How to deal with expectation overload

As we enter a new school year, we are once again faced with changes and expectations for schools. The key one of which is the agreed pay rises for our teaching staff with no indication of any further funding to cover these increases, writes Sue Birchall

Read the full article below or read on page 12 of our September magazine

It is fair to say that the increases were expected but the level unknown and as SBLs we will have made some contingency for the additional costs, good risk management. However, this does not take away the impact of the lateness of the award, maintained schools are 5/12ths of the way through their budget and academies well on the way to setting theirs. 

In addition, support staff unions have put forward an ambitious claim for a one year offer for support staff which includes a significant increase of between 4.04% to 10.5% on pay and allowances, a one day additional leave day and deletion of the minimum pay level.

It is hard to see how schools will be able to fund these increases without additional support. Despite the extra funding that we have been receiving, many schools and academies still survive just within their budgets, what will we do when all of the additional support stops?

The education white paper also brought with it some considerable changes and expectations. The proposals are forward thinking if not all new, offering ‘Opportunity for All’ a sentiment that all who work in education would happily applaud. We cannot doubt the need to recruit more teachers into the professions, as SBLs we will all have struggled with recruitment of staff at all levels. Higher salaries and better training should help to enable this. I don’t even want to go down the route of ICT and technology, gives me sleepless nights just thinking about it. Let’s save the rest for another article!

On that note, another area of concern for schools is not only the impact of covid and loss of learning and progress, but also the effect that is inevitable on our school community in the current economic climate. As someone who has worked in schools for a number of years, I have seen the pressure that the education system comes under when there is a period of recession and social stress. The amount of work that it creates is significant and would create a ‘perfect storm’ in the balancing act of staff wellbeing and retention against the extra expectations on us all.

Often these pressures are on offering additional support and services, all of which need funding for staff and goods. 

As an example, the governments statutory guidance on school uniform policy recognises the financial pressure put on our parents by the cost of things such as school uniform. Along with the direction that all schools have a policy in place and evaluate the cost of their uniform comes the responsibility for schools to look at ways to make this more affordable. This inevitably means schools looking at ways of providing reduced cost uniform or funding it themselves.

As a long serving SBL I support all of these initiatives. What I would ask is for a more consistent approach to funding and for funding levels to ‘keep up’ with the cost pressures that we now all face with these additional pressures that we are all facing as we appear to head into recession.