Vote of no confidence in Head and Chair

[CamperWidow]

Hi lovely peeps. Last year we were suddenly faced with the shocking prospect of our lovely little village first school closing due to dropping numbers. As parents, we were outraged and angry and fought back and have battled to keep it open. We were successful, we are going primary and they are finally offering wrap around care.
However... There is now, naturally, a complete lack of confidence in the Head, the Chair of Governors, and the Secretary (wife of Chair). The whole thing could have been avoided if they'd have got off their backsides and done things, rather than wait for the Council to step in with threats. Now they are all patting themselves on the back that they've saved the school, apparently forgetting all the hard work the parents put in. I now seriously want to make a complaint about the way they have handled the whole thing and I know the majority of the other parents would join me. Has anyone done this or got any idea how to go ahead?
Thanks!!!

Not sure how that leads to them being completely incompetent at their jobs?

How are they responsible for falling numbers?

It's really difficult. I'm a chair of gov in a village primary with falling role from the natural population and it's bolstered by children coming from other area. We're a v good school.
However, we have schools around us that also have low numbers and pragmatically I think at least one of the v tiny schools should close. But I get that parents wouldn't like it.
We are a rural area and there aren't enough children and most development is in local towns.
If they've done a really bad job you'd have to talk to the LA or the academy if it's part of one.

If you want to make a complaint about a member of staff then you’d have to follow the school’s complaints procedure which should be on their website. You’d have to be very clear about what your complaint is though. It’s not clear from you post what the Head has actually done wrong?

I think you being a bit of a dick. So what if they are 'taking the credit'. Presumably people are sending their DC to the school because it is performing well and has good teachers and leadership. Why the hell would you jeopardise that?

Why the falling numbers ? Was it down to lower birth rate ?

I suspect you know very little of all the things that happened behind the scenes to keep the school open. It sounds like parents played a very important role, but I would not underestimate how much time and effort was spent behind the scenes by staff and governors. It's worth bearing in mind that governors are volunteers and yet are being asked to deal with some very complicated and time consuming tasks.

In what way would a vote of no confidence get more people in to the school

A long time ago etc. etc.

We had a neighbouring school that was closing down, the parents there did as you did and campaigned hard for it to remain open.

The parents at our school caught on quickly.

The parents in the third school did not, hence their children being bused to the original school with small numbers staying open and theirs closing.

So I would be very wary of patting yourself on the back to hard.

Incidentally, if you did try and oust the head and governors, I suspect it would put the future of your school in jeopardy. If you were unsuccessful the head and board would probably leave because, frankly, who's want to work or volunteer in a place where you felt so unappreciated. If you succeeded in removing both the head and the board, the local authority would be unlikely to provide support and so your school would be forced to join a MAT who are less accountable than the local authority and less likely to keep open a school that is not financially viable.

There are a few poster outraged and angry about headteachers and schools today ...

As Neolara says, parental input was no doubt very important in keeping the school open, but that’s not the whole story. There will be a huge amount of work going on behind the scenes, particularly given that your first school will become a primary with wrap-around care.

Frankly, the head, governors and staff need parental support not censure. A vote of ‘no confidence’ is not going to improve the education of your children.

Why were falling numbers their fault? Numbers are often precarious in small primaries, through no fault of the school.

Trying to oust the senior staff will de-stabilise the school when it's only just escaped closure and may well put people off sending their kids there in the next couple of years, which may put the school at risk of closure again.

I'd be interested to know exactly what the staff members have done to deserve this 'vote of no confidence'.

Sounds like a witch hunt to me.

I love your logic! "Do not close our 1st school. Make it a Primary School." "Thank you, we really appreciate you making our First School a Primary School. We can now reveal that we have absolutely no confidence in the Senior Leadership Team, to the extent that we want them removed from office....."

You do realise that the Chair of Governors heads the Governing Body, and the Governing Body and the Head Teacher, along with the Deputy Head, form the Senior Leadership Team. You are basically saying you want to remove the leadership of the entire school because numbers were low.

