Has anyone been through the redundancy process at school?

[Redlocks30]

We are having to lose 3 teachers (medium sized primary) due to falling numbers this year.

Obviously we’ll have to get union advice and I suppose HR will get involved, but does anyone know what the criteria will be? Googling hasn’t really helped-the things I’ve read (union info) says they can’t go on performance, absence or whoever was last in? So, what do they go on?!

It was some years ago in my previous school.
In the first instance they will look for volunteers, in our case enough people left to mean there were no compulsory redundancies. I'm including early retirement agreements in this.

If there aren't enough voluntary redundancies then all eligible candidates go into a pool and they pick from there.

From my experience it takes schools a long while to settle after redundancies so if you're thinking of looking for another job then now would be a good time to start.

We’ve been through this recently.
The school was given suggested criteria from the LA but was allowed to tweak to suit.
It was done a point scoring system and we awarded points for things such as

• qualifications beyond minimum requirements
• any further study / training undertaken which was not directed by the school
• contribution to wider life of school

(Running clubs, attending fund raisers etc)

• specific skills (ranged from being able to play the piano in assembly to bring a qualified dance instructor)
• absence (negative scale)

There were a few other things I think but that was the gist of it.

Developing, coaching and mentoring other staff was another one.

I'm so glad I'm in Scotland and we can't be made redundant. FWIW if we have to lose a member of staff, then it's the person with the shortest continuous permanent service with the authority that has to be moved to another school

A few years ago my union told us (roughly) what the criteria was to KEEP staff:

1. Years of service
2. Experience across the school/key stages (so for example someone who had 10 years service but taught in KS1 & KS2 and another with 10 years but only taught KS1, then the latter would be higher on the list for redundancies)
3. Coordinator role / role across the school community

There was more but they didn't go into it in great detail.

We had redundancies for 4 continuous years before 2010 and those who left were always the temp staff and those who had less service with: a)LA then; b) the school.

I fear for mine though. I have 18 years service with the LA, 16 with the school, taught acros 2 key stages in 4 different year groups (another year group for 1 morning a week) and also went part time a couple of years ago. BUT I am joint 2nd with the highest number of years service out of 17 teaching staff (not including the HT but includes the DHT and AHT). Still worries me though seeing as our school have more CTs OUT of class than in a class!