Primary Teacher UK

55% of headteachers could retire within four years

Up to 55% of headteachers could retire within four years, according to the government's chief adviser on school leadership who says schools are facing a "demographic time bomb" in the staff room.

Some schools may consider employing heads who have no experience of teaching in order to fill posts, said Steve Munby, head of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). Official figures suggest that half of headteachers will retire in 10 years but internal research conducted by the NCSL reveals that the figure could be much higher. Up to 55% are due for retirement or could leave if current trends continue by 2012, Munby said.

Moving from Special Measures

Schools which most successfully revive after being labelled failures have strong leadership, self-knowledge and sense of identity, Ofsted says. The report is based on 14 schools in England previously deemed to require special measures. When re-inspected they were showing continuous improvement.

"The schools became successful in unlocking the potential of all groups of pupils and students. All the actions contributed to the development of a whole-school identity and sense of belonging. There was evident pride in recognising collective achievement."

The report adds:

"The associated improvements in personal development, especially behaviour, were dramatic. The message from pupils and students who took part in the journey from special measures is powerful and unequivocal. They were in no doubt that the enjoyment of learning, achievement and well-being of every one of them mattered above all else in their schools."

Reinforcing the message about self-improvement, the report says outside help can actually make things worse.

"Unless external support for improvement was carefully matched to a school's particular circumstances and rigorously evaluated, it had the potential to create more problems and, at worst, to slow the pace of improvement."

Christine Gilbert said: "The report shows that if schools placed in special measures are willing to face up to the need for change and take appropriate action, they can improve very quickly and become outstanding schools."

Link: http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/assets/Internet_Content/Shared_Content/Files/2008/june/journeyfrmspme.pdf

package of measures designed to help headteachers

A package of measures designed to help headteachers get support for struggling pupils, and ease some of the workload burden, was outlined Beverley Hughes on Friday.

The Government wants to support headteachers by reducing the pressure on schools, enable heads to share responsibility with other professionals such as health and youth workers, and achieve the Children’s Plan vision of making this the best place in the world to grow up.

The measures include:

• £13 million for intensive support for vulnerable families, whose children may be struggling at school and a further £3m for young carers

• £10m 0-7 partnership coalitions between primary schools, early years providers, health and other family services, to make sure young children are ready to start school

• Revised guidance on how to manage pupils with behavioural, educational and social difficulties (BESD) in the classroom and mobilise support of other services

Full details are available on the DCSF website: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2008_0079

Redesign of the NPQH

For anyone considering taking part in the NPQH next year as preparation for becoming a headteacher there are some changes ahead.

The NCSL website explains: Since the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) was last updated in 2001, the role of headteachers has become much more diverse and demanding. To reflect this, NPQH has been redesigned and is being relaunched with the first intake from May to June 2008. NPQH is for aspiring headteachers ready to progress to headship within the next 18 months.

Full details of the changes including details on how to apply for the next round in September are available on the NCSL website.

Link: http://www.ncsl.org.uk/programmes/npqh/

Headteachers to check lunchboxes?

New guidelines draw up require head teachers to have a healthy lunch box policy with details on what makes a nutritional packed lunch. A template policy, linked to the guidelines, bans snacks like crisps and chocolate, and suggests packed lunches are "regularly reviewed". Head of the ASCL teaching union John Dunford said policing the contents of pupils' lunch boxes was a step too far. He said:

"If we have a healthy lunch box policy - it's a pretty short distance between that and Ofsted coming in and saying you are failing in that duty if they spot a packet of crisps in a lunch box. If that is the expectation, it goes a step too far. There's very little we can do if children bring in a can of fizzy drink and a packet of crisps."

Have a look at the School Food Trust for more information and lots more resources.

Backpay for Teaching Assistants

Here's an article all management and Teaching Assistants should read:

"When an invoice for £650,000 landed on Phil Jones's desk last October, it was something of a shock. The headteacher of Oakham primary school in Sandwell soon discovered that his wasn't the only school reeling. Other headteachers in the borough had received official brown envelopes too, and the total sum being demanded amounted to £55m.

The invoices were from Sandwell metropolitan borough authority: the council was charging its schools for the backpay it anticipated would be owed to mainly female educational support staff who, among other council employees, had been systematically discriminated against in salary terms for years."

Read the full article on the Guardian's webpage.

CRB – Checks and Balances an investigation into the impact of the Criminal Records Bureau

On Tuesday 22nd January, Teachers TV broadcasts School Matters: CRB – Checks and Balances an investigation into the impact of the Criminal Records Bureau. Since launch in 2002, the CRB has carried out over 14 million checks but according to some critics, these checks have made little improvement to children’s safety. This documentary considers whether CRB checks are necessary to protect vulnerable young people or instead are an invasion of teachers’ civil liberties.

School Matters: CRB – Checks and Balances on Teachers TV Tuesday 22 January, 8.30pm and available to watch or download for free afterwards from www.teachers.tv

Headteacher's Worries

Worry about staff recruitment was the main concern of secondary school headteachers last year, while their colleagues in primary education were more concerned about budgets, according to the results of an annual survey.

The 2007 survey of trends in education, published by the NFER also revealed that more secondary school heads were worried about pupil behaviour than primary school heads in the 12 months leading up to the report.

Primary school heads were more concerned about the impact of school inspections than their colleagues in secondaries. But heads from both sectors agreed that if their budgets were increased by 5% they would spend the extra money on recruiting more classroom and welfare assistants.

66% of the primary school heads who took part in the survey said they had plans to develop extended services.

Some 21% of secondary schools and 14% of primary schools admitted they did not have a policy in place for supporting and promoting the academic achievements of this group of pupils, it showed.

NCSL's Annual Leadership Conference

Registration for next year's Annual Leadership Conference Annual (18 – 20 June 2008) in Birmingham is now open. You can benefit from a 15 per cent early bird booking discount if you register online before 1 February. The conference offers a unique opportunity to connect cutting-edge perspectives on leadership with best practice from leaders in the field today. Thought-provoking, stimulating and inspirational, it offers an impressive line-up of world-class speakers balanced in equal measure by practical solutions for leading a dynamic school system.

Link: http://www.ncsl.org.uk/aboutus/events/conference2008/

FMSIS Files

I've just been nominated the lead person for FMSIS (Financial Management Standard in Schools) in our school - something that will really involve a lot of work and research. I've had very little to do with the budget in previous schools so completing the FMSIS files will be a real challenge - and one that I'm looking forward to.

I'll be writing about my experiences on the site here and also publishing any resources that I am able to. So to start off here are all the File headings and subsections that you will need. We've been recommended to use 5 files with a 6th as a reference file.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has started this process or about to start - maybe we can swap documents! :) A good starting website is the DCFS FMSIS website - http://www.fmsis.info/

Any questions please ask below.

Link: Download FMSIS File Contents.pdf