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Our school can’t afford swimming lessons

A few years ago the school community did an amazing thing.  They raised enough money to fix the little swimming pool and provide weekly lessons for the children.

Sadly, that pool closed last year because there isn’t enough money to fix it.  The local public swimming pools are full, so our kids can’t go there.

The school can’t afford to bus the kids out to the pools that do have capacity.

We are talking about what to do about this, because some children can’t swim, and they are not having access to a pool outside of school to learn.

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TA support is being cut due to cuts.

My daughter is just finishing Infant school and has been brilliantly supported by a fantastic team of teachers and teaching assistants. The children in her class with SEN have had a fantastic designated TA and the class has had one for the mornings. My son is about to start the same school and while he will have a teacher and assistant in reception, due to cuts in Yr 1 and 2 they are now moving to have 2 assistants over 3 classes. I worry about the impact this will have on the support children get. I also worry that the previously well resourced nurture groups and extra support groups that my daughter and her friends have benefited from will no longer be funded. I know that one of the specialist reading support TAs who previously worked with children in small groups, will now be in reception as that is where full time roles are. This seems a waste of her training and a loss to children who need help.

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No money for basic communication

Parents at our school had been very happy at the recently introduced text alert system. It was a neat way of receiving messages from school, directly from the teacher or about events happening at school. Great! No more problems such as missing crucial information because your 4/5/6 year old had somehow lost the letter. Information flowed quickly and directly. It was more inclusive than using email or facebook, as most people have a mobile phone on them most of the time, but not everyone uses social media or email all the time.

Fast forward six months later and the school discovered that the texting system is not something they can afford. Text information flow has stopped immediately, and we are back to the ‘dark ages’ of letters and posters. Oh and did I tell you that at the same school use of paper, pens or the photocopier have been rationed for a while now? What kind of world do we live in? This is preposterous.

Well

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Stressed at School

For half an afternoon a week, I used to volunteer at daughter’s infant school. Whilst, I know that my daughter’s infant school is/was an “outstanding school” with dedicated, brilliant, hard-working teachers, I was nonetheless shocked to enter the classrooms and see how chaotic a room of 30 five-year olds was. Spending time, week after week in the classroom, I came to the realisation that there were simply too many children in that classroom. Thirty, five-year-old children in one classroom struggled to sit still for the time enough time required for the teacher to talk. Teaching was regularly interrupted, understandably by children needing water, the toilet or simply wanting to share their thoughts about the subject being discussed.  Many of the children seemed bored by the lengthy times spent having to sit on the carpet or at their desk, being talked at and their attention clearly waivered. With such large classrooms the learning seemed often to occur by rote with little time for questions or exploration of the subject.  It seemed to me the ‘real learning’ for most of the children occurred when teaching support staff, who took small groups out of the classroom in groups of 4 and 5 to concentrate on a specific area usually reading or maths. I myself, helped children with their reading and maths in small groups of up four which worked well. The environment was intense, noisy and physically cramped and I often came home feeling slightly overwhelmed, thinking it was a miracle, that the children learnt anything.

I was therefore horrified to hear that in my daughters very well-respected junior school, the class size would now be 32 in an even smaller classroom. When I investigated further, I found that class sizes of 32 are standard across the city. As parents we have come to accept this as a norm but from my experience, it is clear to me that this it is not a healthy environment for children or their learning or for the teachers.

 My daughter is now 8 and (like many I’m sure) she continues to be a very lively, boisterous thing. At home she never stops moving and/or singing. She ‘gets’ what needs to happen at school so complies, but when I pick her up from school, I can see that it has been a struggle to sit still, to hold it together, to stop talking, to concentrate and to try and learn. Being at school for her clearly requires lots of effort and it means when we get home she can often be quite emotional with lots of mixed up feelings. I can see she finds school stressful and I am certain it doesn’t have to be this way.

 I consider our family lucky. Her teachers are brilliant, the school is one of the best locally and very highly regarded. I still have lots of contact with the school and I can see everyone at school she encounters tries their hardest to to do their best by her. However, there is no getting away from the fact, I feel that her class is too big with too many children with different, competing and at times complex needs.  The fact that 2/3 of schools locally have had to reduce school support staff really worries me. I know that, it is these staff that have historically supported teachers to ensure learning can happen for all the children. The fact that my daughter learns anything is a testament to the hard work of her teachers and the support staff. If our school were to lose any more support staff, I am certain my daughter’s learning would grind to a complete halt.

