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!!!

The only way i can see financial viability if the school adds Y5 and then Y6 in future years is to keep the same number of classes but increase the age range in each, will this play well with parents? A boast on the website is its small class sizes - but can that be afforded? How far away is the nearest 'normal sized' primary? Unless this is a very isolated school, it does seem unlikely that it can reasonably survive in the current finding environment.

First of all, parents don’t have a vote of no confidence so that’s just ridiculous. You don’t employ the Head or alpine the chairman. Working together to solve the problems is the best way forward. Taking children from other schools and causing them problems is never seen as collaborative but it’s a distinct tactic of the C of E rural schools. (Around me).

If I was the feeder school for an infant that had decided to become a primary (how - with falling numbers) I would be marketing my superior school like mad. It certainly is the role of Governors to try and persuade children to come to a school. However, poaching is not really the answer. It will now be gloves off because you are all fighting for the same children.

We have village schools that have stayed open because they federated with the school in the next village. Where there was a need, one stayed as the infant and the other became a junior. C of E won’t play ball with this if one is a community school.

I think your school will not find it plain sailing because you must sustain the numbers on roll. That’s not easy. You have competition but falling out with the head and Chair won’t help you move forward. Put yourself forward to be a parent governor when there is a vacancy.

alpine ??? Appoint

Hmm. Few Google searches later...

This is a First school in a predominantly Primary area (ie it's not a 3 tier system such as exists in some areas like Worcestershire or parts of Bedordshire). All the surrounding primaries are Good or better, and there are 7 others within 3 miles. The nearest Middle school, to which I presume the first school fed into, is nearly 5 miles away.

I can thus see why the school decided that becoming a primary was the only way forward - why would a parent decide on a nearby first school, then a middle school a long way away, when they could simply start and remain in a local good primary?

However, unless the nearby schools are full - and numbers on the DfE website suggest not - I can't see why this school is such a draw that parents will choose this untested primary vs an existing one?

If I were the OP, and really wanted the school to succeed, I would be focusing on this, rather than leaving the school leaderless, which would almost certainly lead first to federation and then academisation and /or closure.

(And I genuinely can't believe that anyone thought the prospect of closure was 'shocking', with 38 children on roll in 3 classes)

You talk about 'finding' 18 children to come to the school. Where did they come from? Presumably from on-roll at other local schools or about to apply to other local schools. So what's the impact on the other local schools of you 'finding' them? Schools are part of a wider community, particularly small village schools. I work for a similar school, and we are very aware that if we 'recruit' a child from outside our village then we are having a negative impact on another school. Why is our school any more deserving of staying open than its neighbours?

Also, wrap around care is not easy to organise in a village school. Numbers attending are often too low to make it financially viable (and school budgets mean we can't afford to subsidise it), and we have found it very difficult to find people interested in running it. We have managed it - but only just, and only with a lot of arm-twisting.

cantkeepaway - wow! What detective work!

However, as someone who lives in a fairly rural area, you cannot assume all the Y3 children go to the middle (junior) school 5 miles away. Parents can, and will, get their children into Y3 at the nearer primaries if there are spaces. This is possibly keeping those schools afloat.

With falling rolls, the schools are all scrabbling for the same children. Unless you can persuade people with time and money to go to your school rather than a town school or the birth rate increases, this position won’t be fixed by being a primary.

38 isn’t great but I know a primary school in the Lake District that, 2 years ago, didn’t have a single YR or Y1 child. Around me there have been infant schools with 20 children. I know of several more. It’s not sustainable but they are all c of e.

Bubbles - it's a first school (up to Y4) not an infant school.

I agree that the school's CofE nature is a potential saviour. However there is another (Outstanding) CofE primary nearby, which from its numbers is also not full, so I would suspect that it's not immune.

It seems to be in a somewhat odd position within an area with both 3 tier and 2 tier systems (always supposing I have identified it correctly, which isn't guaranteed - but there aren't many first schools recently saved by becoming primaries according to Google)

I have tried to get on the Board, but my face doesn't fit.

The most obvious way to become a governor is to stand for election as a parent governor. If all the parents are on your side as you say you will have no trouble getting elected. Of course, you may find that they say one thing to your face and something else behind your back.

If you tried to get co-opted or volunteered to be a local authority governor they may simply feel they have enough governors already rather than it being a case of your face not fitting.

I agree with others that trying to get rid of the head and the chair of the governors would not be a sensible way of proceeding if you really want the school to stay open. They at least need to be given a chance.

I can't see how wrap around care is financially viable unless the majority of families use it. And given the school numbers the school definitely can't afford to subsidise it.
If the school is that small it is likely that the head is teaching a fair amount. Governors often (like all bar one of my governing body) have a job.
I personally think it's an unrealistic ask and I doubt the school is viable in the longer term.
Round here, I'm worried about a school down the road from us that has 65 pupils. I worry about my own school that has less than 200.

