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.