Finally, I wish school could be more of a joyous experience for my daughter. I wish it could be an experience filled with a sense of wonder, pleasure and discovery, rather than an experience she simply must endure. It makes me sad for her and for the children of her time and I worry that collectively as parents we are allowing the government of the day to fail them.

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Headteacher resigns over cuts

I was a teacher from September 1980 until August 2017, with two short breaks for maternity leave. Despite moving up though the ranks, becoming a Head in 2014, I never stopped teaching, with the quest for outstanding teaching and learning being my passion. In many ways, the 9 years I spent as an AST were the most fulfilling, but I succumbed to headship because I wanted to influence T&L across a whole school; I adopted Steve Covey’s, ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing’, with T&L being that ‘main thing’.

Unfortunately, as soon as I picked up the reins, I could see that the school was heading towards financial difficulties in the next academic year, due to cuts in funding and rising costs. Many may not know this, but a stand-alone Academy cannot submit a deficit budget without the threat of being put into financial special measures by the Education Funding Agency (EFA), so I had no choice but to take evasive action.

Whilst it was my strong belief that I should devote my time to leading T&L, I had to put the ‘main thing’ to one side and become a financial strategist, which is hardly what I trained for. Staffing is easily the biggest financial outlay of a school, so that is where I had to start. I wrote a 12-page ‘staffing restructure and deficit reduction plan’, which was no mean feat, and whilst its contents are lengthy and probably not interesting to many, I detail it below, because you need to be aware of just how many cuts I had to make, and how serious and unpalatable they were:

•            The number of planning periods per teacher per cycle decreased by one

•            The number of teaching groups in Years 7 and 8 decreased by one (thus larger classes)

•            The ‘extra’ teaching groups in the core subjects in Years 10 and 11 removed

•            The disapplication groups in Year 10, except for SEN pupils, removed

•            VCert music removed as a GCSE option for Year 10

•            Food technology removed as a GCSE option for Year 10 and removed from KS3

•            AS French removed as an option for Year 12

•            Art and photography taught together in Years 12 and 13

•            Workskills Springboard removed from Year 12

•            Departmental capitation reduced by approximately 10%

•            CPD limited to training for the new exam specifications only

•            Stationery ordered centrally, not by department

•            Work experience removed for the majority of pupils in Year 11 (only remaining for the few who would really benefit)

•            Business & Enterprise budget reduced

•            Alternative curriculum reduced

•            The equivalent of one full time post removed from the SLT team, and the portfolio distributed amongst the remaining SLT members

•            One food technology teacher post removed

•            All 4 Lead Practitioner posts removed

•            The fourth post on the leadership spine not undertaking SLT responsibilities removed

•            The number of TLR points per subject leader, and the number of non-contact periods per subject leader, to be based solely on the number of teaching periods delivered by the department (thus leading to a reduction)

•            TLRs for Thinking skills, Data, Business & Enterprise and Work-related learning removed

•            The TLR for Alternative Curriculum reduced from TLR 2 to TLR 1

•            The TLR for Exams reduced from TLR 2 to TLR 1

•            One science technician post removed

•            One food technology technician post removed

•            The administrative roles of 1) Cover/attendance, 2) First Aid/Administrator, and 3) Educational Visits Coordinator amalgamated into two roles

I cannot begin to explain how upsetting and disagreeable I found these changes to be; they amounted to a saving of approximately £410,000 and yet by the end of the following academic year, it was clear that we would have to cut more subjects at A-level and more staff, and that is when I decided I could not and would not go on. I felt that I would be condoning the government’s regime of underfunding if I continued to hack away at the curriculum and staffing still further, just to balance the books, especially as it struck me that it was likely to become an annual occurrence.

I was coming up to 60 when I reached ‘enough is enough’, and in that sense I was more in a position to ‘go’ than a Head in their 30’s or 40’s say, but I had been a single parent for 21 years by then, my two daughters were saddled with huge student debt (after completing 5 university courses between them), and I had an interest-only mortgage, meaning I would have to sell my house to pay it off, so my decision wasn’t without its complications.

