Results not good

[justnotgoodenough]

I need to be brief and vague but I am beside myself atm.

I am HoD of a core subject and was new in post this year, though not new to the school. The department had serious issues this year which were outside my control - especially staffing, which was less than 50% what it should have been.

We did so much for the Y11s but it turns out it just wasn't enough. the results overall are very bad, but my dept is among the worst. I wen in today but head was tied up. I emailed at lunchtime to ask about remarks and about a crucial matter that I need an answer to in order to prepare properly for next week. No reply. He promised me an answer to this question last week and I know his emails go to his phone. I feel I am going to be scapegoated. What on earth do I do?

I imagine you've got Mars of evidence to back up how much you did for your y11. And I bet you have lots of plans for improving (what is in your hands) going forward.
Have that clear in your mind and remember that you did the best for your students.

Masses*

Keep calm. Write out in note form everything you have detailed here. For example, class 11Z's teacher was on safari from January - May and lessons covered by the art technician. Hopefully not true, but you get the gist. Say who planned lessons and who taught them.

Part of your role is to come up with a strategy to ensure that things improve. Look at what happened, why it happened, what you did at the time and what you could have done differently. Keep it all factual and not emotive.

It may be that the Head wants to think things through and not come up with a knee-jerk reaction, hence not replying immediately. If you can bring him/her solutions and an honest acknowledgement of any issues, it should strengthen your case significantly. HTH

Thank you both.

I put so much in place this year, but none of it seems to have paid off, which is gut-wrenching. But I know that staff were being pulled so many ways and behaviour was utterly appalling. But that all looks like excuses...

I just feel it's so rude not to reply to me. And the Head of Governors blanked me and looked at me like I was shot on his shoe this morning. I can't look at the results anymore - some of the kids have dropped 2 grades from their mock, yet our tiny dept has 3 exam markers in it and we thought we were harsh...

But with the best will in the world, you will have only had 2.5 terms with them. A core subject needs the full preceding school career to have been working towards the GCSE and it sounds like this was not perhaps the case. You can only do so much in a relatively short time. Is there any kid who has exceeded expectations? Were grades far away from departmental targets (as opposed to those the school imposes on you)?

I don't know if this works for your subject but I am a member of the FB group for my new exam board for GCSE. It has been brilliant to share experiences with colleagues across the country. Most of us were ok today - I had more 9s than I dared hope for, but a couple who could have got 7 managed a 6. Some exceeded expectations, a few did not quite meet them, but overall I'm pleased. However, we aren't a "stand-out" department this year, but I honestly don't mind.

Give your Head a couple of days and try not to worry. The fact that you have markers in your team is really positive. Do they have anything useful to contribute?

I totally agree with what PP said.

Who was your line manager? Did they agree with what was put in place? Were you supported as a new HoD of a core subject? Did you follow School initiatives? If so then it can't just be you who is the scapegoat.

Use this set of grades as a benchmark for next year, learn from them. Join Facebook groups (I joined many, lots of different exam boards), they are a wealth of knowledge.

The Head must know the issues you face, you got the role in your merit, so they must have faith in you.

Good luck

How do your results compare with targets set in Year 7?

Line manager was pretty much invisible throughout the year, despite knowing the state the department was in and the behaviour problems that were occurring across the school.

There were no whole school initiatives to follow really. The Facebook group for our subject is great and I've looked at the examiner's report and know we are teaching it right - assuming everyone is following SoW correctly, but it's hard to do QA when you spend all your time setting cover and trying to sort behaviour, with no support from above. There is certainly stuff we can change and we will, but I genuinely think the majority of our problems come from factors outside my control and unless they are addressed this will happen again next year to one extent or another.

I feel like the head doesn't rate me, appointed me because he had no choice and is looking for an excuse to stick the knife in. Now he has one. I've been looking for other jobs, but as a lp I can't afford to take much of a pay cut or work further away so it's very hard to find anything suitable.

The results are way below the students' targets, which were aspirational, of course. Some students have under-performed regardless of what their target was, and that is so disappointing, for them mainly, but we are in an area where they are happy with a 4 or 5 regardless (not all of them, obviously, but a lot). There were students celebrating getting 3s yesterday because they had always got 1s in mocks. I would understand if they had worked hard to get to a 3, but they were on 1s because they did no work. To be able to then pull a 3 out on the day shows that had they just worked moderately hard throughout the two years they'd have got decent grades. The ethos desperately needs to change.

