Families are leaving our primary school. What can we do?

[Gruffalowings]

Does anybody have any experience of significant numbers of families leaving a primary school? And is there anything we remaining parents can do about it?

It seems that 10% of our year group left at the end of this term (to neighbouring schools), and I think there are others to follow.

It is two-form entry. Gets very good results - the best in the area. Is long-established in the community.

I am feeling a bit shocked about the movement. Is there anything those of us remaining can do to support the school community?

@Gruffalowings Really? You have no idea! Not much about community or being a chair of governors (yes I was!) at a failing school. So maybe I just know a bit about governance.

Parents gossip all the time by the way. Parents not at the school gate are maybe less aware. Some parents won’t have any idea and live in their bubble because their dc are not affected. It’s the job of governors to really know their school. By thinking everyone feels the same or wants exactly the same from a school is just for the birds. Very few schools please all the people all of the time.

I have been the ‘parent who removed a child’ - and was an involved, volunteering, supportive parent up to that point, knowing pretty much all the parents in my child’s class.

To support the school, when I was asked about why my child left (I was seen as ‘knowing about education’ so it did worry others), I always emphasised that the reasons were specific to us and our child’s needs.

However, the underlying causes of these reasons (poor teacher; extreme behaviour by an individual child; indecisive leadership) did ultimately affect others within the relevant year group and there was quite significant movement. About 1 in 4 of that year group left and the school overall shrank by about 2/5 over the following years. This was a local, historically well supported school in a very tight community.

There is nothing you as a ‘happy’ parent can do other than continue to emphasise that you are happy if asked, and keep a very careful eye out for patterns or factors that could disadvantage your child now or in the future eg a particular poor teacher or poorly served subgroup (boys; SEN; more able). Nothing ‘social / community building’ will help if something is fundamentally broken within the school.

I would also say that Tizer is correct - a teacher governor in their own school is limited in the influence they can have (though it is a vital role in and of itself within the governing body).

One option you could take to support your child’s school is for one of you to resign as teacher governor in your own school and stand for election as parent governor when a vacancy next occurs.

But there’s no issue with governance in my DC’s school. They don’t have parent vacancies and the board are credible competent people who attend the meetings. They are visible and approachable and—as much as I can gather from any board—good at holding themselves and the Head to account.

DH and I have taught for over twenty years’ each and have been governors for almost all that time. I was also a parent governor for my dcs’ state maintained nursery.

There is much on this thread that seems sensible and plausible, but this supposed dichotomy between teacher-governors and parent-governors is absolute nonsense. And it is offensive. The suggestion that teachers do it for their cv is also offensive —dh and I have spent our careers in education. We happen to be interested in it? Why would this be difficult to understand?

What kind of dysfunctional set-up considers a teacher-governor role to be less effectual than a parent-governor and urges people to resign from their commitments to these positions? How dare they, frankly?

I feel incensed that there are people claiming themselves to be school governors on here who are sharing—with some claim of authority—these groundless opinions. There are absolutely ineffectual governing bodies that drive schools into the ground (with no accountability for doing so), but my dc’s school is a solid board.

Apologies,I should have explained my thinking more.

Your aim when you posted seemed to be to find out what you can do about families leaving your child’s school.

Other than simply being accurately positive about your own child’s experience there, the most realistic way (to me) to be able to understand the extent and the patterns of departure, and what is already being done about it, would be to have access to the confidential data and discussions that are typically available to Governors.

Armed with that information, you would then be in the best position to decide what you would be able to do to reverse the situation.

On different types of governor, my only point was that all have valuable, but different, parts to play, and simply through governance rules, there are some restrictions on what each type can do (as a staff governor, I was always required to be absent from any discussion of remuneration, for example). In the context where you were wondering ‘what to do’, for the reasons outlined above I thought becoming a governor was one option, and couldn’t imagine that you would want both to teach and then be a governor at two schools…

We’ve removed our children due to the school’s crusade on gender identity and its clear intent to push the ideology that children can change their gender at any opportunity. We’re not the only ones up in arms at this.

Is any teaching like that going on at your school?

@Gruffalowings You would not have to be a parent governor but it’s best for obvious reasons.

@cantkeepawayforeverThanks for support. Governors have different roles and it’s not offensive to say so.