Three North Kent primary headteachers went missing or lost their jobs before the end of term, all having had a difficult time at their schools.
The schools are: Fairview Community Primary School, Gillingham; Tunbury Primary School, Walderslade and Copperfield Academy, in Northfleet. All three heads were fairly recent appointments, the first two introducing ‘robust’ new approaches at previously successful schools. Copperfield Academy is now suffering from poor Academy Trust management according to Ofsted, having lost seven heads in the past five years at the end of nearly two decades of mismanagement.
Although it is too easy to write off high staff turnover at each school as collateral damage, these will include careers and vocations destroyed at a period when the country has a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. I have long maintained that failure to treat professionals with respect or to support and develop new entrants are the prime reasons for the crisis rather than teacher pay. The damage to the children and their education caught up in such events, with teacher after teacher arriving in front of them, is incalculable, but seemingly ignored.
I also have reports of a fourth school in serious difficulties, in Medway, but need more information to go ahead with confidence that may be difficult over the summer holiday.
The other I know of was appointed at Christmas to the well performing and happy Fairview Primary School. Mrs Faye Rider arrived in January from her post as Head of School at an Ofsted Outstanding school in Walthamstow, determined to make a difference. Sadly there were soon large and important staff resignations, and a change in culture including tough discipline and setting by ability that went down badly. It is reported that the headteacher had little understanding of how an LA school worked. Concerns were raised with me in April and, by the second week of the new term, letters home to parents were being signed by the Deputy Head. She became Acting Head at the start of Term 6, although no explanation appears to have been forthcoming but the school has confirmed to me that Mrs Rider left before the end of term.
Tunbury Primary School, Walderslade, Kent
A warm welcome to Tunbury Primary School Confidence in a school comes from knowing and understanding what is happening within it. Lead comment on school Website |
Although this school is in Walderslade, Chatham, north of the M2, it is situated in Kent Local Authority rather than Medway. This is another school where I have received concerns from staff and parents over a period of time about the robust style of the headteacher since her appointment at the beginning of 2013. She took over from a highly respected headteacher, Mrs Heather Brown. Such an appointment is always difficult, and a high rate of staff turnover can be necessary to move a school on, but even Ofsted clearly had concerns by the end of the year, although still finding the school ‘Good’ on a short Inspection: ‘You have an unwavering commitment to making sure that the quality of teaching and learning is good despite the many changes of staff and difficulties in recruiting permanent teachers. Senior leaders closely monitor the quality of teaching and learning and offer support and guidance if your high expectations are not met. Rapid improvement is expected and rigorous performance management targets are set for staff’. Also: ‘You are acutely aware, however, of the concerns about leadership and management expressed by a number of parents. You acknowledge that you have not yet secured the confidence of these parents. Parents also, understandably, have concerns about the number of different teachers some classes have had. Your high expectations for the quality of teaching are partly, but not exclusively, a reason for many of the changes in staffing’.
Both quotes are indicative of a style driven by pressure to deliver high performance. It is of course one of the reasons for high teacher turnover as teachers who see the profession as a vocation cease to feel valued. I do believe that such pressures, often leading to low morale in a school, play a greater factor than teacher pay in the high number of teachers walking away from the profession.
Miss McIntosh is clearly well regarded by those that matter, being a Kent Leader of Education supporting schools in difficulty, and an Ofsted Inspector. However, the summer term saw her absent from school for a considerable period, including a critical time when the school was flooded, and then returning for a short period in July before being suspended or sent on 'Gardening Leave', along with her Deputy.
Not surprisingly the other local school, Walderslade Primary is the second most oversubscribed in Medway.
After a previous long period of stability and high standards, most recently under headteacher Llew Jones, who retired around 2001, the school was subject to repeated failure and a high turnover of headteachers, including seven in the past five years. The school rapidly fell into Serious Weaknesses (Ofsted 2003), the first of three failed Ofsteds, interspersed with several inadequate Monitoring Inspections., including one after the most recent ‘Requires Improvement’ last year. Twice there have been plans to expand this failing school to ease pressure on places in Northfleet, in spite of KCC principles that only Good or Outstanding schools should be enlarged. Both have been cancelled because of perceived but false insufficient demand, leaving Northfleet families struggling to find places, most recently this year. As a result some Northfleet families have been taxied across to East Gravesend schools as there were no vacancies locally. I have written up the problems a number of times over the past seven years, most recently here. In the meantime Ofsted has repeatedly highlighted a large turnover of teachers: 2016 ‘Each year, a large number of new teachers join the school but do not stay’; ‘Eleven new teachers took up post in September 2017’. The Ofsted Monitoring Inspection of October under most recent Head, Kevin Holmes, appointed May 2017 was critical of the leadership and oversight of Reach2, the Academy Trust which took over the school in 2013: ‘The school is not improving quickly enough. In a period of significant turbulence in staffing and leadership, standards have fallen further in all key stages since the previous inspection’; ‘’Now approaching four years since the school re-opened as an academy, by its own admission the trust has still not been successful in securing a good quality of education for pupils’.
Now Mr Holmes, who also recently had a spell running the disastrous Istead Rise Primary another school with an appalling record, and described as an experienced head by Ofsted, left suddenly without notice or explanation in June. The school is now run by Paul Voural, Associate School Leader for Reach2, whose own previous headship appears to have had its difficulties.
There were no reception class vacancies at all in Northfleet this year apart from a fruitless expansion of 30 places at Copperfield, with the school receiving 11 Local Authority Allocations to top its numbers up to 60, the only local school not full of children who had chosen it. In the meantime, nearby Cecil Road Primary, whose previous head was removed just over three years ago, has flourished to become one of the most oversubscribed schools in Kent as parents try and avoid Copperfield.