h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Mol, sounds like a lot of this stuff is 'normal' then.

The money for a teacher is because the class sizes are smaller than 30 and they reckon that the council funds a certain amount per child assuming that that amount x30 is enough to fund a teacher - they are asking for us to make up the gap because at present further up the school there are 22-23 in each class so for half the week year 5 is split between year 4 and year 6 (nightmare for the kids going 'backwards'). They also reckon that the PTA funds maintenance and repair of one classroom per year.

I find it very worrying that these things aren't already funded centrally.

I think I am just overwhelmed with stress in all walks of life at present - I hope that once he starts I will find out this isn't as bad as I thought - although I am not going to be able to do the school run in the morning *and* cover my hours at work and there is no breakfast club.

Desperately hoping I'll get made redundant.

Feel like I am on the brink of tears all the time, am sure it will get better when i know what is what. *sigh*

*all* of Teenacher's school events were during the school day, except the odd one or two that weren't. I couldn't even make his leaving assembly because of my job, let alone help. So it's perfectly normal to be in your position.

I was just happy to be home when he got in from school more often than not, which would not have happened if I'd stayed working in London. Of course then I could have booked days off to attend events, but would have been home at gone 7 every night. Choose what is important to you, not the school.

It isn't just for events though Mina. The impression I was left with was that they need parent 'helpers' to be in school all the time to facilitate the normal running of the school day, to be constant unpaid, unqualified teaching assistants.

I was left feeling that if we parents (read mothers) couldn't contribute in that way then the education of all the children would suffer as a result. It is the wrong way around - it ought to be that things are even better if parents can help out, but I really felt like it was the case that standards would drop considerably if we didn't.

Maybe they do this every year to guilt-trip everyone into either doing more than they would otherwise or feeling like they have to give big sums of money to the school.

Thanks for the hugs.

I remember my class 5 was split at school, permanently. I don't remember it being a problem as a kid, but then, I got into Class 5 for two years which was where most of the books were kept so I was happy.

Volunteers are volunteers - you give what you can. For those that have time during the school day, that's great. But we all have lives and jobs and that's why it's a volnteer position, not a mandatory one.

Why is the school in such dire financial straits? Or is that what you are trying to find out?

From the sound of it, because it's operating with such small class sizes . Class sizes of 23-24 are a luxury at primary level and there is nothing wrong with splitting years, especially in KS2 (junior school). Parents tend to make a fuss about it but it's not a big deal (harder for the teacher, granted, because the level of curriculum differentiation will probably be greater, but the learning outcomes are unlikely to be affected).

We try to keep year 6 as a single class regardless of its size (difficult financially this year, as it's a small year) because that seems to help with both SATS and the transfer to secondary. But years 3/4/5 are usually split over two classes - either by splitting year 4 in two, or by dividing the whole lot into two (so each class contains three year groups).

Rural schools do struggle financially simply because of fluctuating numbers. Most funding is still pupil-led (ie the funding from April *mostly* depends on the headcount the previous January, which won't be the same as the headcount from the following September) and even in the best rural schools there can be significant fluctuations in pupil numbers year on year (our current year 6 has 17, our year 5 has 34 IIRC). There was a move (I think under the previous government although it might have been local to my area) to move away from pupil-led funding to something slightly strange like curriculum funding, but it was still based on the January headcount.

Our school has moved towards whole-school topics and that is really helpful when there are split classes that mean a child may, for example, spend two years in class 4. With whole-school topics, *every* class takes the same topic theme for a term at a time (and it comes into everything, you'd be amazed), and then that topic is left behind and another one adopted the next term and so on. So children in the same class for more than one year don't repeat the topic the following year.

It's slightly more complicated in the humanities because of the national curriculum (so in year 1 they learn about Florence Nightingale, in year 2 the Great Fire of London etc) but my understanding is that the NC is being phased out - which I suspect would make life easier for teachers of combined year classes.

We also do whole school art days (first Monday in the month) and for those all the children are mixed up and split up into an art group that they stay in all year, rotating round the various art activities over the months - Osh finally gets to do woodwork next week.



Mol

BTW if the school *needs* unpaid, unqualified help during the day so that the school can function, then the governors should be asking some serious questions about this.

Mol

I think they are probably just putting the frighteners on us to make us cough up lots of money.

I don't know, I don't feel like it is right for us, and haven't liked it any time I've been there. J likes it though.

No vacancies as parent governers for a few years unless we want to join the church and get on of their slots. Given that one of my major misgivings about the school is the fact that it is a church school this wouldn't really be appropriate! I guess we can get involved with the PTA though.

No vacancies for parent governors? OK, that's unusual.

Have you been able to pinpoint why you don't like it? It took me ages to feel comfortable in the girls' secondary school, eventually I worked out it was because it was (a) the same vintage as my own secondary school, so brought back lots of not all pleasant memories and (b) the school dinner smell (which is bizarre because actually I liked school dinners).

