Tag Archives: staff shortage

The other crisis facing schools

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In my experience, editors usually have September, and the national annual ‘return to school’ event, as a time to ask journalists to look for a school centred story. This follows on from the useful two-week period in August when there are examination results to cover in the month when there is often little news from the political scene.

This year, editors and their journalists didn’t have to work very hard, if at all, for their ‘return to school’ story. RAAC, and the school buildings saga, was a gift send. Would the story have topped the bill at any other time of year? Who knows, as it is an important issue, but more important say that a reshuffle?

What is clear, is that by focussing just on the school buildings issue, editors are missing the opportunity to take a wider look at the health of our schools. Had there not been RAAC, and the still largely hidden asbestos issue, might the staffing of our schools have been the main story this September?

This is a much more difficult story to sell, as except in rare cases such as a special school reported to the DfE in the summer, schools don’t send children home for a lack of teachers. Instead, they cut subjects from the curriculum – I have been told of a school that is no longer offering languages in the sixth from this September; increase class sizes; reduce non-contact time for teachers and, most commonly, employ what might be considered as under-qualified teachers to teach some groups.

Because anyone with Qualified Teacher Status can teach anything on the curriculum, it isn’t easy to identify the problem, as schools, quite rightly, don’t advertise any shortcomings in the staffing of their timetable. However, extrapolating from the last School Workforce Census that provided a baseline, and adding in the results of new entrants being below the targets set by the DfE through the Teacher Supply Model, it seems clear that some schools are not properly staff this September.

Does this matter? Like the lack of a schools’ database on building issues, we don’t know whether some young people are missing grades in those public examinations we celebrate each August because of staffing issues last year or even earlier in their school lives.

This blog has charted re-advertisements of teaching post against free school meal rates in schools. I wrote a blog on this issue last month, just before the exam results season started Are we levelling up? | John Howson (wordpress.com) I won’t bother to repeat what I said then, but it would be interesting to look at examination results in specific subjects at different centres with different levels of staff turnover for a period of three to five years, to see if there is any measurable effect of staff turnover on outcomes, including entry policies.

My hunch is that it is difficult to create a ‘normal’ distribution curve for results subjects such as ‘A’ level physics if many schools cannot offer the subject, and those that do only enter those likely to be successful candidates.

Editors might like to pencil in a story for January 2024, when secondary schools facing unexpected vacancies will find recruitment even more of a challenge than for this September. What might be the effects on their results in Summer 2024 of an unexpected vacancy, especially if they started the school year this September with both a RAAC and a staffing crisis?

One law for parents …

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‘School sends children home because of a lack of staff’. The BBC have been running a story about a special school, part of a multi-academy trust that has been sending children home on certain days because of a lack of staff. Oxford pupils miss school amid special needs staff shortage – BBC News

The shortage of staff in the special school sector is nothing new. Indeed, I commented upon the use of unqualified teachers in that sector in a previous post. However, should any school be allowed to send pupils home because of staff shortages?

In 2017, (how time flies) the Supreme Court discussed the responsibilities of parents that contract with the State to provide schooling for their children for free. The case was Isle of Wight Council v Platt and the judgement can be read at Isle of Wight Council (Appellant) v Platt (Respondent) (supremecourt.uk)

The highest court in the land imposed a heavy burden on parents with regard to school attendance – paragraphs 31 onwards set out their reasons for doing so. In reaching their judgement, the court went further than the previous decision made in the 1930s, and placed even more restrictive reasons for parents being allowed not to send a child to school.

The court did not consider the opposite scenario of the responsibility of the State to parents that trust their child to the State to educate.  Lord Denning did discuss this in Meade v Haringey in 1979 at the end of the Winter of Discontent, but that case never came to trial as the strike ended and schools re-opened.  

Lord Denning’s comments in the case can be read at Meade v Haringey London Borough Council – Case Law – VLEX 793965949 The paragraph relevant to the present situation is in paragraph 3.

As I read the statute, it was and is the duty of the Borough Council – not only to provide the school buildings – but also to provide the teachers and other staff to run the schools – and furthermore to keep the schools open at all proper times for the education of the children. If the Borough Council were to order the schools to close for a term – or for a half-term – or even for one week, without just cause or excuse, it would be a breach of their statutory duty. If any of the teachers should refuse to do their work, the Borough Council ought to get others to replace them – and not pay the defaulters. Likewise if the caretakers refuse to open the schools – and keep the keys – the Borough Council ought to demand the return of the keys and open up the schools themselves if need be. For this simple reason: It is the statutory duty of the Borough Council to keep the schools open. If they should fail to do so, without just cause or excuse, it is a breach of their statutory duty.

These days, one must assume that either mutli-academy trust trustees have assumed the responsibilities formerly with local authorities in 1979 or that Regional School Commissioners acting on behalf of the DfE have responsibility for academies under their remit. Whoever is responsible, unless either a court rules otherwise or the law has been changed since 1979, it would seem that there is a statutory duty to open schools, and by implication to staff them during a school term. Of course, fire, plague or pestilence might cause temporary closure, but, as during the covid pandemic, schools were required to stay open for certain children.  

I guess that a parent will need to bring either a judicial review or a case against a school that sent children home. Judicial Review is an expensive process, so perhaps a Council, acting as a corporate parent, could bring the case on behalf of all parents.

It would be interesting to see how the Supreme Court balanced the rights and responsibilities of parents with the duties of the State in providing education. I am reminded that in the late 1940s the then Minister of Education summoned a Council because a school lacking a hall after bomb damage was not offering a daily act of corporate worship. What might that Labour Minister have made of schools sending children home due to staff shortages?