Secret Teacher Letter

[PiqueABoo]

When new state schools are built / created there is always an element of costs for staff being painful in the first few years

 

Probably, but that just means the insanity is more endemic that I imagined. I can't imagine anyone spending their money (as opposed to the tax payers) paying for a bunch of staff that clearly aren't required for at least the next year.. possibly never. Just what are the compelling reasons for that?

[GrumbleDook]

Probably, but that just means the insanity is more endemic that I imagined. I can't imagine anyone spending their money (as opposed to the tax payers) paying for a bunch of staff that clearly aren't required for at least the next year.. possibly never. Just what are the compelling reasons for that?

 

A Free School is an independent school setup and run by an interested group but paid for, primarily, from Govt funds. It is being paid for by the taxpayer.

 

As for not being needed ... actually, they usually are. To get a school off the ground (take a 2 for entry primary as an example) then you are employing a Head and a Bursar / Business Manager from at least April if the school opens in September. They might even start in January. Depending on how many classes are starting in that September then you may try to get a teacher or two from the Whitsun half-term ... and you are likely to get one more teacher than needed for the first year to allow for extra cover and to plan for the future years. In a secondary schools, such as those in the blogs, then the time taken to build / design / resource the curriculum also needs to be taken into account. With Free Schools, similar to Academies, there may be a particular focus (sometimes due to a sponsor) which means that pre-existing resources staff bring need to have a lot of work done to them. So ... you get over-staffed for a year or two to save problems further down the line.

 

It has been done like this for years ... it is just that previously they were supported and accountable to the LA or to an over-arching group (in the case of CTCs) but now there is a bit of a free-for-all.

[PiqueABoo]

There's obviously a minimum number of manglers required to get a school 'off the ground', but you're simply not going to convince me that a school needs the full contingent of manglers like that when a) it's only got ~200 kids, b) you'll have reasonably good notice about significant changes to that number. People doing real valuable work are being kicked out of jobs whilst this lot will be twiddling their thumbs and inventing pointless Kafkaesque procedures that likely won't survive collision with the reality of a credible number of kids.

 

That's it's been done like this for years is not an argument - those were shameless, decadent, ruinously expensive years with the bills postponed for my/our kids lifetimes - stuff like this just needs to *stop*.

Edited May 21, 2012 by PiqueABoo

[GrumbleDook]

The example from James' blog is not a full compliment of management though ... but enough to get things started.

[PiqueABoo]

I've seen (up close) two Primaries merge into one new school over the summer with 400 kids with one new head, one deputy, a helpful govenor and one person from the LA on the case. The first three still had normal duties to perform beforehand. No way it requires 17 senior posts to simultaneously run a school with just 200 kids and do [whatever] in order to prepare for some day they'll know about well in advance when they might have more kids. If that's really how it is, if the system really has created enough superfluous tat to keep them all occupied, then Western civilisation is more [bleeped] than I thought.

[GrumbleDook]

Merging schools is relatively simple, setting one up from scratch is a heap more problematic ... from being up close on both.

[PiqueABoo]

Merging schools is relatively simple, setting one up from scratch is a heap more problematic ... from being up close on both.

 

Perhaps, but these folk officially start work on the first day of term in an **already set up school** so they're knocking theory into pragmatic shape and if that genuinely takes 17 manglers for 200 kids then I'm a Norwegian Blue parrot.

[X-13]

I'm a Norwegian Blue parrot.

 

Does that mean you're 55 million years old or that you're just sleeping?

[GrumbleDook]

M

Perhaps, but these folk officially start work on the first day of term in an **already set up school** so they're knocking theory into pragmatic shape and if that genuinely takes 17 manglers for 200 kids then I'm a Norwegian Blue parrot.

 

So ... This is actually 2 schools. And which manglers would you remove? And a new school is *not* fully setup on day one. Oh how many people wish it was.

[PiqueABoo]

Does that mean you're 55 million years old or that you're just sleeping?

 

Pining for the fjords: Get yourself up a mountain there and you likely won't see anything but the awesome view, in particular you won't see any manglers coz they'll have spent the last six months on a longitudinal risk study on the potential harmful effects of the Northern Lights on people at altitudes exceeding 2000m and won't make a formal decision on that until Q1 2017.

 

And which manglers would you remove?

 

Dunno, pay me a £60,000 salary and I'll get myself booked on some courses where they'll tell me the answer.

Edited May 21, 2012 by PiqueABoo

[garethEds]

Another excellent Secret Teacher letter today:

 

The Secret Teacher damns the exam boards | Teacher Network Blog | Guardian Professional

 

Gareth