DH's school is talking about redundancies - what to do?

[chicaguapa]

DH changed careers and went into teaching, having been at his first teaching job since September. Despite the school telling him that the science department was 'innovative and forward-thinking' the subject is actually bottom of the Head's priority list and the department doesn't get allocated any funding etc. So DH had already been wondering whether to look for another teaching post elsewhere starting September.

But today he has found out that the school is applying for academy status. It then intends to downgrade science to an option subject and make some science teachers redundant.

So what to do? If DH starts applying for other jobs, he'll be first to be made redundant, but what if he doesn't get another job? I'm so worried as we took a massive paycut for DH to go into teaching and certainly can't afford for DH to be out of work.

But science is part of the Govian Bacc?

He wouldn't necessarily be first to be made redundant.It isn't based on recent employment. They are more likely to get rid of people at the end of their careers.

As a new teacher he'll be a relatively cheap teacher, and that's an advantage.

But as stoat points out, making science an option subject doesn't mean it won't remain a popular subject, especially with the Baccalaureate. If they have the uptake in pupil numbers, they'll need the staff.

I thought they'd changed the law and it was now compulsory for all schools to offer triple science at GCSE....

As far as I know the school will offer it, but they don't expect many pupils to take it up. DH says they'll do the core science as mandatory but the rest will be optional. Whatever that means.

As a secondary science teacher I would say look for other posts but chances are he will be ok. The quality measure for schools is the number of students getting 2 GCSEs in science so chances are there will be plenty of KS4 teaching around and science will remain compulsary at KS3. He should look up the redundancy policy for his school has well, these things are very transparent so he should have a fair idea in advance.

Just as an aside, if there are redundancies, it is likely that these may be voluntary in the first instance - there may be some in the department who would be happy to go/retire early, particularly with the incentive of a payoff.
If not, the process would have to be transparent and your husband can seek out the policy on redundancy.
What tends to happen in the sectors I have worked in is that everyone applies for the fewer number of posts remaining.

Ok. Thanks for all your replies.