But personally, it’s the emotional toll, not the financial one, that I feel most acutely. I ‘went’ at least 5 years too early, with so much  left to give.

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More teaching hours, less planning time, less marking time

I am a teacher in a Sixth Form College. Over the last few years, the number of full time teaching hours per week has increased from 21 to nearly 26 hours. Out of a 30-hour College week, this means many staff working from 8.40 to 4.10pm with only lunch breaks, which are inevitably taken up with preparing lessons, moving resources etc.

The increase in hours is directly attributable to the huge cuts in Post-16 education. The increase in hours means as teachers we now have to do nearly all our planning and marking out of school time. The marking load in Post-16 is huge, as you can imagine A Level students write long essays! The end outcomes of these cuts result in one or more of these:

a) Teachers make short cuts in marking and planning, resulting in less well prepared lessons and less formal feedback for the students

b) Teachers work for 3+hours per night outside of College

c) Teachers work part-time hours and plan/mark on their ‘days off’

d) Teachers leave the profession

With rising mental health problems in teenagers, we need more time to nurture these students, not less. In my neediest GCSE retake classes with students with all sorts of SEN issues, there is hardly ever a teaching assistant. Students who are making transitions from PRUs back into mainstream education are expected to cope with the demands of independent BTEC learning with no in-class support, as there is no money to provide this support.

Teachers are leaving in droves, and never because of the teaching.

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Spread Too Thin

I am a qualified teacher but have worked as a Teaching Assistant for the past three years in a mainstream primary. The biggest impact I have felt is the effect of cuts on the children’s experience and learning support. We no longer have specialist music or MFL provision, and the school counsellor, who used to come weekly to our school has had to go too. We are thin on the ground on MDSA’s and any illness or absence impacts hugely on how we are able to support children.   We have access to a field we share with another school, which we cannot use regularly at lunchtimes simply because we don’t have enough staff to spread the children across multiple locations at break.
Our school is unique (it seems) in that it has not had to make any cuts to in-class support staff this year, but this has come at a price.  And our leadership team has made it clear they are doing all they can to prevent that from happening, but cannot sustain this long-term. We have a mixed-ability intake with a high level of SEND, and extra funding for this support is sparse and hard to get. The journey families and schools go on to get the minimal amount of extra funding is convoluted and often unfruitful – assessments are denied, support services such as CAMHS and BHISS are grossly understaffed and underfunded, and even getting the professional advice required can take weeks if not months.
As a result, any existing TA support is driven to high-need children, with the vast majority of kids with ‘regular levels of difficulty’ often having to fend for themselves. Teachers and support staff often go beyond the remit of their jobs and contracted hours to meet children’s needs, and we are eternally juggling who gets the support and who doesn’t. It is often a heartbreaking exercise of sharing insufficient provision, knowing that you will simply not be able to help everyone who needs it.

Resources are limited to the bare minimum now. Apart from the narrowing of the UKS2 curriculum due to the results-driven syllabus, there is the element of lack of funds to provide the students with enrichment experiences, art and science equipment, topic resources and musical instruments.

It cannot go on.

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Cuts, cuts and more cuts

Swimming pool has been closed as on-going and repair costs prohibitive, despite parental contributions.

Trips close to being cancelled as can only go ahead if all parents contribute, previously contributions were voluntary, now compulsory. Additional voluntary donations accepted.

Governors asked school to undertake staffing review, many staff voluntarily resigned, retired or taking redundancy. Reorganisation and reduction of remaining staff.

Staff leaving and not being replaced.

Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs) covering teacher planning time and sickness absence, avoiding use of supply teachers where possible

Planned purchases for resources have been cancelled, PTA asked to fund if possible.

Caretakers had cleaning added to their duties.

If key stage 1 (KS1) teaching assistants (TA) absent no cover provided.

Printing and photocopying budgets restricted.

Resources in classrooms running low, e.g. glue sticks, pencils, whiteboard markers, pens….limited resources in the playground (lots of what’s being used looking shabby).

PTA paying for fun learning events for children that the school can no longer afford – pirate day, street dance day, zoo lab, Christmas party entertainers and many classroom games, books, toys and resources.