Presumably one of you would also be prepared to take on the massive and completely unpaid role of Chair of Governors then, with all its attendant responsibilities, one of which would be recruiting a new headteacher as presumably you'd have ousted the old one?

Why can't you all celebrate your success in keeping the school open together rather than potentially snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by making your school leadership team look bad?

Have to agree with all the posters above.
can you explain your thinking, if we are all missing something, OP ?

If you want to complain about the head , you go to the chair of gov.
If you want to complain about both you go to the LA or equivalent.
I'd be careful. The only time I've seen this really and truly justified was in a case of fraud.

I agree with the comments of most of the posters, you need to rethink the strategy. I would suggest that you need to get on the governing body of the school as it will give you a much better understanding of what happens behind the scenes in running a school. I bet there is a vacancy on the GB if it is a small village school, you should check.
Having said that you need to rethink, the bit that would worry me in your original post is that the secretary ( I presume you mean the clerk to governors) is the wife of the Chair of Governors. If they do not recognise that as a significant conflict of interest then maybe there is a need for change.

Thanks for the replies.
I do know what's going on, I am aware of the behind the scenes efforts both in school and from the parents side and I have been on the receiving end of the utter rudeness and incompetence from both the Head and the Secretary.
School have known about the low numbers for the last 4 years and done nothing. Within 24 hours of the letter coming home saying it was going to close, parents like me had found 18 kids willing to come. We have subsequently lost at least 7 of those due to either the staff being rude or not sorting out wrap around care till last month - not good enough if your child needs to apply by January.
I have tried to get on the Board, but my face doesn't fit.
I will have to try other ways. Thank you for the constructive posts.

It's not the schools job to run a marketing campaign and badger parents to send their children there. It's also not their job to 'sort out wrap around care'.

It's their job to operate and run the school safely and teach the children to the required standard.

It sounds like you made promises of free wrap around care to a number of parents to entice them to enrol and the staff could not deliver.

Clearly the school just isn't viable. Sad but if it can't attract enough students from the local area, removing the management team isn't going to change that. As others have already said by ousting the head you are giving the LA a reason to act.

If the school is staying open as a primary school, rather than an infant, what level of extra pupils are you now getting and have you opened up years 3 to 6 to all or how is this being organised.
The school still needs to be viable, so what pupil numbers were there and what are they now?
I think that no matter how badly you think the head etc are at their jobs, you need to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them 12 months to get the school to a position of financial viability.

First school in a 3-tier system? Ends in Y4 or in Y5 currently?

How is your 'natural feeder' middle school feeling about your decision to keep the pupils for the remaining years of primary and then send them to middle school late? Why would parents want to transfer their children in the middle of middle school, or is the local high / upper school also going for entry at Y7?

Does your school have staff with sufficient expertise in Y6 SATs to ensure that these results are good enough for parents to keep children at the school rather than follow the well-established path to Middle School?

How small is small? What is the PAN, and how do you achieve classes of 25-30 (25 is about the minimum for financial viability, and even then a school smaller than 5-7 classes can struggle to pay a full-time non-teaching head on their own, and either opt for a teaching head or sharing a head with other schools)?

Are the children there in the current 'top' year simply being expected to stay on? Or are the addiional years being opened up to new applicant immediately? What does that mean for the make-up of the 'top' class (ie does it go from being Y4+ Y5 to Y4+Y5+Y6, or worse, Y4 only to Y4 + Y5 + Y6)? how does that create a viable improved reputation that will bring in more pupils sustainably?

i honestly don't think you are out of the woods regarding the school's future - so don't jeopardise it by internal in-fighting now.

How do you see things panning out if you were to try to get rid of the school leadership?

As the school (if identified correctly) had 38 children in 2016-2017, down from 43 at the time of the 2013 Ofsted, and yet appears to run 3 classes from its website - as well as articles only stating that it HOPES local secondaries will take its pupils from 11 - I would suggest even more strongly that the school really cannot afford in-fighting.