Being set up - to fail!!

[Peterpickedapickled]

I have worked for the same school for 9 years in an admin role. I recently got promoted to a higher grade. The role was new and covers HR, line management and being responsible for cover when staff are absent. Staff absence was dealt with by a member of SLT previously due to the insight they have into the school/classes etc.

I have been in the role for 3 months. All going okay but I haven’t had much support, guidance or mentor support. I am just finding things out in my own and pushing ahead.

The absence cover is very challenging due to the existing process. For example, classes are fighting over staff and making demands on me that are time consuming and not necessary. Mornings are very stressful but class leads are constantly emailing or texting on my work mobile telling me that they don’t want that supply person etc. I have never done cover and I have never worked in class so it’s a challenge for me. I am trying new ways of working to help reduce my workload whilst still providing the right sort of cover that fits the needs of our students but this is becoming impossible. Each year lead wants me to work a different way, they don’t work together as leaders and instead are cherry picking and giving me unreasonable demands. They like me to update a cover spreadsheet even if that absence doesn’t need covering and when I challenge it, it’s so that it reminds them that their staff are off!! I am acting as their PA. The work is now taking me the majority of my day to complete.

We use 9 different supply agencies because that’s how the member of SLT ran it before. She never checked what they were charging the school and dealing with that many agencies is time consuming and means we can’t and never have negotiated on the cost. The school is on its knees financially! I wanted to tackle this and had a plan but this member of SLT is still keeping a foot in and she has made her own agreements with yet another new agency without letting me know. The checking and approving of time sheets takes me hours! She is also meeting with me as she still deals with staffing as a whole. In these meetings she is trying to encourage me to do what she wants with supply. She isn’t offering suggestions, she is manipulating me and the situation. I have considered these suggestions and some I have knocked back. She doesn’t like this even though I can give reasons for why.

So I have been feeding all this back to my manager who has seen the issue with his own eyes. The amount of time I spend on this is now effecting the rest of my work and meeting deadlines.

My boss spoke to me yesterday about it because that member of SLT and the Headteacher have told him to “sort me out”! Apparently it’s all gone to shit since I have been doing the job, I am making mistakes (again I have raised this with my boss because I have made some mistakes but I am new to role, no real support from anyone and just told to get on with it). I can’t meet their HR deadlines, for example, because they are giving me a few days to get job adverts out, get our vetting checks done before they want them in school working! It’s a safeguarding nightmare.

So they want to take the supply work off me and give it to a new lady who works in admin! Nothing wiil change and she will struggle too! My boss told them that it wasnt me, it was the process and how they work. He told them it was not my incompetence. He has been telling SLT for years that there are major issues and he has proposed working practices as he is the Business Manager. He told me that he will be looking at it this week and proposing a business case for staffing and costs. He said that if the spending does not reduce, the school will fail. If they don’t agree, he is taking it to Governors.

I am really upset and angry. I feel like I have been setup to fail. The role is so stressful and I am crying at home about it. What they want me to do is impossible in the hours I work. That member of SLT was even calling me in my private mobile having got my number off the staff database. I had to tell her not to do this which she didn’t like!
I want to ensure I am not the scapegoat here. My plan is to push forward with my plans to make the role more efficient and streamlined for us all whilst focusing on needs. What can I do? I feel they are tarnishing the reputation I have spent 9 years trying to build at this school.

£160 a day is 1/195 of the current England M1 scale (I can’t recall the exact M1 salary, but it’s on your union websites). If you can prove you are higher up the scale i.e you achieved QTS 6 years ago, you should demand M6/195.

OP doing cover is utterly shit. If you can off it, do so. Like constructing the timetable, literally ever fucker thinks they can do it better, and yet are predictably invisible when asked to contribute. I have negotiated extremely competitive rates with preferred agencies that send supply who can deliver the lesson and manage behaviour. This is not true of all supply staff who are consequently human chum by break when the kids clock their crapness.

