Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

More cuts, worried about own DC

43 replies

PeerFeedback · 09/01/2020 17:34

Our school is going to have to find a way to save £250k by next year. Looking as if lots of the TAs and ISAs on one year contracts will not have theirs renewed & a lot of the more experienced staff are talking about jumping before they are pushed. As a relatively cheap RQT I'm not too worried for my own job but it does make me anxious for my DC, who are in another local school that I know is facing similar. I have learnt so much from working with more experienced staff and the fact they are constantly being replaced by relatively inexperienced teachers (such as myself) worries me. All schools need a balance. These cuts will mean the most vulnerable children lose out and selfishly im.worriee about how this will directly impact on my own DC as the lack of support in the classroom spirals. DH has suggested private and I am tempted , wrong as it is the current system is so broken & makes me so angry if i can buy a way out of it for my own DC part of me wants to. Anyone had / having similar thoughts.

Before I became a parent I would have shouted you down now I'm not so sure.

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 09/01/2020 19:52

But Boris would lie tell you he ahs piled loads of money into schools.

I am afraid it's what people voted for ...

CatAndFiddle · 09/01/2020 21:50

I just started a job on Monday in a private school. Like you, I was worried about my son.....and I also wanted to escape the OFSTED madness for myself. You only see the true extent of the mess of state education when you work in it.
I wanted better for my son. I am transferring him to my new school in September.

cdtaylornats · 09/01/2020 23:01

Corbyn would have killed your private option stone dead so it would be take what a poverty stricken country could afford.

TheFallenMadonna · 09/01/2020 23:08

Huge funding boost coming.
Gavin Williamson says so...
So it must be true.

Piggywaspushed · 10/01/2020 07:07

Not in education are you cd. You have NO idea. Education is already poverty stricken.

CarrieBlue · 10/01/2020 08:15

Not confident that you made the right decision with your vote @cdtaylornats? Very defensive with your ‘if this had happened, I reckon it would have been worse’ comment. Would have been nice to find out though, since it’s pretty much as bad as it could be in education.

minesadecaf · 10/01/2020 16:33

I moved to private years ago along with my own children. I don't regret my decision for a second.

Kuponut · 10/01/2020 20:19

I'm terrified at what's happening for my own kids - one will be OK - bright, loud enough not to be overlooked but not enough to be a massive pain in the arse... the other has SEN, the kind that are never going to attract funding or resources, and these days the TA support that might have put some interventions in place for kids like her has gone because of funding - and an eager to please, well behaved and quiet kid who doesn't rock the boat is pretty damned low on a list of priorities really.

It's not a teacher-bash - her teacher is amazing - but it's just how it is... depressing number of years ago when I started teaching she would have been one of the kids getting some support and intervention groups but now isn't "bad" enough for the minuscule amount of remaining resources. We resource what we can for her ourselves, and I volunteer as much time as I can to help out at school so staff get freed up to do much more constructive things than the fiddly time-sink things like filing kids' work and cutting resources out and laminating and the like... but there's only so much that goodwill from staff and parents can plug the holes in the sinking system.

backtomyteachername · 10/01/2020 20:22

I’m not convinced Labour would have been the answer, to be honest, but the ‘this is what people voted for’ isn’t hugely helpful.

I wouldn’t send my kids private, though.

PeerFeedback · 10/01/2020 20:24

Yes this is it. I'm just scared. The playground at lunchtime is a joke - 180 children in & out with 3 staff members. It really worries me. Behaviour getting worse as 1:1s and class TA support cut. Very little parental support just constant criticism . Sorry have had a bad day. I know it's wrong but I feel more & more like if I can buy a way out for my own dc I will,I cant see it getting better anytime soon under Gavin..

OP posts:
PeerFeedback · 10/01/2020 20:27

DD is a trier and a good kid but because she quietly gets on she gets left. Not aimed at her teacher at all - I am ashamed to say I am forced to do just the same, to be focusing on the kids that may kick off anytime / bolt I have to just hope the quieter ones can get on.

