School places - Leics CC meltdown

[Saxondale]

 Christ, this thread has gone off in a different direction.

[Tommy G]

LCC Education dept is a shambles, if you think navigating a mainstream school is difficult try a specialist setting. They are completely overwhelmed and not dynamic in the slightest, slow and generally abject. If you can wordsmith a decent email you can tie them in knots, do you reseach and fall back on some statutory guidance is the way to get a result.

 

I had to fight to the point of going to a Tribunal to get my son in where I needed him to go, it's worth it. 

[UniFox21]

22 hours ago, Lionator said:

My mum is a TA and they have a league table system based on class performance. The TA’s are constantly threatened with redundancy if they are at the bottom of the league table which is decided by kids performances/behaviour in class. I’m sure it’s illegal but they’re also discouraged against unionising. The school works on a profit based system where kids are referred to as ‘resources’ and they will cut places so that the executive heads can get a well deserved pay rise. 

My friend was a teacher, ever since I met her at uni all she wanted to do was be a teacher. She did 3 or 4 years and became so disillusioned with the system, the head teachers, the life balance etc that she's changed career completely. 

 

Was horrible to see her go from having an absolute passion about something to just wanting nothing to do with it

[leicsmac]

18 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

My friend was a teacher, ever since I met her at uni all she wanted to do was be a teacher. She did 3 or 4 years and became so disillusioned with the system, the head teachers, the life balance etc that she's changed career completely. 

 

Was horrible to see her go from having an absolute passion about something to just wanting nothing to do with it

And I'll bet that's one of a great many similar anecdotes.

 

It's sad and horrible, as you say. There needs to be changes. The right kind of changes.

[Raj]

19 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

My friend was a teacher, ever since I met her at uni all she wanted to do was be a teacher. She did 3 or 4 years and became so disillusioned with the system, the head teachers, the life balance etc that she's changed career completely. 

 

Was horrible to see her go from having an absolute passion about something to just wanting nothing to do with it

Yes 100% agree as this has happened to my Mrs who has 20 years+ of teaching behind her.

F2CK THE TORIES.

[Aus Fox]

I’m confused as to why the council need to be involved in this? Why can’t you make an application directly to a school?

The school then, if you’re in the zone accept you, or if you’re out of zone they can accept you if they have places or reject if they’re full?

Can anyone clarify why there are government or council involvement in the process?

[dsr-burnley]

2 hours ago, Raj said:

Yes 100% agree as this has happened to my Mrs who has 20 years+ of teaching behind her.

[deleted] THE TORIES.

Happened to my sister too.  Of course, that was when Tony Blair was PM, so perhaps there are other factors in work apart from the government of the day?

Edited 29 August 2023 by dsr-burnley

[Daggers]

2 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

I’m confused as to why the council need to be involved in this? Why can’t you make an application directly to a school?

The school then, if you’re in the zone accept you, or if you’re out of zone they can accept you if they have places or reject if they’re full?

Can anyone clarify why there are government or council involvement in the process?

LEAs used to coordinate all education provision for their counties. A bright spark decided they were enclaves of socialist propaganda and decided we didn't need collective bargaining when it came to purchasing or a coordinated approach to 5-18 provision. Enter the Academy programme - whereby schools operated as piss poor businesses, overpaid for supplies and were meant to act in competition with each other...because that's what schools should be prioritising, eh. Plus, from the originally limited resource pot, Academies sucked profit from the system to overpay inept leaders and managerial teams who only focus on the statistics.

 

When council LEAs were involved, teachers didn't have to rock up to work with a bag of educational provisions they had paid for out of their own pocket, schools had enrichment programmes, kids learnt instruments and languages, all classes could afford support for differentiated learning and catchment areas weren't linked to regions of affluence or poverty, and staff didn't spend an inordinate amount of time constantly reinventing the wheel and producing reams of documentation to justify that they were doing an acceptable job.

 

Then factor in OFSTED and the ghost of league tables, and now school staff live in fear of being judged adequate so spend entire academic years preparing for wrote learnt SAT tests and inspections that never arrive.

 

But to answer your question, a council is supposed to coordinate the process to ensure that there are places for all who need them and that every child is receiving an education.

 

The weakness of the unions, the spineless National Association of Head Teachers, moronic shiny-faced NQTs with no appreciation of the political implications of their actions, and the short-term imbecilic actions of politicians of all hues (I'm looking squarely at you here David Blunket because you kicked it all off) contributed to an abysmal decline in the state of education over the last 20+yrs.

