In a tiny primary school how many days should a headteacher teach?

[Swift1234]

My children's primary school now only has 50 children. Was 75+ when my eldest started but due to low birth rate and the head teacher upsetting lots of families it has gone down over the last 4 years after she started. She only teaches for 1.5 days a week. When I was a child in a school larger than this my headteacher had her own class. I'm trying to find out how many days headteachers teach in your children's small schools? There is talk of the school reducing to 2 classes to save money but if she was teaching more instead of getting other teachers in to cover etc the school would save lots! Id be really grateful if you could let me know how many kids at the school? How many days the head teaches? And if possible the name of the primary school. Thankyou!!

I didn't think Head Teachers.taught at all . They don't in any schools I know.except in an emergency when they couldn't get supply
Their role is mainly management.

In the small schools here (from 2 to 7 classes) heads normally teach 3 days per week. I'm in Scotland so it may be different elsewhere.

Does seem to be a bit of a luxury to have a non teaching head in such a small school. Especially when they are talking about reducing number of classes to save money.
Head should really be shared with another school!
Would be concerned that if it isn't turned around, it risks closing......

Our village primary has about 90kids and the HT teaches 50% i.e. 2.5 days

I'm a school governor of a small rural school. The head has a phenomenal workload, she has no deputy, no SLT. She is the SENCO the DSL, the lunchtime supervisor, the relief teacher, the PPA cover and the business manager for the school.

Like another poster said she is often the only adult on site during the day other than the admin lady (who is also phenomenal) who is extra to the class teachers who are all teaching 2 year group mixed ability classes.

'Luckily' for our school two very experienced UPS3 teachers quit because teaching was destroying them and because of that we didn't have to merge year groups as planned as now those children are being taught by cheaper ECTs supported by the head instead.

I'm sorry if your children's classes are being merged, but don't you dare call the head lazy.

My DC are at small rural with 65 ish children. The HT teaches 1.5 days a week. It’s too much and a cost-cutting exercise by the LA. Many of the wee rural in our LA now have a shared headship where the HT runs two schools. Lots of cost-cutting!

DD's school has about 50 children and shares a headteacher with another school that has about 30. She doesn't typically teach, but will sometimes take a class for part of a day or when someone is off sick. She has far more than a full schedule already!

Obviously not going to name the school.

Tell me you don't understand schools without telling me.

The small school HT has to do EVERYTHING. All the strategy, reporting, statutory compliance, SENCO, DSL, responsible for attendance, curriculum etc with no one else.

In a bigger school with a leadership team, other people take on part of the HT job.

This, our head teacher when I was in primary only taught the 11 plus classes. This was in another century. DS was in small primary school. The amazing head teacher did a lot with the children but not teaching a class or being a substitute teacher if form teacher was away.

I've worked with a lot of schools around that size and smaller and the teaching commitment of 1.5 days sounds more than reasonable. Remember that even full time teachers don't have a five day teaching commitment, they have non contact or planning time. Head teacher roles are ridiculously full on and I think you probably have a very unrealistic perspective.

I wouldn’t expect any head teacher to teach. They have lots of other jobs to do .

Some small schools may have a teaching HT, sometimes covering PPA or being the equivalent of supply.

What is very common for small schools is to share HT across a number of schools to save costs.

In most small schools the HT will also be the Designated Safeguarding Lead

As part of my job I work with approx 200 skills and these is only 1 snook that I know of that has a teaching head, this is a tiny mainstream school (under 20 pupils), they are partnered with another local primary so have an executive head and share a bursar, so to my knowledge the are very few

When you were at school, the expectations from Ofsted etc were very different to now. Teaching 1.5 days is plenty.

In my last school which I was glad to leave in the end, the head spent at least half her days dealing with problematic pupils.
There was definitely no time for her to teach.

That's a huge teaching load for a HT.

That poor headteacher. Who do you think you are? It is not for you to judge her or comment on how she runs the school in this manner. Either trust she knows her business as do the schools governors or withdraw your kids and keep your nose out. The whole tone of your post is presumptuous and rude and it’s attitudes like this that are making jobs like your HTs untenable.

You’re lucky to have a small village school with a headteacher, continuing in this vein will very much reduce your chances of that privilege remaining in your community.

If you are this concerned, why not do something about it? Become a volunteer at the school, help them, help the children, and you will see what the head teacher does! Most teachers I know work a minimum of 60 hours a week, so if you have a paid 40 hour a week job you can give 20 hours on top of that to the school, unpaid, yes?

Can’t see this OP coming back given this thread hasn’t gone the way she’d hoped (and it’s obvious from the original tone she wanted people to slag off the “lazy” headteacher).

But just in case…. My kids school had around 200 children - the headteacher didn’t do any teaching at all. I remember one of my boys finding it very exciting when the headteacher had to cover one time due to sickness, showing how rare it was!

The school took on 2 village schools as part of a MAT to try and help improve them. One school had around 30 kids across the whole school max. The head teacher of that school did not teach at all. The other school was bigger, but I’m not sure how many kids (I’d guess around 100). Again, no teaching from the Head.

Hell, if I think about when I was in primary school 40 ish years ago, not one of the 3 heads we had during that time did any teaching. So this isn’t a new thing!

My children’s school is the same size. The head teaches RE to the older years. She’s very present throughout the school though and the children see her every day.

If she’s teaching 1.5 days as the only head in a small school then she’s probably already doing more than most to save money. For the reasons other posters have said.

In the current climate I don’t think 3 classes for 50 pupils is sustainable especially as the birth rate is falling.

Our school did share a head teacher with another school from the MAT but it didn't work out and he left after a year..

I wouldn't want my child to be in a class taught by a head teacher, no matter what size the school.

I would want the head teacher to be ready to deal with any emergencies or issues, and I would be concerned that if they were being taught by a head that there may be lots of instability of the head has meetings, emergencies etc.

Yep. One of my headteachers tried to teach for a morning a week. And she constantly had to be covered for because something came up. The children had no consistency and it didn't last long.

Our small schools have historically always had teaching heads. However behaviour in schools has deteriorated so much, plus the workload is so huge that I don't think it's sustainable. There's a huge problem in recruiting heads too.

Some are now going for a shared head option with a principal teacher at each school to take charge when the head is at the other school.