@Vitriolinsanity exactly! I want to make a difference in this role. I was given the role to do just that! I have ideas and goals I want to achieve not just with supply but with HR also. The deputy head handed the supply job over because she was spending hours at home every am doing it. She is one stressed lady!
When teachers didn’t like her decisions, they complained to her and she gave them what they wanted despite it being time consuming for her and not good, cost wise, for the school. I have listened to her and am still learning but I have discovered inefficiencies that I want to change. Great! Except she won’t let me! Instead, she wants to complain to my boss that I am failing with that task and wants someone that’s much easier to manipulate than me. The poor lass she wants to take it has only been employed with us since July and has come straight out of education. She is admin based and it’s definitely not in her contract! Anyway, she wouldn’t agree to it anyway!

Yes I know, but it’s true. The £200+ figure was from 2019 when I last did a day’s supply teaching, and was to contextualise the £90 a day figure: basically, both teacher and school are being ripped off in those circumstances.

The agency were VERY poor in several other ways as well and I quickly got a job working in hospitality because it was so much nicer and that was worth the (slight) drop in pay until I could get back into teaching.

And YOU do realise, don't you that schools can engage supply staff direct? They don't have to go through an agency. Doing the latter simply feeds the frenzy.

I think part of the problem may be that you, totally understandably are seeing this from a business point of view whereas SLT are seeing it from a teaching and school point of view.

So you want to rationalise and not work with 9 agencies as it’s just not efficient but they know that Mrs X works brilliantly with that particular class so want her if Mr Y is off and she only works through A agency. However, if Mrs V is off they want Miss L who only works through B agency.

Similarly, Mr W wants the cover sheet to show everyone off as that helps to see potential gaps and pinch points but you just need to show you have cover for those who need it externally.

A way forward might be a meeting to lay out priorities and what is most important and then build a strategy from there.

She makes no comment on the quality of supply teachers sent to her school. You must be reading a different thread and become mixed up.

'their' worth.

La Voix and Tia Koffi would be amazing. Doubt is thought

Sounds like cover is a full time role for one person. I work in a small school with lots of staff and appreciate the nightmare this role is (fortunately it’s something I’m not involved in). Can you speak to the HT, with your manager so you can explain the exact challenges you face? Hats off to you, I couldn’t do it.

If someone's offering to take supply/cover off you - agree!

You'll never please all the people! Too many variables. Too many people involved.

I used to do cover as part of a previous role, I found it very hard. It's so stressful to come in of a morning, see X staff are off, you only have Y teachers who are under allocation, phoning agencies, trying to fix the jigsaw together with that deadline looming of P1.

Can you suggest to the business manager that you advertise for a cover supervisor? That will really help with those odd days of cover that you try and juggle and you can save supply staff for when you need long term reliable staff to actually teach a class.

But other than that, it's a hard job and few people understand how hard it is. Stick to your boundaries.

Teacher here, career changer, worked in admin for many years before so I understand your frustration:

"I am also HR for over 350 staff" - is this a typo? 350 staff must be a huge school.

Anyway, let them take the supply duties off you. They don't want to listen to you. They have no operational management experience. These people are idiots. They can't even understand that at the point a third member of staff is unable to comply it will become blindingly clear that it's their system not the people trying to run it. Hate to say it, but sometimes you have to let it break so that everyone knows where the weaknesses are. You don't need to protect this other member of staff.

You can develop in your HR role. This is much more portable should you want to jump ship to somewhere else. Make sure you take up as many training opportunities as possible.

And yes, idiot bosses were the bane of my life. My admin at school love me because I'm not an arse.

@liquoricetorpedoes I think you have a point. I have tried having meetings with the SLT member that used to do the role. I have put forward suggestions but she poo pooed them but without a real reason. The reason was that that’s how they have always done it so that’s how it should be done.

I want to build a bank of great quality supply staff with the right skills and I want to work with a couple of agencies that I have built a relationship with. I can’t do that with 9 agencies, not to mention using their 9 portals to check supply staff and agree timesheets! It’s a logistical nightmare.

But regardless of all this, what I wanted was a chance to learn and do the role justice. I have been doing it 5 minutes and they are complaining about me and wanting to take it off me because they feel I am useless. It makes me feel very inadequate and I am worried that they will use it to make my life difficult. I don’t feel supported by SLT at all. I agree that it would be easier for me if they gave it to someone else but it still makes me angry that no one cares about my work.

@ThisKindAmberLemur thanks for that. They did have someone that was employed just for supply some years ago but they made her redundant.