[Raj]

2 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Happened to my sister too.  Of course, that was when Tony Blair was PM, so perhaps there are other factors in work apart from the government of the day?

I still blame the Tories!!!!

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Happened to my sister too.  Of course, that was when Tony Blair was PM, so perhaps there are other factors in work apart from the government of the day?

If there is a factor more pivotal to the current educational situation in that regard than the current government, I'd like very much to know what it is.

[dsr-burnley]

1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

If there is a factor more pivotal to the current educational situation in that regard than the current government, I'd like very much to know what it is.

Most of the government's input is restricted to how much money they put in.  The day-to-day running is the LEAs.  

 

Whoever is responsible for the vast amounts of paperwork that teachers have to do - that's a factor.  Parents automatically blaming the schools if their pupils are punished for anything - another factor.  General bad behaviour in society - another factor.  Weakening authority of teachers caused by the general "don't let anything upset the children" attitude - another factor.

 

The factor of how much money is being put into the system (just as with the NHS) isn't the only factor.  Obviously it's easy to see by how much the government is increasing spending and thinking of a bigger figure that would solve the problems, but I bet when Labour gets in the problems won't be solved.  When my mother started teaching, she had 50 in the class (2 to a desk) and not enough paper so they still wrote on slates.  That was 1955, and reception class.  Has literacy improved?  Has education in general improved, by the vast amounts that would be expected in view of the vast increase in funding?  I don't think so, because of the other factors in play.

[Guest Mee-9]

Something to bear in mind which may apply to some parents here. 

 

If your child has an additional need, such as ASD, Dyslexia and so on then you hold the power as to where your child goes especially with regards to Academies. These have to take students with additional needs.

 

There is an alarming lack of places inside of special schools, and there is very little successful infrastructure in the county for this.  Meaning that many parents choose to send their children to mainstream. (But we did have some cases of students who quite clearly shouldn't have been in mainstream) 

 

Any questions regarding to schools and so on feel free to fire them at me at any time. Always happy to help! Be it school places, homework schedules etc. 

 

(Former Secondary teacher here who left the profession due to a second business in lockdown going mad) 

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Most of the government's input is restricted to how much money they put in.  The day-to-day running is the LEAs.  

 

Whoever is responsible for the vast amounts of paperwork that teachers have to do - that's a factor.  Parents automatically blaming the schools if their pupils are punished for anything - another factor.  General bad behaviour in society - another factor.  Weakening authority of teachers caused by the general "don't let anything upset the children" attitude - another factor.

 

The factor of how much money is being put into the system (just as with the NHS) isn't the only factor.  Obviously it's easy to see by how much the government is increasing spending and thinking of a bigger figure that would solve the problems, but I bet when Labour gets in the problems won't be solved.  When my mother started teaching, she had 50 in the class (2 to a desk) and not enough paper so they still wrote on slates.  That was 1955, and reception class.  Has literacy improved?  Has education in general improved, by the vast amounts that would be expected in view of the vast increase in funding?  I don't think so, because of the other factors in play.

I would posit that the political powers that be - locally and nationally - are responsible for that paperwork increase, and I'm not entirely sure that behaviour in society is any worse than it has been at other points in history, but I would agree without reservation on the other two points raised here.

 

WRT money, I do think it is the most important factor and I also think that throwing money at such things does result in a higher level of progress - there's a reason the era now and the one 2000-2008ish are so different in terms of education. Of course, one might make the argument that you won't get a proportionate increase in such progress per quid spent, but overall there is a positive correlation. What's happening now is underfunding (yes, increased funding not matching inflation is still underfunding, and that is happening overall), with one eye to increased roles for privatisation in public education and thus leaving it open to lowest-bidder division.

[Footballwipe]

It's also worth noting the utter explosion in EHCPs over the last few years, coupled with no additional funding from central government to properly fund this.

 

An explosion in EHCPs means an explosion in kids needing taxis to get to their school, with many of these needing individual taxis every day. Again, no Government funding to the LEA to fund these additional numbers, whether it be the Taxi contracts or staff to process all of these complicated cases.

 

I suspect the situation probably could be a lot better but let's not pretend central govt can't take a portion of the blame for essentially cutting LEA's loose to solve the problem for themselves.

[Grebfromgrebland]

3 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

Happened to my sister too.  Of course, that was when Tony Blair was PM, so perhaps there are other factors in work apart from the government of the day?

It's worse now in every single way.

[sdb]

On 29/08/2023 at 17:04, Grebfromgrebland said:

It's worse now in every single way.

100% agree, sadly. The job I loved 10-15 years ago is now an absolute slog with fewer and fewer reasons to carry on.