School staffing

[Four Cofffee]

I had occasion to be in the foyer of my local secondary school ( a specialist sports college) yesterday, and with a few minuites to kill was looking around their noticeboard of staff pictures/roles. There seemed to be about 70 teachers. Obviously I was just looking for hot PE teachers but what struck me was that the 'support staff' out numbered the 'teaching staff'. Some roles were obvious (3 x maintenace blokes and a property/personnel manger who I assume is the bursar type guy).

But:

5 Learning Mentors
12 classroom supervisors (in a secondary school?)
10 classroom assistants
4 hearing impaired assistants
3 behavioural referral unit staff
4 data analysis and examinations staff
5 admin and reception staff
5 tecnicians
4 lab assistants
6 ICT staff

[sday12]

What's your point/question? are are you just trolling?

Edited by sday12 on Tuesday 11th May 08:22

[Four Cofffee]

My piont is , what has changed in education that for every teacher we now have another member of support staff? The bill must be astronomical, certainly enught to pay another 30 teachers in that school.

[HOGEPH]

I suppose the assistants are there to help maintain order?

[sday12]

Four Cofffee said:

My piont is , what has changed in education that for every teacher we now have another member of support staff? The bill must be astronomical, certainly enught to pay another 30 teachers in that school.

Aha, trolling, there'll be a teacher and 8 Daily Mail readers along in a minute to answer your question.

Edited by sday12 on Tuesday 11th May 08:48

[MrV]

Four Cofffee said:

( a specialist sports college)

That bit might give the game away if it is the same as our local one ,polite way of putting the local special needs school ,that would explain the higher staffing levels.

[M400 NBL]

In my day we had teacher for each subject and a headmaster, plus canteen staff and a caretaker. I don't even think the headmaster had a secretary because I guess the teachers did all the necessary admin!

I guess the assistants are only on call and their names are on the board for security reasons.

[GKP]

It's good to hear that the school is being well funded. Some kids require extra help to develop their learning skills and it sounds like you've stumbled upon an appropriate building.


What would you prefer? Class sizes of around 50 kids and just ignore the potentially tricky ones?

[loltolhurst]

sday12 said:

Four Cofffee said:

My piont is , what has changed in education that for every teacher we now have another member of support staff? The bill must be astronomical, certainly enught to pay another 30 teachers in that school.

Aha, trolling, there'll be a teacher and 8 Daily Mail readers along in a minute to answer your question.

Edited by sday12 on Tuesday 11th May 08:48

whats trolling about pointing out the waste in the public sector??

[garycat]

Four Cofffee said:

6 ICT staff

Seems a lot. Where my wife worked they had 1 full time IT Technician and 1 part time.

[davido140]

Dunno about the other departments but ICT in schools is growing massively. Many schools have been told they must have a parents and students portal with which course works, homeworks, learning resources, grades and a whole load of other stuff is made available to share between teachers, students and parents.

Every school I've spoken to has been given no guidance on how to achieve it so they end up deploying their own solution independent of the LEA.

Add to that a "lab" of half a dozen BBC micros doesnt really cut it any more for an ICT department and the Business Studies teacher who knows a bit about computers cant really support 100's or even a few 1000 users in a large secondary school they need their own properly staffed ICT departments.

I'm often surprised to see how they achieved the level of sophistication of their in-house systems on the shoestring budget they are given. A testament to the ingenuity of the ICT staff IMHO.

Of course, some of them are fairly crap as well.

[loltolhurst]

garycat said:

Four Cofffee said:

6 ICT staff

Seems a lot. Where my wife worked they had 1 full time IT Technician and 1 part time.

esp when they prob have a big centralised ict contract with rm or someone for support

[jpringle819]

ICT in schools is a big thing now, the schools we are currently working with have over £1000000 worth of kit/services spent on them. The last one was 1200 client devices, blade enclosure, SAN and over 100 switches. How many ICT staff would you expect to support 2200 users.

[loltolhurst]

jpringle819 said:

ICT in schools is a big thing now, the schools we are currently working with have over £1000000 worth of kit/services spent on them. The last one was 1200 client devices, blade enclosure, SAN and over 100 switches. How many ICT staff would you expect to support 2200 users.

did he say there were 2200 users?

[off_again]

Mmm, sounds like a pretty specialist school to me! My kids school (Primary so not quite the same) has NO ICT specialists, limited admin staff and most teachers double up on everything and volunteer for after school stuff too!

My sister is an admin at a secondary school though, and she is responsible for the accounting and money. There are just two of them for the whole school and its quite amazing how much they have to do. Pretty much buying everything in and making the budget balance. Not an easy job and gets paid a pittance.

So it sounds like this school is getting specialist funding to me. Not quite a fair comparison I am afraid.

[tegwin]

davido140 said:

Many schools have been told they must have a parents and students portal with which course works, homeworks, learning resources, grades and a whole load of other stuff is made available to share between teachers, students and parents.

EVERY school must do this before September.... I dont know many that will meet the deadline!

[jesta1865]

Four Cofffee said:

My piont is , what has changed in education that for every teacher we now have another member of support staff? The bill must be astronomical, certainly enught to pay another 30 teachers in that school.

rofl, you don't know how much learning support / teaching assistants are paid do you

they get a pittance, normally well below £10k a year for a close to full time job, and I know one who is on her own, and bringing up 2 kids as well.

[jesta1865]

tegwin said:

davido140 said:

Many schools have been told they must have a parents and students portal with which course works, homeworks, learning resources, grades and a whole load of other stuff is made available to share between teachers, students and parents.

EVERY school must do this before September.... I dont know many that will meet the deadline!

actually its a guideline now, so doesn't have to be done, but there are many companies out there that are making a mint from schools that don't have the people in place to question the pricing and / or solutions technical merits.

there are more and more IT staff now in schools that have a background in the private sector, and so called 'educational specialist suppliers' are feeling the pinch as the people with knowledge from the private sector are questioning pricing and support structures all the time and using suppliers to the private sector instead.

[loltolhurst]

tegwin said:

davido140 said:

Many schools have been told they must have a parents and students portal with which course works, homeworks, learning resources, grades and a whole load of other stuff is made available to share between teachers, students and parents.

EVERY school must do this before September.... I dont know many that will meet the deadline!

either

1) open online moodle account. job done
2) use facebook. job done
3) use one of the many paid for vles. job done
4) set up remote acces. job done

etc etc

all easy to do in hours its not hard. no noone will use them but thats not the governemnts point they just want to be seen to be doing something and will waste millions on it as everyone has to " think of the children"

[jesta1865]

loltolhurst said:

garycat said:

Four Cofffee said:

6 ICT staff

Seems a lot. Where my wife worked they had 1 full time IT Technician and 1 part time.

esp when they prob have a big centralised ict contract with rm or someone for support

rm are losing market share as people come in from the private sector and say, we can do this for nothing with a GPO (group policy object)