Over one thousand headteachers

[Fambo Number Mive]

will be journeying to Downing Street to hand in a letter

saying their school budgets are in crisis because of seven years of cuts. They will speak of swingeing reductions in special needs funding that leave the most vulnerable children without equipment; of bereaved children and depressed teenagers without access to counsellors; of larger classes, staff redundancies and the erosion of curriculum choice.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/sep/25/headteachers-petition-downing-street-budget-cuts?CMP=share_btn_tw

Be nice if they'd done this a bit earlier, but still good. How much of the media do you reckon will cover it?

Also headmasters need to work with teaching unions to present a united front against austerity.

[bgmnts]

Good on them.

[Zetetic]

Have we considered sending bereaved children back?

[Blumf]

That's over two thousand leather elbow patches!

[Fambo Number Mive]

I'm presuming some will be women, I should have put headteachers. I'll change that. Apologies.

[wosl]

.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I look forward to The Sun editorial calling them 'snowflakes'.

[biggytitbo]

Laid end to end would reach from Wakefield to Doncaster.

[Isnt Anything]

tag - ...in Beijing.

[Fambo Number Mive]

The Sun would probably call them "headleechers" and claim they are paid too much, even though their pay is irrelevant as they aren't asking for a pay rise. And a lot of them aren't paid that much for the job they do.

[Shit Good Nose]

Why is Martin Clunes involved?


The head at Little Nose's school is one of the leads on this (although he's not mentioned in the article) and he was interviewed by 1, 3 and 4 main newses as well as local news about it a few weeks ago.  He's been banging on about the cuts for years, and has had to suffer the double blow of being in charge of a small primary school with little in the way of facilities forced to go down the academy route against their will and somehow perform as a private sector business.

Anyway, we've had updates in parents newsletters about it, and they've been...defeatist isn't quite right, but at the moment he's keeping it real with an element of "this could be too little too late".

But it's nice to see that they're blaming central government for this and not local authorities.

[biggytitbo]

Why is Martin Clunes involved?

You know what Clunesy is like, he can't stop himself sometimes.

[Captain Z]

I'm sure Theresa May will add it to the pile of things she's 'looking at very carefully'.

[Twit 2]

This is a good thing. Education has been fucked for ages, and it doesn't get nearly enough press. I don't recall it being on the agenda much during the last election. Yeah, don't worry, it's just the future of the country.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

"I have always been very clear on my position on this which is headteachers do a fantastic job and that's why we are investing to ensure schools have the funding they need to do their job"

Actually Prime Minister, I just said 'Can you pass the salt?'

[Golden E. Pump]

To be fair, fellatio is a damn difficult art to master.

[gilbertharding]

I'm presuming some will be women, I should have put headteachers. I'll change that. Apologies.

They've been 'headteachers' in the state sector for years. That's not (so much) because of sexism - it's because 'headmaster' is meaningless: male teachers aren't 'masters' outside of (eg) the Jennings and Darbyshire books.

[Shit Good Nose]

They've been 'headteachers' in the state sector for years. That's not (so much) because of sexism - it's because 'headmaster' is meaningless: male teachers aren't 'masters' outside of (eg) the Jennings and Darbyshire books.

I'm master of my own domain.  But only when Mrs and Little Nose aren't here.  Then they're in charge and I'm just a scummer they have to put up with, obvs.

[Norton Canes]

I love the word 'swingeing', it's one of those words that sounds satisfyingly archaic, and now only ever seems to be used to describe cuts.

[Thomas]

I instinctively read the staggered opening post in the voice of three separate Chris Morris characters introducing a Brass Eye segment.

[Buelligan]

Floating in the summer sky.

[gilbertharding]

Lost in the jails in South America.

[Buelligan]

In every bite.

[Shit Good Nose]

In every bite.

Heh.

[pancreas]

I love the word 'swingeing', it's one of those words that sounds satisfyingly archaic, and now only ever seems to be used to describe cuts.

Yes. This sort of thing should be resisted. It just becomes a meme. No-one knows what it means or how to use it in any other context, just that it can be used with 'cuts' for emphasis; goes in ear and out of mouth without passing through brain. There must be more examples...

[pancreas]

palliative care

[gilbertharding]

Death knell, serried ranks, damp squibs, bated breath... are they called Caged Words? The only useful google result for the phrase is a NewStatesman article about 'swinge'.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

FURIOUSLY masturbating

[hummingofevil]

Being a headteacher is one of the shittest, most thankless jobs about and I wouldn't do it in a million years.

However, there needs to be some context in all of this that whilst the government are utter bastards there are actually multiple issues with funding that need to be addressed.

Firstly the government's general claim that they "spending more than ever" on education might not be wrong but it still represents a per-pupil cut in real terms. This leads to higher teacher-pupil ratios, bigger classes etc.

Secondly, the distribution of funding is bullshit. People have to remember then main bulk of the education budget is salaries so it is not unreasonable that schools in the South East where living costs are higher get more funding to pay higher wages. Fair enough. But its not so simple. One of the great successes of recent times was the London Challenge where London's schools massively raised standards and outcomes. But they did it with a huge injection of cash - cash that was not given to schools in say, Essex, and then people go around asking why Essex schools aren't as good.

The government claims it has changed the funding formula to make it fairer for all but in reality very few schools in struggling areas have seen increases and many successful schools have seen big cuts (in real terms per pupil).

Thirdly, the unforgivable aspect in all this is the Free School and Academy structure that is basically a free-for-all when it comes to executive pay. People outside the system still don't get it but Academies will have a headteacher (per school) and then a Chief Executive above them, usually on insane six-figure salaries. The same schools then wonder why they haven't got cash to pay wages of support staff on £15k pro rata, term-time only. Its a disgrace.

--

In school I worked at where we kicked off for best part of two years to stop Academisation I remember clearly being told two things. That all staff doing the same job will be on the same pay scale (relative to time served) and there will be no inflated pay rises for Senior Leadership. So what happened? Within weeks of the Academy being formed there was a "restructure". The two main Deputy heads became "Heads of School", Assistant heads became deputy heads and Heads of Department who were supportive of the move (and stopped their staff striking) got Assistant head job titles. The headteacher then retired with quarter of a million pound pay off only to be appointed Chief Executive on £70k a year for 2 days a week. This was an Academy with only two schools and one of them had about 100 kids.

This is where our money is going ladies and gentlemen. Another reason why I sacked teaching off. Utter bastards.

---

p.s. There is a bit of an amusing punchline to all this that a couple of years later there was a few dozen forced redundancies due to massive funding issues and they basically shut the IT department and laid off a load of staff who didn't go on strike and kept on the one's who did. Funny how things turn out.