Workforce Review – ERAGB Report
Report from the Workforce Review Group Meeting held on 30-Sep-09
Report by Jeremy W Glover, Chair of Governors at South Holderness attending the meeting as a representative of the East Riding Association of Governing Bodies (ERAGB).
1. The School Business Manager project (piloted at Withernsea) is due to finish at the end of the year, it has been judged to have been very successful and will be rolled out to other schools.
a. The post will be called Advance Business Manager.
b. Not more than 4 schools will be grouped.
c. Only primary schools are affected.
d. LA will pay for difference in salary for the post holder and they expect to be self financing because they will make savings in other areas.
e. County have not decided yet how to market this initiative.
2. 21st Century Schools.
Cat 1 schools to support Cat 2 and Cat 3, in partnerships. “Federate and Collaborate”.
3. “National Standards for School Leadership” – this policy is to be implemented Spring 2010, there is a good 2.5 A4 page summary online.
Note we need to look up how will Governors check we are meeting the standards?
4. Rarely Cover – schools are reducing need for cover by allowing less days out, this will effect training. Cover charges expected to double in schools – this will effect budgets.
5. NQT teachers can have their Masters in Teaching and Learning courses paid for if they work in a challenging school, only one in ER is Vermuyden (Goole High). This school will need a corresponding number of teachers that are coaches (5), i.e. accredited school based coaches.
6. Support Staff Report (see extract below) – highlighted that some students with most support do not make extra progress.
a. Look at how TA’s are recruited, what qualifications do we ask for?
b. How they are allocated – are they linked to curriculum departments. If not why not.
c. Who supervises them, teacher or Senco or both. Is the Line manager a teacher?
d. Do statemented children get their allocation, do teachers get to spend more time with children that need the support?
7. Head Teacher workload.
a. Report by the head on the group illustrating how much mail and email he gets, he was advised to reconcile what goes to him and what goes to his office, he feels he is being bombarded with information and wanted to bring it to our attention.
b. This reflects on governors to ensure that the work life balance issue is expedited with all Heads.
“A study of school support staff carried out by London’s Institute of Education found that pupils who receive help from teaching assistants make less progress than classmates of similar ability. The Deployment and Impact of Support Staff (DISS) project surveyed 20,000 teachers and analysed the help received by more than 8,000 pupils in 153 schools in 2005-6. The researchers were so surprised by the results of their study, that they repeated it for 2007-8 and came to the same conclusion.
This survey supports anecdotal concerns by special needs groups who have long complained that the children with the most complex needs are often left in the care of support staff with minimal qualifications. Christina McAnea, head of education for the support staff union Unison, who spoke at the NGA Spring conference, told the TES:
‘They (support staff) are left with children with special needs, who need specific help … too many do not have the qualifications to work with children with complex needs.’
In a related story a survey commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families into workforce reforms carried through since 2003 found that support staff workloads had gone up “substantially”, with many doing unpaid overtime and some taking lessons. In some schools support staff were teaching whole classes for prolonged periods – weeks or a whole term – rather than just covering briefly for teachers; in some cases the use of support staff rather than qualified teachers was to save money.
Both these stories should concern governors, because the governing body sets the staffing structure for the school.
The DSCF Research Paper can be downloaded from the DCSF Research site – Aspects of School Workforce Remodelling; Strategies used and Impact on Workload and Standards.
The Institute of Education research pages can be found here”
