Schools in financial crisis.

[Workingman]

There was uproar last week when it was announced that over a quarter of state schools were in deficit. That is government speak shorthand for them not being run properly, yet this is despite us paying heads and SMTs obscene amounts of money to do the job. Councils were said to be failing pupils and parents and told to get a grip...

Today we are told that academies, schools now run privately having opted out of state control, are also in the mire. Apparently eight out of ten of them are in deficit. Well here's the thing, we know that the boards of directors of the consortiums set up to run the academies pay themselves King's ransoms of our money for doing very little. I await tomorrow's outrage from the DfE over this news with interest.

We need an inquiry panel, including parents and pupils, but no teacher's or headteacher's unions and possibly no MPs, to look into the education system and sort it out. It has been a mess for far too many decades.

[cromwell]

Wakefield academies trust went broke recently, in rather scandalous circumstances.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... us-parents

[Kaz]

Running schools as businesses is absolutely disgraceful - we should NEVER have started down that road

[TheOstrich]

Precisely, Kaz. Head teachers are not businessmen. My FiL was a very successful, inspirational head teacher in Yeovil back in the day, but he'd have been totally lost if you'd waved a spreadsheet at him.

So to get over that, you employ a whole new raft of bureaucracy, which costs umpteen thousands pounds per school and that's out of the already diminishing budget.

Yet another example of how privatisation has ruined this country.

[Kaz]

Absolutely!

[JoM]

Is part of it another case of too many managers again, as in the NHS?

Going back to the dark ages of the 1980s when I was at secondary school, we had the headmaster, deputy headmaster, heads of year and department heads. Joe left secondary school (almost) two years ago and at his school there was the headteacher, deputy headteacher, five assistant headteachers, heads of year, department heads, house directors, house managers, a business manager.

Frank, I really like the idea of a panel to sort this mess out. I'd gladly sit on one.

[AliasAggers]

I think that much could be learned by looking back at what schools were like in those 'good old days' of my youth.

My schooling was at ordinary state schools, which was followed by specialist classes at what were then known as
Night Schools, and by employment day-release classes in subjects relevant to the particular occupation chosen.

And in those days, schools had only ONE Headmaster.

I consider that the education system now in use needs a good shake-up.

[Workingman]

I consider that the education system now in use needs a good shake-up.

You are not alone... by any means.