Worried about my new HOD

[BrickQuoter]

Hi, I have a new HOD who started in May. There has a lot gone on since they started which has raised red flags for me. Our HOD was employed to improve results for IT and Computer Science as that is their specilism well as teach business studies. In their first month they were asked by the SLT member to work with a IT student whose coursework was being sampled by the exam board. The HOD had taught this IT course before at their previous school. When my HOD gave it to the IT key stage co-ordinator in our department to send off, the key stage co-ordinator said it was all wrong. Then they were pressured into 'fixing it' by the SLT member and not to tell our new HOD that the what they told the student to write was wrong.

Before breaking up for summer holidays, five BTEC level 3 students from my HODs business class came to me because they were worried that the whole class had no feedback or corrections for their coursework assignments whereas my class had loads to do. I looked on the business tracker to find my HODs class and all of their students had been awarded the highest grade. My own class eventually found out and berated me for making them do loads of corrections when my HODs class had been given none. This rang alarm bells to me because my HOD has never taught this BTEC level 3 business course before let alone knows what criteria to look for. They pressured me to give three of my students higher grades than they deserved when these students constantly missed deadlines and plagerised each other.

This also happened with the yr10 business students where the member of SLT bypassed the previous HOD who is still in the department and worked very hard with the yr10s on their business coursework to get the new HOD to do a hour drop down session. The new HOD once again has never taught this course or marked it before or involved in the standardisation for the coursework. In that hour the new HOD increased students by at least two grades and some by three grades.

I am really worried about going back in September and working with this person. They are doing some really bad things that I can't comprehend. I don't feel I can go to SLT as they all love my new HOD because they have setup a whole school mental health draw each friday where one staff member wins a prize.

I am really anxious about going back and need advice about what I should do as I have not been teaching long.

I can’t offer you any advice but you have my sympathy. This sort of shit was part of the reason I decided to quit teaching. The school was horrific for many reasons (went into special measures recently) but I was placed in a similar situation. The result for me was that I received abuse from students for not ‘giving them the answers’ for coursework like the other teacher. When I raised concerns with SLT I was made to feel that I was the one in the wrong. I ended up being off with stress and ultimately decided to quit and the teacher in question got a promotion at the end of term! Unfortunately so much of this goes on in teaching!

Hi

Yes favoritism over actual competency. New SLT in my school did this and over promoted staff with no experience or evidence they could do the role. They seemed to be just plucked out of thin air after being there a very short time. It is never called out though as people are too scared to challenge very poor decisions making which leads to a very poor outcome for both the students and experience staff who actually have integrity. Sorry do not think it will improve. I got out.

Have you posted about this before? Maybe with lessons detail? Sorry if it wasn't you, just ringing a bell.

Anyway, it sounds very difficult/strange for all concerned and it seems, from your post, that SLT are not acknowledging that there is a problem with this person's work and in fact, seem to be favouring them?
Unfortunately, I too have seen this happen before - someone I worked with who was basically not doing the job they were paid for but working on another project in school that SLT liked 🙄 I got a new job in the end.

If you cannot raise it with SLT/they are not listening, then I would advise the following for now;

1. Make sure your work is spot on - continue to do everything well, follow exam board rules on coursework etc.

1. Keep records of anything that happens e.g. when you were pressured into increasing grades.

1. Consider job hunting.

In short, make sure you cover yourself - seek confidential union advice if you need to. These things have a habit of coming out in the end and if/when it does, you want to make sure you have done everything correctly.

I thought I'd read this before too, and agree with everything you've said.

Honestly I think that in situations like this (it happens all too often unfortunately) that the best course of action is to find a different job and leave. You don't want to be caught in the cross fire when parents start complaining etc, and that level of incompetence just makes the job too infuriating to put up with.