Any other primary schools on their knees?

[DazzlePaintedBattlePants]

Paranoid NC for this.

I’m a governor at a primary school and we are absolutely on our knees. Staff are anxious, staffing is a complete nightmare as we have staff self isolating or looking after children who are isolating, behaviour has gone to pot and we have no money. We’ve lost a senior member of staff and I suspect we will lose our HT - neither of them have to work and frankly, why the bloody hell would you be a teacher at the moment?

Children’s behaviour has deteriorated markedly - we are in a naice town, have a really low IDACI and PP indices, home lives are generally decent. Parental employment remains high. Our teachers are so stressed about pupil behaviour I am struggling to see the wood for the trees - is it just a handful of pupils or are all of our pupils going bezerk? We have struggled for years to improve behaviour and it’s always one step forward, two steps back.

I am just so worried about it all. I don’t wish this on other schools for a minute but I just can’t see what we can be doing differently. My heart goes out to staff, they just can’t win.

Sounds very familiar-I can see our deputy leaving as well. It’s a long old stretch to Christmas

Perhaps not what you want to hear, but no, I don't think that's the case everywhere. Apart from not being able to mix with other year groups and washing their hands more, I don't think school feels very different for our children (or if it does it they have adapted very quickly). I suppose our highest needs children are struggling a bit with not having breakout spaces but otherwise behaviour is as normal. It's very difficult when whole school behaviour starts going downhill and it has a huge effect on morale. Sorry to hear your school is having a hard time; I hope it can be pulled back before it escalates further.

I've worked at two schools in the last three years and they have been dramatically different in terms of pupil behaviour and general atmosphere. I'm afraid this probably isn't what you want to hear, but the main differences have been resources and management - certainly not intake. The school which struggles is smaller and less well resourced as a result. It's very hard to deal with challenging behaviour because there are vanishingly few non-teaching staff, so there's really no one to deal with major issues except the head. This leads to massive pressure on the head, which in turn leads to a rather 'under siege' mentality, which is totally understandable but doesn't help the situation or the staff or parent morale, and the whole thing becomes a bit of a vicious circle. The other school is larger and better resourced. It has a very strong SLT and, because of size and resource, it's able to make excellent provision to support the (still many) challenging children outside the classroom if necessary. This means that the classes are calmer and the teachers are happier. Because there are more people around, there is much more of a sense of teamwork, which means that the SLT are able to be proactive and confident, and there is a general air of positivity, in spite of the challenges the school still faces. It's easy to see where the differences lie - but almost impossible to see how to replicate one approach in the other environment.

Children’s behaviour has deteriorated markedly

'under siege'

These two things apply.

Thanks all. This week has been better, thankfully, and we are making progress,

You are so, so right about small schools just not having resources. We can barely staff the place, let alone have TAs on current funding- we reckon to be doing a halfway decent job you need a 2 form entry primary . Our head is massively experienced and well liked by staff, but they are only one person!

When the funding formula changed a few years ago, we lost £40k from the block grant and it was hardly replaced by the new formula. Our pupil numbers have been growing which has kept the wolf from the door but we have triggered the minimum funding guarentee every year since.