2 Questions is 11 teachers leaving secondary school bad? and is 3rd place reserve likely to get an offer

[claudib]

sorry for multiple Qs!
We have been offered our 2nd choice of (North London) secondary school, just received the newsletter for this school and it said "we are sorry to be saying goodbye to 11 teachers" ..!
seems quite a mutiny!!
It's making me really hope we get an offer in our first choice.. We are currently 3rd on the list ( on my last check).. so 4 kids in band A will have to not take their places for us to get a chance.. are these good odds?

Could be quite usual. People move for promotion, maternity, retirement. Plus Covid made lots of people reevaluate their careers. If it’s a large staff body that might be quite usual. I work in a large comprehensive and we lose that number most years. Also some staff may have been on temporary contracts.

It really depends how big the school is and how many teachers it has. 11 could be a massive number or really very few.

Hmm we have 70 teachers, lose around 3-4 each summer.

It depends why they've gone. It could be that the head's started doing some performance management and they've gone before theure pushed, not necessarily a bad thing.

You sometimes find a staff is of a similar age and especially where there has been low turnover previously, a lot retire at once. One talks of having investigated the possibility of early retirement and then they're all at it, especially this year, I'd imagine.

Pregnancies seem to come in groups too.

Sometimes it can be because the school has developed good, ambitious teachers but can't offer them promotion.

But yes, unless it's a huge school 11 is a lot.

I work in a top 100 state school, ofsted outstanding. It’s great place to work. No big issues. But yes, some years we have had that many leave. Others year it might only be one. It is usually retirements and promoted posts elsewhere.

Typos, sorry! I blame the dog....

I worked in a large north London secondary for 5 years and this is a pretty normal number, although it depends on the size of the school. I've found that London schools have a particularly high turnover. In my current school out of London it's 2-3 a year. Lots of people go to teach abroad or move for a promotion (or before they get managed out sometimes, unfortunately). The year we lost 30 odd, including me, that was a red flag. We weren't allowed to have our usual end of year leaving celebration and speeches as it would have drawn too much attention to just how many people were leaving!

What are the schools? That will help people advise on whether a) you should be concerned and b) how likely you are to get the reserve space.

At my school, we often lose staff because a mile down the road they can get the next band up in salary weighting, and 3rd is highly likely to have a space by mid Sept, latest.

When you say Band A, is it a school where they sit a banding test? If so, band A may be smallish, and so 4 may be quite a lot. Saying that, London has a fairly transient population and this may increase as more wfh may mean people choose to move out. Some may be sitting on private school places and be undecided.

We have 120 teaching staff in my school - 11 wouldn’t be unusual. Some will retire, some relocate, some get promoted.

No Head teacher will have just started to do performance management. This scheme has been mandatory for many years. If teachers are deemed to require help to improve their teaching they should have had it over quite a period of time.

I wouldn’t necessarily worry. Teachers give notice of leaving at the end of May. If not before. Therefore the news you really needed was who has been recruited! Are they fully staffed for September? Was there news of who they are welcoming?

There are multiple reasons why teachers leave. Spouse/partner gets a job elsewhere, promotion, just want a change etc. They probably are not all leaving because they have been on the capability procedure! Also London based teachers can easily get to another school so churn is often higher due this.

If it’s a big school with 120 teachers, it’s not that bad. If it has 60 teachers it’s a lot. So context is important. You put the school 2nd so I guess you quite liked it. Did you admire the management? Do they give you confidence and did it seem happy when you visited?

Well, say you have 100 teachers. 10 leaving in a year would be 10%.

But if teachers might expect to move on every 10 years or so then that would be about right.

Some will stay for a couple of years, some for 20+. Some will start families and not return.

I don't think it's that surprising, assuming a large secondary school, especially this year where you may find that teachers getting close to retirement/thinking about leaving may have thought about it over lockdown and decided they don't want to be there in September.

But you do get blip years even in a small school. Our infants (1 head, 6 teachers, 6 TA, 2 admin) one year had 7 leave (1 head, 3 teachers, 2 TA, 1 admin). They all had different reasons (retiring/caring for elderly mum/moving with dh's job/promotion/going to teacher training) which were nothing to do with the current school, but the conspiracy theories bounding round were plainly hilarious. I don't think more than 2 staff had left in the previous 3 years and it was similar for the next 3.

Both depend on the school. DC's school quite regularly loses that sort of number - but they are a big school.

Equally getting a place depends on the school/area. 3rd would be reasonable odds at DC's school where there is a fair amount of moving in/out at the area over the summer. In North London I imagine you may have lots holding on to state and private offers who will have to relinquish one. But don't know how Covid will affect normal patterns!

We had about that many this year. 2 to be Head Teachers elsewhere, 3 to be Heads of Department elsewhere and some to be closer to where they live having joined our school as NQT without much choice at that stage. It depends on how many teachers they have to start and how good the school is. Teachers at good schools are very attractive to other schools. The trick is to replace them with equally good people coming up through the ranks.

Change of leadership can sometimes precipitate an exodus of teachers who dont' want to work under a new HT? Seems to have happened at DS's former school.

Same as NMAmayhem- the largest numbers to leave are usually when a new head arrives, for various reasons.
I do think many that are closer to retirement may have thought the pandemic situation too much to deal with and decided to retire early and not put themselves at risk. I also know some part timers who have decided not to return in September due to changing of priorities for their families in the current situation.

Is it a relatively new head?

Definitely depends on the total number of staff, we have about 120 teachers ( not all full time) And about the same again in TAs, catering, site, admin etc so to lose 11 isn’t unheard of at all. We are an outstanding comp, and a decent place to work, iirc this year we have had 5 retire, 2 move for promotion, one for relocation and a couple of TAs off to uni

Then he should be ashamed of himself.

When our local secondary school had a new "superhead" after a poor OFSTED, 42 teachers were "managed out".

The new head certainly wasn't ashamed of himself, he was very pleased indeed with himself. I know becuase he told me when I went for a job interview there which I was offered but didn't accept

Wow @RainyWinter

Idealistically I’d always hoped that it wasn’t quite that cynical when a new head starts, but seeing it written down like that is quite sobering. I’ve been the member of staff bullied managed out by a new head, that head has since been sacked managed out for being crap at their job. So it’s not always quite so cut and dried.

But to answer the question, that turnover in a big secondary school, especially in London is not unusual.

@Rainywinter shocking behaviour from your DH. How often has he done that?

I think 20% is an arbitrary figure. So that’s poor management from him to be so dogmatic. People must be given opportunities to improve. He is right to expect high standards though.

I suspect the Dh Head is a turn around specialist. Goes in, makes changes, Ofsted are happy, moves on and school crashes again because good habits are not embedded. Happens all the time and these heads just sail on regardless with their brand of improvement. Displaced staff move on and they are replaced with young malleable staff who crumble when the head honcho goes unless they follow him in his coat tails to the next school gagging to get him. Headship and football management have similarities don’t they?