Do you think that schools are okay?

[applejane11]

When I was in school, I remember absolutely hating school. I like learning. What I hated was the constant feeling of being in a prison, having no freedom. Having to sit for 7 hours a day and not speak. Having no say at all in most things. Constantly being controlled. I remember every morning, feeling dread when I woke up to go in.

I now actually work in a school in an admin position. Ive worked in lots of different companies. Now im in a school. I hear the teenagers say the same things all the time. They hate it, they feel like they are in prison, that it is awful, that they feel depressed every day, that all their young life is wasted. I also have to say, I definitely see school teachers abuse their power over the students. Not in a way that you could say is definitely abuse, but just in a way where you can see that they are really loving having power and control over the teenagers.

Do you think that schools are okay the way that they are? Teenagers don't have a lot of say in things or a lot of human rights, so it's adults that need to have the conversation about it.

By meetings, do you mean whole-staff briefings, e.g. weekly morning briefing where key safeguarding issues are shared, or INSeT Day training that all staff are required to attend? Safeguarding meetings would suggest a smaller meeting of a few key people either on the safeguarding team or involved in an incident - or do you mean you’ve met with the safeguarding lead when a student has made a disclosure to you?

There's a huge amount of admin staff in schools, as you know. There is administrative staff in every department. They are vital to the school running well.

Three adminstrative staff members sit in on our weekly safeguarding meetings.

No it's not a whole staff meeting. It's a specific weekly safeguarding meeting. We discuss safeguarding issues about students. New things come up every week so it's important to be aware of what is currently going on.

Admin staff in every department.... Are you working in a utopia with funding?! We certainly don't have admin staff in every department.

We barely have 3 admin staff, never mind 3 to be involved in weekly meetings.

School can be a very lonely place for some but it’s probably always been that way. I loved being at school, seeing my friends but wasn’t the most academic. My daughter hates school, doesn’t have many friends, was bullied, struggled a lot and also autistic and adhd. In her case there just wasn’t much support for her and it caused a lot of damage, including self harm. Schools just don’t have the resources for that I guess.

Is it a very small school then?

Art, then history specifically cold war era espionage and soviet closed cities then ancient history eg egyptions then medical history and forensic science, information tech but mainly so i could do history reseach and print it off, then psychology, never good with maths or english,

What is it they’re complaining about exactly?

Nope, average secondary.

Your experience is incredibly unusual.

Oo I loved History too.

Unless you are confusing admin with pastoral non teaching staff, they would be involved in safeguarding meetings. But they are not attached to departments.

No it's not. There are multitude of different schools in the country. For example one of us could work in a state school and one of us could work in a private school.
State schools - some are bigger than others , so some have more staff than others.
Then amongst private schools, some are much bigger than others, so have more staff

Playing devils advocate, I work in an Academy school which does seem unusually well staffed. But, admin in every department? Do 3 Science technicians count? (School of 1400........ We need them.)

But, depends on what you mean by department.

Maths, PE, Art, English. No support/admin staff in my school.

Reprographics, well, by definition.......

hitler was overdone thats why i taught my self different aspects eg the russian woodpecker system etc

Many state schools, none of which have admin staff for each department, even back in the early 2000s.

@applejane11 aren’t you on school holidays? Why don’t you give yourself a break away from it and deal with it again with your colleagues in September?

This thread is not helping you as we think you’re being ridiculous.

No. I am not on school holidays. I have a completely different contract to teachers. I work through the summer

Right well you know that not everyone works in a state school right.

Same size.

2 Sci techs
3 finance, hr, cover, behaviour admin
1 receptionist
1 heads PA
1 DT tech
1 exam officer
1 data manager
1 sixth form admin

Departments have nothing

But there’s nothing you can really help with at the moment, as everyone else is off enjoying themselves. Give it a rest for a bit.

Perhaps support staff is the correct terminology, but would be suprised if the OP would get this basic definition muddled

LOL you have kids moaning about rules in an establishment their parents have paid for and deliberately chosen.

Hilarious.

I'll just give two examples of admin staff in our school. We have a welfare team. They have two administration staff. We have a college liasion team. They have two admin members

Quite the web we have here.