Do you like the reception class teacher? When all's said and done, she/he is the person you'll probably have most to do with in the first year. Reception also tends to be a little bit separate from the rest of the school because of being foundation stage rather than key stage 1/key stage 2.

Mol

She seems ok, he is doing a 2 hour settling in session today and ran in without looking back so I guess he feels comfortable about it!

They were saying that they are looking at increasing every class to 26 from september, but the funding for all of those extra children won't come until next april.

I will get to have more of a look when I go and pick him up shortly. The churchiness of the school puts me off it, and the older bits that are looking very decrepit. I don't like all the religious stuff in the hall. I shouldn't have to find hundreds of thousands of pounds just to avoid the indoctrination of my children while they get educted!

Need to think of how I'm going to explain religion to t'boy so tht he can be respectful to his teachers whilst retaining his rationalism. I see a lot of sentences with 'some people believe' in them.

Lots of sentences with "some people believe" is a pretty good way to raise a child anyway.

Says me. What the hell do I know about child-rearing?

Btw, you might enjoy this blog - it's a friend of ours who put her son into a Steiner School for the quality of the education - she finds the hippiness of it does her feminist accountant brain in though.

I can't find the one I wanted to link to, and this one is a couple of years old, but it gives you a flavour. (She's having a rough time with her parents right now).

Anyhoo - raising atheists:

http://storm23.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/mystery-plays-and-aethists/

Say I sent you.

B

No 'normal' (whatever that's supposed to mean these days) schools have any money because of the stoopid great Government Academy drive, which is just diverting money away from LEAs who have already had their budgets cut.

Because I refused to help the school out by going part-time, I'm likely to wind up with classes of 34 next year and 95% contact time. Plus the loss of A-Level Chemistry.

Kelli - the reason our school fails to function on any normal level is because of unco-operative parents. Not those who are unable to give any time to school, but those who will point-blank refuse to come in for meetings, parents' evenings, even permanent-exclusion meetings. That doesn't stop them ringing up the school for 19 hours every week because they believe every single little story that their precious offspring takes home with them. By simply attending the initial parents evening, you are a) more involved in your son's education than at least 50% of the parents I deal with and b) already committed enough to see that he gets the education he needs regardless of the school he goes to.

B

Yeah, it always blows my mind when parents don't attend permanent exclusion meetings. How serious do things need to get for crying out loud?!

95% contact time? Isn't that illegal?

Our school is a church school, the girls even went to the weekly club run by the vicar, but that hasn't stopped them turning atheist in the long run. Osh (who is still there) declared crossly that he was a Christian when we did the census, but I don't think it will last.

Mol

Illegal? no.

Contrary to the recommendations that the teaching Unions have spent 15 years working to get? Yes.

Likely to lead to more strike action? Almost certainly.

And, let's face it, striking at the end of June when the exams are finished and most of us have completed the required curriculum for the year (insert comments about dumbing-down here if you like) is deliberately designed to minimise impact. It'll be a lot worse when it comes in October. And there'll be a lot of schools where the heads feel they have no option but to go back on the union agreements. Cover for colleagues will come back in. Exam invigilation will come back in. And maximum 90% contact time will come back in.

Not a lot of this is relevant to primary schools, mind...

B

Mu, do you lose a lot of contact time during exams and after Year 11s and 13s have left? Is that how they are justifying it, by working out your average contact time % over the whole year?

And Keli, don't worry about the influence. "Some people believe..." is a good way to explain all sorts of things. Moonlight emerged unscathed, even after an argument with her RE teacher (I think she was about 5, but it's hard to remember as she wasn't educated with her own age). She told her teacher that she didn't believe in God but she did believe in and the tooth fairy as she had more evidence that they existed.

I used to pick her up from school. There was always quite a lot of "Can I have a little word..." from her teachers at the end of the day.

No, I think they're just assuming I'm going to fall in line and do what they want.

This time last year, I was asked if I would teach through my lunchtime once a week. It's really getting to be a bit of a joke.

B

And just to explain, as I realise it might seem odd, she had an RE teacher at 5 because in her private school all the subjects were taught by specialists, so each class had a timetable and moved around, just like in a secondary school.

And she went on to take Philosophy and Ethics options for an RE A level, which she started aged 14 instead of the GCSE, in a state school by then. She enjoyed the level of critical thinking - lots of "some people believe..." in it. She got a grade A at 16.

I hope your union shop steward's involved, Mu. That's outrageous.

Mol

That is horrible Mu, you obviously face different challenges to those in our little school.

We got another begging letter from the school today - he hasn't even started there yet and this is the third time they have asked us for money since we got a place at the end of June. The letter sets out the funding shortfall from central govt (class size of 26 = 60k shortfall to fund the teachers, and a further 36k cut in centrl funding for the year) and asks for at least £250 per child.

I wonder if they know how worried this mkes parents about the state of the school?