We, the parents of pupils at Chafford Hundred Primary School, have lost confidence in both the Governing Body of Chafford Hundred Primary School and the LA (Thurrock Council) for failing to hold the Headteacher accountable to act in the best interests of our children.
The following issues have given rise to grave concerns amongst the parents of the school:
1) Mis-management of Budget which now has direct implications on the welfare of our children
the health and safety of our children has been compromised by unhygienic sanitary conditions which led to closures of toilets in the school recently following the Headteacher failure to replace a cleaner’s post due to budgetary constraints.
inadequate behaviour management/lack of effective policy which has led to an increased number of bullying incidents in the school which when raised by parents have been failed to be addressed by the Headteacher, Deputy Headteacher and the Governing Body.
lack of resources such as insufficient playground equipment and restriction on usage of stationery which has led to members of the staff funding for it themselves.
2) Weak leadership contributing to high staff turn-over
since the appointment of the current Headteacher over 20 members of staff, of which the majority were teachers, have left the school. This has created a unstable teaching environment for our children.
experienced teachers are being replaced with newly qualified teachers due to a restricted budget. These new teachers are then told by the leadership team to move on after 2 years to further their career, which indicates a callous attitude to a conducive teaching environment for our children and staff.
3) Proposed redundancy of classroom assistants
the classroom assistants play a vital role in the schooling life of our children, they work with our children to attain their curricular targets, run focus groups, breakfast clubs and help with behaviour management in the classrooms. They contribute greatly towards the attainment of pupils which makes this school one of the best in Thurrock. Therefore reducing the number of classroom assistants will have a direct impact on the standards of the school.
although this process has now been suspended, we feel that continued mis-management of the budget may lead to redundancies in the near future which may lead the Headteacher and Deputy to target the classroom assistants again.
4) Falling standards of attainment in school
the Headteacher’s reluctance in sharing the SATS results, which has been with the school for over 2 weeks, indicates that the results have failed to meet the high standards previously attained.
the Headteacher must be held accountable for the falling standards of the school under his weak leadership.
We the undersigned call for a Vote of No Confidence and demand for the immediate resignation of both the Headteacher and the Deputy Headteacher.
Kenningtons primary to make 5 teaching assistants redundant 21-09-09
It may be that our schools have become like our banks. With all the money that’s been sloshing about in education for the past 20 years or so, schools have gotten themselves burdened with too many overpaid staff at the top ( the heads cronies ). Even in a relatively small school you may find a deputy head, an assistant head, a business manager, a semco person, a management team. All quite well paid positions that often do no teaching. When a school starts to run into budget shortfalls it is the lowest paid members of the teaching staff who are expected to take the brunt. Those who can afford it least. It may be that as the school budget crisis deepens, as it surely will in the next few years, we will have to make cuts to the top of the pay chain as well as at the bottom. One head teacher of a Norfolk school put himself on a four day week and took a pay cut to save the jobs of five staff members. This is an excellent example to set, and should be considered by school governors and education chiefs across the county as an alternative to redundancies.