How can a school overspend by £800k ithout anyone noticing

[MrsGuyOfGisbourne]

No wonder the head has 'resigned' Tiffin, Kingston
several of my son's friends hoping to go there September - not good...

I too am a governor but at an independent school. We have an audit committee with expertise in that area, and we insist that the accounts which we sign off each year are written up in a way that makes it clear what is the current state of play. Moreover we do a thorough risk assessment on all activities which include financial management. Whilst the constitution of the governing board in the state sector may not have as much flexibility, it goes without saying that they still have responsilibty.

Tiffin is indeed a good school. But look at the recent value added scores of the dfes.gov website. It does well generally because it is able to bring in the top 1% from a very broad area (not Kingston) but does not add significantly to their achievement (value added) above and beyond other good state schools around the area

The redundancies have started, what a surprise. Careers and special needs - both areas are losing posts iminently.

Ridiculous that a school promoting excellence is financially incapable.

Tiffin is an excellent performing school. It takes bright children and teaches them well.

The school itself looks old fashioned and tired.

They do not really accept children from miles away. The actual catchment is from any convenient transport area and if children are expected to be travelling more than 1 hour they are discouraged.

If your child has reasonable learning ability and their learning has been supported by parents then they will have a fair chance of passing the entrance exam.

Tiffin sets its own admissions policy and it is based on potential for learning.Kingston seems to suffer from poor geographical distribution of schools. Plus in urban areas the middle classes always get nervous about mixing with 'Ghetto' kids (tongue in cheek.

I cant get my children into the local comp because of kingston catchment children moving into esher catchment....we all experience these problems.So i'm going to give Tiffin a go.

Tutors and Tiffin do very well out of parents who overestimate their child's ability. You can get verbal and non-verbal reasoning books and teach your child yourself.

Tiffin is for the bright, not the wealthy. It deserves support.
Having said that normal comprehensives seem to be doing a lot to provide a good education so its hardly bleak out there.

I'm a school Governor on the finance committee. Every half term we sit and go through the budget, line by line, in tedious, mind numbing detail. It's not hard to understand, just dull as fuck. I have to say though, we rely on our Head v much, if he chose to mis-lead us it would be v easy to hide stuff.

This is clearly a case of a complete collapse in governance and the head should have gone and the chair of govenors and finance staff should go too.

They also need to completely overhaul their accounting and governance structures.

Pity the school doesn't run a GCSE in sums?
Perhaps the sixth form of the Tiffin Girls school could do the accounts. Tiffin Girls generally outperform Tiffin Boys in exams so they can lend a hand.

And WHAT was the LEA doing?
Sitting on their arses by the look of it.

awoooga awoooga

another old thread alert

what is going on today???

Yes but its fun looking at the old names, like walking past Museum exhibits

cybil that is v funny mate

your awooogas made me lol too

I'm going to try and incorporate that into more of my posts in 2010