My only concern about them asking the other girl to do the job is that I am her line manager so I will still be dealing with it when she gets told she isn’t doing a good job!

I really enjoy the HR role but even that is stressful as they are wanting adverts out straightaway, then they want to recruit them now without considering that I need time to turn it around. I have tried telling them and have even booked in a meeting to discuss recruitment with SLT so I get some forewarning. I am actually very concerned as we are employing staff without checking references as they don’t give the time it needs. We are an SEN school and safeguarding firms part of the process.

Your role seems very broad op and I'm not surprised you're struggling with your workload. In every school I've worked in Cover Supervisor has been a full time role - they certainly weren't doing HR or line managing staff.

If cover is stressful and you enjoy HR you might be better off letting the other admin person keep the cover role?

I am actually very concerned as we are employing staff without checking references as they don’t give the time it needs

If you can substantiate this, I would investigate the whistleblowing policy and consider reporting to Ofsted. This is very serious. I don't want to rain on your parade but adhering to Safer Recruitment is so basic you have to wonder what else they are short cutting.

And if you are HR, some of this responsibility lies with you.

@NutButterOnToast I absolutely agree and I am really worried that the finger will point to me! The DBS are done but for schools and SEN schools in particular, safer recruitment states it should check references at interview and scrutinise them and the application forms. The culture at the moment is get them in the door as quickly as possible and then do the admin. I am not given the time I need to be doing these checks. They keep throwing people at me that want to be on a 0 hour contract. But they also need DBS and further checks. They just keep emailing me to ask what’s happening constantly!

They interview on Wednesday, told me who had the jobs on Thursday afternoon which left Friday to send offer letters. I finish at 2pm on Friday and have supply to do for after the Ict break. I told this member of SLT and she just said “well who can do it then as it needs to be done”. I couldn’t finish it so had to tell me boss and he did it. They also want them to start on the first Monday back even though they need checks doing and I am not working the holiday. I tried telling her so it won’t get done! This is a real concern for me!

This is so typical for a school- basically she’s expecting you to do it over the holidays unpaid because that’s what many teachers do. She can’t say that to you and good for you for not doing it.
Again I’d say it’s another mismatch between how businesses and schools run ( I think businesses are right).
I’m a teacher and this half term I’m being made to more classrooms for building work. No time was given for me to pack up- basically had to do it alongside teaching and in my ppa time. I’m also expected to start teaching again first lesson on the Monday after half term and when I pointed out to the head that the room would be full of boxes I just got a blank stare. I asked if he expected me to come in over half term to sort it and was told he can’t expect me to do that- so I asked if I’d get time in the Monday and was told no- I had to be ready first lesson. Still unsure what he expects to happen- the movers will literally dump all the furniture and boxes and I really don’t want to go in during my holidays but I also don’t want the chaos of having lesson after lesson in a mess so I probably will go in on Friday to sort some things out. This tends to be the ethos in many schools and is probably partly to blame for your issues.

@liquoricetorpedoes oh I absolutely agree. I have worked in schools for a long time and they are another beast entirely. My experience hasn’t been a good one. Years ago, me and my colleague were bullied by our young and inexperienced manager to a point where we were both ill and had to involve the Unions. We both left in the end as your health comes first.

I am going to document everything just to cover myself if necessary and I am looking for something else after Christmas. It’s been a long list of issues really and I naively thought it would be better when I got this job. It’s worse! I need to get out of education and now is the chance as my DD is leaving school next year.

Yes OP! Get out while the going's good and before you get blamed for the SNAFU.

Doing cover is a nightmare. Cover work should be in a separate drive that cover teachers can access.
Many schools are under so much financial pressure that roles have become untenable 😢
You have my sympathy .

You have my sympathy OP. I too was promoted (after a lot of encouragement by my then line manager), but after a lot of issues (would be a whole other thread!) I am now 2.5 years on, unable to sleep due to stress and I am absolutely being used as a scapegoat for all issues within my department. I've got some interviews lined up to hopefully move on, I can't and won't do it any more.

I zero experience in this so excuse my ignorance

Does supply have to be through agencies? Can you have a list of reliable supply teachers to phone through?

Raise a complaint about her accessing your personal mobile number and contacting you on it about work … this is a breach of data protection laws.