School - BBC 2 - 9 pm

[HollowTalk]

Anyone watching?

*you not you're - messing up my Manics quote!

I just watched this on catch up.

My first thought was that the need to cut £300k plus from the budget due to cash reserves finally running out was an indication of appalling financial mismanagement over the previous ten years.

In a situation like this, cash reserves are there to mitigate against extraordinary changes to budgets so the impact is not so sudden, not to plug continual deficits.

I noticed one of the teachers alluding to this when he said that there was always money for some areas.

Castle is also appears to suffers from social policy bleed where, somehow, it has become expected that educational environments should provide social and emotional support to children, and teachers should be surrogate social workers. The school and its staff are expected to fulfil roles that not only they are not paid for, but are also unqualified to do. If a child is having three panic attacks a week, that child needs to see a GP with possible referral to Camhs (which also needs a massive cash injection), not to be "supported" in the school environment.

I think what we are seeing in schools is the consequences of certain modern political attitudes towards the state: namely, that people expect the state to resolve issues and problems that, fundamentally, are not within its remit. So in order to answers these criticisms, the government uses schools as a vector for social policy. The result is that schools are now expected to solve a number of problems in society, which they have neither the money or the ability to do.

So you don't believe things were said to her?

Are we just going to be like white people who claim that this racism doesn't exist?

The teacher said himself she was a black girl in a predominantly white school.

It also said at the end that she hasn't been any further trouble.

There were potentially vile enough kids there or people who hate the school enough to write and draw all those nasty things on the graffiti. So perfectly believable that the schopl is rife with alot of stuff no one knows about .

Given the stuff just says happens at school with nothing really done about it is day 2 day exclusion was quite heavy.

Dd says

I believe it was suspected that the graffiti was done by ex Castle school pupils who had been excluded / expelled. It was also highly unusual. Nothing like it has happened and I have had children at this school for over a decade. A bit unlucky for the school to have TV crews there at the time.

PackingSoap, it's my understanding that schools are not allowed to keep lots of money in reserve actually - that is my husband's experience in senior management at primary level. They are not businesses - they don't have 'income streams' that they can choose to increase, they are at the total behest of government funding whims. When that gets cut they can't suddenly stop teaching 200 kids, annexe off 15% of the school building or lay off teachers and double up on class sizes overnight. They are expensive beasts with commitments to the kids already in their care, that cannot be quickly streamlined/amended and taken off course.

I also believe we are seeing teachers and schools plugging the gaps in areas where public sector provision has been woefully cut, youre right they are not qualified or paid for this - but it is not their choice or fault. On any given day my husband and his colleagues act as counsellors, social workers, family liaison workers, they liaise with the police, they fill the gaps where there are no longer speech and language therapists/educational psychologists/school nurses etc etc - because the govt cut these roles but the needs are still there. They fill ALL the gaps. Because as people have mentioned above they feel there is no other choice and they love these kids. Their goodwill is abused again and again and this level of heavy and unfair responsibility is totally unsustainable. My husband loves his job and is not ready to quit teaching (yet) but he wants to do fewer days at the coalface as it's so draining and worrying. He's not alone, this is how most, if not all, teachers feel in my experience of talking to many of them.

So I'm the person who made the comment "this is why people go private"

So I'm just a casual viewer in this instance. I know NOTHING about South Glos schools so I'm just basing my entire impression of the school on what the documentary makers choose to present I have no "skin in the game" so to speak

So I'm being shown a school that has massive budget cuts, no trips, no enrichment, no pastoral care, blocked sinks, broken windows, and more cuts to come.

Teachers are making comments like :

"If the parents knew what was really going on"

"Staff morale is at an all time low"

"More cuts to come"

Of course I'm going to take the impression that it's a sink school

Then I come on here and lots of people who do have skin in the game have said it's one of the most desirable states in the area, and has achieved national notice for that.

So now I'm like one of two things is true

1. The documentary is misleading and they've portrayed a good performing school as failing to thrive one which is worrying

2. The documentary is not misleading it's accurate and circumstances for schools are so bad nationally that a below average school is now considered a good one comparatively to either the local area or nationally. Which is a bit scary.

I meant no offence with the comment but I'd say a lot of people who saw the show, not knowing South Glos said the same or similar.

I would absolutely say it's point 2.

Actually sorry misread that / didn't read properly as walking toddler to school! I don't agree with either poinglt. This is/was an excellent school. It's been decimated because the education system is in absolute crisis.

It is an excellent state comprehensive school which gets good results..... multiple children get all A* and A's for GCSE for example.

It is a clear example of how funding will be impacting on ALL schools across the country. Although South Gloucestershire does come off much worse in the funding formula.

If you think this is bad wait until you see the other schools in the CSET academy.

I don't think most parents in the area could afford the private route although a few children do leave each year.

The teachers comments you cite above could be said of ANY state school right now: primary, secondary including grammars. S Glos is particularly badly affected. But this is the national picture and that's what the teachers were referring to.

But that's still more or less point two

It was an excellent school, everything about it that made it excellent has been stripped away, so it's now average/below average but that historic background push means it's still considered better than the alternatives because people think it's still what it used to be on name recognition but it's not.

Exactly Castle999 I'm dreading seeing Marlwood knowing how excellent it also used to be.

I see your point.

The children getting the good results in my ds's year will have benefited from better resources in the past. So going forward the results might drop. However the kids do have fairly committed parents so that will help.

Apparently a member of the public, with no children in the school, brought donuts into the school today. How lovely.

It is weird. Fifteen years ago Marlwood used to be considered the better school in the area.

Doughnuts (sorry ....doughnut brain here).

Really Castle999? That's so lovely. I feel like offering to volunteer as some kind of learning support but my youngest is with my full time so it's not easy.

Actually, my comment wasn't really "this is why people go private"

It was more a reference to MN threads were an OP has said "we are having to go private because our local state schools aren't an option" and it is stated by many other posters that they are uninformed or prejudiced and that there SIMPLY MUST be a good state or good enough in their LA

This illustrates that there are many areas in which what the OP says must be true even though they aren't being believed.

Oh that is lovely @Castle999

Yes - for the staff obviously. You would need several trucks for the children as there are hundreds of children in each year group.

I watched this programme with interest. I have experience of being a school governor and budget deficits are not new. Schools are told to manage their own budgets and are responsible for deficits yet many issues affecting budgets and funding are outside of their control - central government allocations, falling roles due to low birth rate years, LAs allowing some schools to increase PAN when low birth rates lead to falling roles, LAs choosing to claw back cash reserves, increases in expenditure (wages, pensions, NI contributions, utilities etc) while income flat, historic lack of spending on buildings so that schools are having to pay out huge amounts to maintain old buildings, boilers, IT systems - the list goes on. Cuts mean that schools employ more NQTs because they are much cheaper than experienced staff but then who mentors these NQTs? Who provides the much needed experience when long standing teachers leave? The end result is that students and staff suffer.

MATs are just making a bad situation worse. The amount of money that they top slice from schools funding can be huge and this leaves schools with even less to manage on.

The whole education system is in an appalling mess and to the poster who said schools are doing things that they shouldn't - yes it's true. We had to fund basically a mini social services department in our school. Why? Because external agencies weren't there - CAMHS, SS all barely coping with demand. Schools are like the police - they are left to pick up the pieces when everything else fails. Schools are seeing these students every day. What are they meant to do when confronted with vulnerable students possibly at risk of CSE, or maybe hungry or dirty or being left to fend for themselves or suffering from MH problems? They do what they can to help.

What Weetabixandshreddies said ^ 😥

Bad time to have the sixth form open evening. I wonder what the questions will be from prospective parents.