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 10/01/2020 20:29

I know it's not helpful... it's frustration!

I feel like education was totally on the back burner at the election. Even on the very well informed politic threads on here it was all about Brexit and the NHS. Where is the discussion? I feel like once people have no DCs in education (unless they are teachers/work in schools) they really couldn't give a shiny shit.

backtomyteachername · 10/01/2020 20:32

Well, I don’t think it’s that, but more that other things take precedence.

LadyMonicaBaddingham · 10/01/2020 20:38

We lost nearly all of our lunchtime supervisors lady year. The TAs are having to pick up a lot of that job too. Luckily for the children the one lady that's left is a fucking saint and works far harder than she should have to for what I suspect she earns...

Grasspigeons · 10/01/2020 20:47

Go to your MP surgery and talk to them to make sure they know you care about this issue.
I met with mine this week to talk specifically about SEN. I wanted to push my MP to understand the issue more. Democracy isnt just the day of a vote. We have to use every avenue open.

Piggywaspushed · 10/01/2020 20:58

My MP doesn't have a surgery... she lives 200 miles away.

Grasspigeons · 10/01/2020 21:19

Thats a bit crap! Write/email ask gor avphone sppointment?
I've become all zealous. Ive bern on marches? Ive spoken at hustings and now i am badgering my MP.

Piggywaspushed · 10/01/2020 21:34

Mine is Nadine Dorries... so no point, sadly...

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2020 12:05

I feel like education was totally on the back burner at the election. Even on the very well informed politic threads on here it was all about Brexit and the NHS. Where is the discussion?

I tried piggy!! Actually, I called the outcome of the election back in November because no one gave a shit about school funding on here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3739292-Tories-to-continue-to-run-schools-into-the-ground

Unfortunately the Conservatives headed the conversation off at the pass by promising billions more for schools (spread over many years etc etc) and everyone now thinks it’s all sorted.

More cuts, worried about own DC
Piggywaspushed · 11/01/2020 12:09

I think I am getting more and more depressed about this. A few of us tried to open up conversations about it on the friendlier Brexit thread and were ignored. People will always discuss NHS no matter what.

Piggywaspushed · 11/01/2020 12:10

There's a n attendance thread (which I should have stayed away from) where people are simultaneously saying the NHS has neither time nor money to deal with sick children, or do unpaid overtime to do paperwork whilst suggesting schools should do all of this and pay doctors' fees.

PeerFeedback · 11/01/2020 12:20

YY to all of these. Unfortunately I think children obviously dont realise what's happening so 9/10 if they are asked if they have had a nice day they say yes. Therefore unless you work in a school most parents think child is happy & that's enough (as it should be). But unfortunately the day to day reality in many schools is very far from this. This is my theory anyway. Whereas cuts in the NHS are perceived to affect more people who will speak out about it .

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 11/01/2020 12:22

Where’s the attendance thread?

I don’t know how the momentum from 2017 about school cuts has just completely disappeared though. It wasn’t just during the election period, I noticed it just slowly drain away over time after 2017. But it’s not because things were getting any better!

I don’t know how to communicate to parents just how bad the teacher shortage crisis is either.

Piggywaspushed · 11/01/2020 12:31

I recommend you don't look for it!

The school cuts never translated into non Labour voters changing their vote. I also think most schools pretty successfully cushion students and parents from the Cuts.

Plus, like the nurses, there will be more teachers and more money. Honest.

noblegiraffe · 11/01/2020 13:57

It kind of implies that we don’t need more money doesn’t it, if parents can’t tell the difference?

But the cuts have been going on for so long now that they don’t know how it used to be - the decade the Tories have been in power is longer than a kid is in secondary school.

They only really realise if their kid is referred to CAMHs and bounced back to the school or has special needs and can’t get a special school place. Even kids having a string of supply teachers seems to be met with a shrug these days.