. It may be that you need to accept that there is no solution...

could you build a them and us situation by creating a risk that other departments will get funding/reward/looked at better for pay reward to pull your team together

Would it be possible for you to move on given that perhaps your in a no win situation? together

I would still apologise to the guy and try to get him onside. You will need allies