Wrap around care looks as if it will be provided by a local nursery (which obviously has other sources of income too) with a local community minibus service doing the transport.

That could work - a small school i taught in had a similar link with a local day nursery (0-5s during school hours, also took 4-8s before / after school) and that was viable because it had another source of income too.

I am Chair of an inner city two form entry school whose role is going to start falling soon. As it will in a number of schools in the Borough, we have been discussing this for some time in our meetings. Why? A number of complex reasons: Universal Credit has driven out a number of families; gentrification of areas raising the cost of housing; people having fewer children; housing being built but being sold lock, stock and barrel to overseas investors. We have even had meetings with our LA to discuss this, although they were somewhat shocked by our radical solutions.

Most of the above we can do very little about, we back onto another primary school which mirrors ours. We were 15 pupils short in Jan for Sept, we are now full. We did not sneak around the corner and try to poach children; they come to us because we are outstanding but there will come a time when schools will have to close. For us it is less likely as we are the sustained outstanding school who have already done all of the budget planning and have trimmed our cloth accordingly because we saw it coming but we have been lucky, there are others who have taken similar steps and are in trouble.

As to removing the Head and the Chair, well you can't. It is not in your gift. If you want to help run the school then stand as a governor and see what fun it is when you have to make cuts and negotiate with a Council who have already made a decision. As this a village school take a look at how your head stretches their budget and how many unpaid hours they do.

Unfortunately the DfE is a n a mission to close smaller schools and poaching children to try and stem the bleed will not stop them.

I have also found your school. I am taken aback to see the makeup of the governing body but see there are two vacancies - surely they should be asking for nominations for the parent one?

Have you read the C of E's recent report into small rural schools? I see your head has been in place for a while. Certainly in our diocese, if the head were to leave the governors would be required to consider other options including an exec headteacher shared with another school and I think it would be difficult to justify otherwise. I don't know what the state of your building is but if it needs much work doing, the expense might not be justified. In summary - be careful what you wish for.

In my La, we had “first” schools that go up to year 2 because that’s the end of KS1. Its natural to change then. We now call them infant schools. I wouldn’t want to stay to y4 and I assume the children go to secondary in y8 or y9. Just not what I would like. Around here we used to do 12 plus transfer but abandoned that many years ago as the primaries didn’t cover the curriculum well enough, eg French and Maths, and parents disliked children treading water. A building programme extended the secondary schools. At that time the infant schools went to Y3.

My LA has closed nothing! It’s very hard to close schools now and c of e ones never close. Governors have to manage their budgets. If they are not viable, they have to come to that conclusion. With many schools now being full, the smaller ones have survived.

If there is a parent governor vacancy, they must advertise it. They cannot sit on it. They must try and recruit into the other vacancy too.

200 is a very healthy size if the school is rural! School provision should always be organic. I can very much see the argument that providing lots of small rural schools near each other is a total waste of money. It makes people happy but when funds are short, it certainly stops all the schools being funded properly. Small schools cost more to run. Why do we need schools in some locations when there are so few children? It appears to be because the Church has a mission to keep them, but it’s the LA budgets that pay for them. Maybe the church should put the money in to keep them open? That might concentrate their minds!

surely they should be asking for nominations for the parent one

The document listing the governors is dated May 2017. It may be that the vacancy has been filled since then. I am unclear why they show a vacancy for a co-opted governor.

Bubbles, elsewhere in the country (e.g. Worcestershire) there are still First, Middle and Upper schools.

There are 2 models, which often work quite close to one another:
First R-Y4; Middle Y5-Y7; Upper Y8-Y13
First R-Y5; Middle Y6-Y8; Upper Y9-Y13

These often run alongside RC schools that have the classic primary / secondary structure.

Some First and Middle schools have merged / federated, but still transfer at Y8 / Y9 rather than the 'classic' Y7, usually with class teaching for R-Y6, then subject teaching for Y7 and Y8

A few Upper schools are mooting a shift to start in Y7, and that is threatening viability of the whole structure, especially the smallest First schools not federated with Middle schools.

The OP's school is odd in that its nearest schools are all primaries, feeding at Y7 into secondaries but it itself appears to belong to a neighbouring 3 tier area, with Middle and Upper / High schools. It seems to be a county wheer both structures remain present, but it looks as if the school is trying to 'have its cake and eat it' by offering the chance for some children to transfer to Middle school for Y5, and others to transfer to a classic secondary at Y7, and of course the balance between the two will depend on the relative quality of the 'next schools' concerned.