Having a sleepless night after conversation with HT....

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I am a primary Senco in large school, on SLT designated for LAC and CP. At the moment I do Reading Recovery in the morning and Senco in the afternoon - organising support staff, meetings, etc etc. My HT has just told me that from September I will be working 1 day a week as PPA cover. I was a bit shocked and it's only just sinking in - I'm being asked to put in another full working day on top of what I already do - how can I do this and how should I tackle it with HT! I'm beyond furious and can't sleep with the stress of this

Our Reading Recovery groups were all run by TAs, would you rather that happened?
She should have discussed it with you and asked how you felt about it, but she's a boss and she's probably concerned about her budget. As SLT, she's probably expecting more of you.

Your TAs can't be running Reading Recovery lessons as they can only be run by Teachers with a full years training under their belt. Budget is not a huge issue for my school, that's why I'm surprised at this decision - am trying to work out the reasons for it....

We had two TAs with full training, one of whom was also a qualified teacher.
You need to have a meeting and ask the reasoning behind it with a clear head, and I'd recommend listing your objections as to why it wouldn't be possible. Then you need to decide what you'll do if the response is inflexible as it appears to have been presented to you as a done deal with no negotiation or input required from you.
How are relationships in your school usually? Autocratic or democratic?
I find most staff underestimate how incredibly full-on being a SENCO is.

If I were you, I would speak to the head to seek clarification on how your working week is supposed to happen. It may be that it is anticipated that RR & SENCO can be done in 4 days not 5.

I'm afraid my head is def on the autocratic spectrum and can be petty if she thinks she has been crossed. We usually get on quite well as I generally go the extra mile for her and we have dealt with some diff Things within school together. However I think this might just be proving a bit of a point - 'I have the power' which is why I'm p off.

So the only way you might be able to negotiate is with logic, rather than appealing to her better nature and sense of fairplay. Good luck.

Could you do it as part of 're-jigging' the timetable for the start of the new school year?

Logic sounds like the way to go....I'll see how far I get with it. I really would love to work for a reasonable HT - never met one yet ??

I hear you!

Hi hadalife - what do you mean 'rejigging'

Oh OP, I feel your pain. I'm not school-based now but some years ago I ended up being an almost full-time teaching deputy head in a year 6 class (that had a third of its pupils at risk of permanent exclusion), assessment coordinator, Literacy coord, music coord, conductor of school choir ... I was pulling 90 hour weeks at one point and, needless to say, it was completely unsustainable ...

To add to what others have suggested, perhaps go the 'logic' route but with the angle of safeguarding and potential implications should there be a sudden concern surrounding a LAC or CP ie a child makes a disclosure. I'm presuming that if something happened early on on the day you were teaching, you'd have to deal with this as a matter of urgency and this would impact on others' PPA. Of course, the head may argue that the teachers who you were covering would have to return to class and then have cover at another time.

Are there high numbers of pupils on the at risk register?

It's best to try to completely take your feelings out of the equation when speaking to the head and stick only to facts as in,

'I've had the weekend to think about the new arrangement we discussed on Friday and I have a few concerns...'

Avoid any 'I feel...' statements (easier said than done) and try to present facts from an objective viewpoint.

Appeal to the head's better nature (ahem, if there is one)

For you!

If you're being asked to do a day's teaching next year then the conversation to be having is 'how my other duties will be reduced in order to make this feasible'. So who will be doing the Reading Recovery on the day you are teaching, covering your SENCO duties and which meetings will be cut.

I can understand in a time of budget cuts that the HT might need you to teach, but they also will need to be aware that the provision that you would otherwise be providing will suffer.

If the HT suggests that you can still do it all, then you are perfectly entitled to point out that that's impossible.

I think this is indicative of the strain in the system. Basically now, if you are not at breaking point you are taking up too much space.

I was at a meeting this week where an already very stretched support service were being told that they needed to be more profitable and this may mean that in the near future their time might be traded to other counties.

I've already been invalided out of one job with stress and I'm not going to let it happen again- but I can see it is going to be a constant battle to resist the pressure.

Thanks for your replies. I will try to keep calm and logical as you have suggested - I know that's the right way to go when I tackle it on Monday. What really gets my goat as well is that I'm having to think through all of this and feeling anxious when I should be winding down after a full on week at school!! GRrrr!

Can I suggest you go into the meeting with an overview of ALL the roles/tasks you take in currently. Then you can approach this logically as - what shall I NOT do to teach a full day? (and do you not then get your own ppa pro rata for that?) I agree to try to stay logical but this would set out clearly the many things you do...

I'm amazed that budget isn't a concern in your school though; it is in all of the state schools around here!