Liz Davison (Thornton Primary School): Headship in an Academy and the Effect of Budgets

In this episode, Claire chats with Elizabeth Davison, Headteacher at Thornton Primary School in Bradford, about her journey through education and teaching, and the challenges of leading a large primary school in a time of austerity and financial pressure.   School leaders and teachers across the country are regularly reporting how they are finding it increasingly difficult to run their schools and classrooms effectively with dwindling budgets, but also alongside ever-increasing accountability.   Elizabeth shares her perceptions on these issues and discusses how she is leading her school in a challenging educational climate so that it continues to provide a good education for the pupils while keeping morale up, and maintaining a life/work balance for all staff.    KEY TAKEAWAYS Make the most of any leadership experience you can get.While being mindful of how much you take on, if you have your sights set on being a future leader, any experiences of leadership you can get can be valuable and useful opportunities. Academy funding is, essentially, very similar to Local Authority funding.The differences in the amount the school receives will generally be negligible. What makes the biggest difference is the effectiveness of the support a school gets from its Academy Trust for the share of the funding they take. Insufficient school funding is causing significant issues. With staffing costs being the greatest expense for a school, that is generally where savings will end up being made for most schools who are facing serious funding concerns. A lack of staff will, ultimately, negatively impact the pupils in a school in a number of ways. The expectations of OfSTED and of those in charge of education have not changed and have arguably been raised, which leaves schools facing an uphill struggle to maintain standards despite having to lose the very people who help to make the standards achievable.  More pupils than ever are in need of support, but some will lose out.With schools losing staff and local services being cut, tough decisions are having to be made about which pupils can be supported effectively, or, more worryingly, at all. Where support is not legally required to be given, and there is no capacity to provide it due to lack of funding, schools might have very few options left to them.   School staff are key.Keeping the school functioning as effectively as possible and providing a good education for the pupils depends entirely on the staff you have. Where staff have been lost, those who remain are picking up the workloads which are no longer being covered, and schools are increasingly relying on the hard work, effort and goodwill of these people.  As a leader, do what you can to make the life/work balance manageable.Teachers are, generally, very committed to their schools, and will usually ‘just work harder’ to cover lost staff or increased workloads. But even the little things leaders can do will help. Reducing unnecessary workloads wherever possible can make a significant difference: only collecting data when absolutely needed, reduced marking, paperwork and admin, time off where convenient and motivating CPD experiences.  Be led by the interests of the children.To engage a class, you have to be passionate about the subject you are teaching; but that isn’t usually enough on its own. Teachers have to find a way to stir that enthusiasm in their children or make their subject relevant and closely linked to the interests of the children. BEST MOMENTS“I felt that I really was sort of 'in the deep end' if you like. And again, it was something that I really relished. I don't look back and think, 'oh, that was dreadful', I look back really fondly. They were very exciting times, you know.”   “The workload for staff has increased in line with the dwindling budgets.” “While schools are returning budgets that are in surplus, the government has a stronger argument to say everything's okay. But what they don't see are all the cuts that we're having to make and all the choices that we're having to make and the impact that it's having on the children.”  “Staff will, just, they're so committed, they will not let the children down.”   “If I can look back and think that I have tried my best for the children, for the staff, then I'll be happy.”   “We can't employ more staff and we just have to manage, and we are managing really, really well, but I do worry about the future.”   VALUABLE RESOURCESThe Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/ ABOUT THE HOST Claire Riley   Claire, alongside her husband Ed, is one of the directors of Classroom Secrets, a company she founded in 2013 and which provides outstanding differentiated resources for teachers, schools, parents and tutors worldwide.   Having worked for a number of years as a teacher in both Primary and Secondary education, and experiencing first-hand the difficulties teachers were facing finding appropriate high-quality resources for their lessons, Claire created Classroom Secrets with the aim of helping reduce the workload for all school staff.   Claire is a passionate believer in a LIFE/work balance for those who work in education citing the high percentage of teachers who leave or plan to leave their jobs each year. Since February 2019, Classroom Secrets has been running their LIFE/work balance campaign to highlight this concerning trend.   The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.