Headteachers and academy leaders are warning that further spending cuts will push many schools and academy trusts over the cliff, and result in most schools having to lose essential teaching and support staff. “There are no easy fixes left,” said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT. “Schools are cut to the bone. This will mean cutting teaching hours, teaching assistants and teachers.”
Hands up everyone who thinks schools are so efficiently run that they can’t make savings?
Now hands up who believes the union official who says they can’t?
When I was at school at ‘Teaching Assistant’ was someone’s mum who volunteered a few hours a week to read to the slow kids. Now they are on around £20K a year.
As a school governor in the state sector on the finance committee I can confirm that there is no fat. I have also worked in the private sector where parents are fleeced. The state has stronger negotiationing power with the unions than individual parents in the market.
As annual energy costs have increased from £26k to £89k per school perhaps the clerical gentleman might pause to consider what policies have been responsible for this.
Mind you he probably approves of them and, like Oliver, would like some more.
I only have intimate knowledge of NZ schools. Here there is no fat. None.
We don’t run courses for which there are students, because we can’t afford it.
The only way would be a) to increase teaching hours, but we have recruitment issues as it is, or b) increase class sizes, which is not guaranteed to improve outcomes.
Schooling wouldn’t be as expensive if parenting was better. When I was a school governor, we had discussions about how to incorporate the latest safeguarding guidance into nappy-changing routines, and how much time the head teacher spent with the child who bit teachers. My normal line of thinking was “I know where we want to go, but we shouldn’t be starting out from here”.
What Sam Vara says. In spades. It’s ridiculous how much parenting schools have to do because the real parents aren’t worthy of the name.
Hmmm.
How about two, co-located operations?
One does childcare, using appropriate staff.
One does education, using appropriate staff.
With separate budgets
Looking at the above comments. Primary school I went to in the fifties had precisely one support staff (unless you count the dinner ladies & the caretaker). The headmaster’s secretary. My class had 39 kids in it. Half of them off the local council estate. Every single one of us passed the eleven plus.
I do think parents were different in those days though. 100% white, for a start.
BiTiN,
We stopped non academic teenagers from going out to work and made them stay in school, then we complain that they’re disruptive. We’re governed by imbeciles.
RLJ
Very True, but one lands in a self defeating spiral when arguing this point.
Kids are kept in school to stop them from joining the dole queue or being wage slaves. There may be a skills shortage, but we don’t teach kids useful skills at school and many companies do not have the ability or patience to provide training anymore and “carry” a trainee or apprentice.
– As a school governor in the state sector on the finance committee I can confirm that there is no fat.
Given the quality of output it might be argued that it’s nearly all fat, unless producing a high quotient of illiterate, ignorant, socially-irresponsible, violent freaks is the actual goal.
– I have also worked in the private sector where parents are fleeced.
Yet these well-educated, successful mugs queue and compete for the schools that have a high likelihood of ensuring their kids are also well-educated and successful.
– The state has stronger negotiationing power with the unions than individual parents in the market.
The state and the teaching unions are at the same table across from the parents. Teaching unions, indeed all unions, should be banned in the public sector; the state can pay whatever it needs to retain staff.
Thomas Sowell Quotes
@ThomasSowell
·
Oct 21
If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don’t congratulate yourself on your compassion
also
If you are serious about wanting to improve education, do not vote more money for the education establishment that has been dumbing down the schools for years. Vote for vouchers, tax credits, or anything else that will transfer decision-making power to parents.
“Teaching unions, indeed all unions, should be banned in the public sector”: even that lefty toad FDR agreed with that.
“Vote for vouchers, tax credits, or anything else that will transfer decision-making power to parents.”
Snot my job to make teaching decisions, that’s the schools job. I dump my kids at the nearest school, that’s my job done.
Ottokring,
“Kids are kept in school to stop them from joining the dole queue or being wage slaves. There may be a skills shortage, but we don’t teach kids useful skills at school and many companies do not have the ability or patience to provide training anymore and “carry” a trainee or apprentice.”
The best thing for a lot of kids would be to join the dole queue or be wage slaves at 14. The amount of generally useful things taught after 14 is about zero to most kids. You will probably never need to remember the Schlieffen Plan, or to solve a quadratic equation, or any French beyond “2 beers” and “where is the railway station”.
A lot of kids aren’t achieving anything more than if they were sat at home on their Playstation. So, let them go home. It would save the country money and they’d be happier. But they’d probably be happier doing something like working in a shop for a few quid an hour at least boosts their CV. Maybe they find some worthwhile path from that. And it saves wasting 4 years of school.
Beyond that, a lot of kids should leave at 14 and do some sort of trade college: hairdressing, welding, catering, computer programming. Stuff that the kids are interested in, and will give them a certificate that employers will like.
School will then be left to the academics, and can focus on them. We need some art curators and electronics engineers of course, but how many?
There’s also a this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-63257249
I know people might be sceptical, but the internet in general has blown learning up. Whether it’s something for work, or DIY or a hobby, you can learn a shitload from it. You can discover things you never even really knew about.
At my state school in the 1980’s, the non-teaching staff consisted of 3 secretaries in the office, 1 or 2 foreign language assistants, 2 or 3 lab technicians, 1 librarian and 1 caretaker – about 10 people in total.
The school website now lists 43 non-teaching staff including a HR manager, PR & Marketing Manager, and a School Medical and Attendance Officer.
So rather a lot of fat to cut.
@BoM4
I think you’re missing the point of education. The point of it is to learn how to learn. Once that’s been mastered, the individual can learn anything. Thus the subject matter learnt at school is mostly the material used to practise learning on. It isn’t that important in itself.
That said, the entire educational establishment fails to understand the same point of education.
Sam Jones.
Just looked at my old school. There are now 20 administrative support staff and 20 learning support staff. Includes a HR and Ops mngr, a financial controller and a school business mngr. words fail etc.
I suppose they could increase the class sizes a little. Most state educational establishments have walls that give in to a little outward pressure!
I’ve never understood why the education business pretends puberty doesn’t exist. Prior to puberty children’s brains are soft clay that is readily shaped and they soak stuff up, e.g. small boys and dinosaurs etc., after puberty it hardens and the shape is set. For the non academic you are now in “taking a horse to water” territory. They don’t want to be there and they are just impeding the education of those who do.
The real problem is that we refuse to let teenagers take part in society as they used to so as to force them into education. It’s stupid, it doesn’t work and it wastes resources.