I will have to go in today and try and see him as I can't get ready for next week without his answer to a question about a matter that should have been sorted before we broke up. It's utterly ridiculous, but I believe he was waiting for the results to answer me, and now the fact that he still hasn't got back to me is very ominous.

I just can't work like this...

I hope it goes well today, you must feel under an enormous amount of stress.
It sounds like you're in the same boat as many other depts, did any do well?
Have you been able to look at the results of other core subjects?

The kids' results are not your results. You can lead a horse to water... and all.

I blame is stupid emphasis on using statistical inference as fact and obsession with accountability.

Make the kids partially responsible. If behaviour is to blame, call them out.

Go and get your answer today. This isn’t good for you, go wait until you can see the head.

If your results were bad but you worked your arse off and the school didn’t do its part by e.g. staffing your department and managing behaviour properly then fuck’em. You did your job, they didn’t do theirs.

Go in with ‘these problems that I flagged up here and here haven’t been resolved and so we can expect similar next year’.

If the head had no choice but to appoint you, then he’s hardly going to have swathes of choice to appoint a replacement.

Well, got here just after 9 and it's deserted except for someone in the office and caretakers, who tell me HT not in today!!

I can't believe he is just ignoring me and I don't know what he expects me to do this week without the info I need. It also affects another person in the department - I just think it's disrespectful.

There's plenty to do here, but I've just spent the morning sorting out rooming and adding it to a spreadsheet for the convenience of the admin staff who should be doing that. FFS, I have other priorities, but lack of any type of support from any source (above/admin etc) is typical of here.

Just wish I didn't need the job...

Text him, email, tell him you’ve gone in for the second time and you need a meeting urgently. Copy in others who need to know. Someone knows something.

I second Noble’s advice. Your HT sounds like the usual spineless type who run a blame culture. If you find yourself on the receiving end of criticism etc. you should think seriously about joining www.edapt.org.uk
which is a non-union legal advisory and representation service. HTs don’t like them because they are not ‘in their pocket’ like so many so-called reps from the former NUT, NASUWT etc. They will have seen situations like yours many times and will protect you, whatever you want the outcome to be. Don’t despair if you feel you will need to look elsewhere, other schools know how HODs are treated, and will like the fact that you are a LP too.

Try to value yourself & your contribution, and show them that the systemic problems at your school are down to them. You’ve provably done your best, and that is all you can do.

Good luck & be strong. Please don’t trust ‘normal’ unions to protect you.

Firstly calm down. I appreciate the situation is not great and the head is annoyed and of course it’s easy to blame you. I would look at residuals and clearly accept the bits you are responsible for but push back on the areas that are unfair.

Is it possible to get some marked papers back? The marking system isn’t faultless and it’s worth seeing whether you’ve had a poor marker.

I'm convinced he is planning to put someone in above me. Can he do that? I know from experience that when he doesn't respond to emails it's because he knows the response he will give won't go down well.

I'm a complete outsider here, but I wonder if the situation is one that should be raised with the school governors. If you teach a core subject I would have expected that to have been a priority with the head - they are letting the school down massively if they are ignoring it.

In the meantime work with what you've got - if the answers you are waiting for are things like, how many subject teachers are actually going to be in post, how many classes are there going to be, etc; then make some assumptions based on a reasonable worst case scenario. Decide how many classes in which year groups that allows you to staff properly. Decide which groups of students you will prioritise - eg one top class and 2 weak classes in exam years, and one class in other years - and present your proposal to the head with the governors copied in. Of course a suggestion that you start the year not even trying to teach swathes of students is absurd, but if that is all your resources are allowing the governors need to know and you can't keep trying to paper over the -cracks- great gaping holes!

How bad were things for year 10 last year? Is there any hope of getting them reasonable results this year? For them I would wonder about prioritising 1 able and 1 trying-to-get-a-4/5 class for good teaching - and only put students in those classes who will behave. Make it clear from the start of term that anyone who is prepared to work properly can join one of those classes, but that the consequence of poor behaviour is being put in a class with less proper teaching time. If enough students pull up their socks and want to work, make a mega class with 1 subject teacher and 1 cover teacher where the role of the cover is admin / behaviour / helping out / reducing the workload of the subject teacher in any realistic way.

At least some of my ideas are probably impractical rubbish though. Good luck coming up with something, and I hope you can turn things around for 2 years' time.