Are we over reacting? (school issue)

[PH5121]

My eldest lad will be moving up to year 6 at primary school in September. It's an important year, they do Year 6 Sat tests which I understand will decide certain aspects of their future schooling when they move up to secondary school.

We received an e-mail yesterday from the chairman of the school governers to say that the year 6 teacher will be carrying out the duties of the head as the head teacher is leaving and a replacement has not been found, so will no longer be teaching. Instead the Year 6 class will be taught by supply teachers and that the staffing in the rest of the school is staying the same.

I may be being cynical but feel that they left this announcement to the last minute knowing that we parents of the Year 6 children won't be able to do anything about it as school breaks up tomorrow for summer.
We sent an e-mail back last night to the chair of the governers outlining our concerns that having supply teachers in this role doesn't seem like a very good idea, and suggesting a re shuffle of the other staff members should perhaps have been considered (I assume no one wanted the Year 6 job).

At this late stage I don't expect we will hear anything back, and no changes will be made, so are looking at him changing schools for the start of the new school year in September.

Most of my sons friends live in the same village as us but go to different schools as the village school was shockingly bad so most children of that age go to other schools in the area (the school he goes to is 4 miles away anyway so he doesn't mix out of school with the kids from there) so I am not concerned about taking him away from his friends.

I would appreciate the opinion of random strangers from the internet, are we over reacting?

[alorotom]

I think it's a fair concern but you also need to be actually realistic to the impact this will have, Y6 SATS are not particularly important for progression IMHO

any decent secondary school for Y7 onwards will make its own assessment before allocating sets for classes based on intellectual ability etc...

Y9 SATS are equally as ineffective in guiding the direction for GSCE / baccalaureate / etc...

[TurboHatchback]

If they already know the teacher will be out for the entire year could they not get the same supply teacher in for the whole year? That would surely have much the same effect as a regular salaried teacher.

[Speed 3]

TurboHatchback said:

If they already know the teacher will be out for the entire year could they not get the same supply teacher in for the whole year? That would surely have much the same effect as a regular salaried teacher.

Subject to OP clarification, sounds like they've "not yet" found a replacement Head, hence the Yr 6 teacher is interiming. That would explain why the reference to Supply teachers covering rather than a 1 year contract hire. Don't know what area the OP is in but it would be surprising not to be able to hire a new Head before too long unless its unappealing in some way (eg isolated/expensive/unpopular location). There are still ambitious teachers lower down the ladder who would jump at the chance of a promotion.

Agree re SATS, they're not overly important now. Its more important getting the lad into a High School of choice, they soon make up any shortfall. Unfortunately Primary education is always at the whim of which teacher you get for a particular year (or form in a bigger school). Neither of my daughters suffered particularly from what they were dealt (one just finishing Yr8, the other Yr6).

Normally Governors don't get involved specifically in the hiring of teachers other than the Head, it could just be unfortunate timing and they wanted to get some form of Plan B news out before term end when they haven't been successful in their Plan A. I would just give reasonable feedback and keep a close monitor rather than trying to change schools for the sake of a single year.

[ralphrj]

If the school cannot fill the vacancy for Headteacher then the Local Education Authority may appoint an Executive Head (i.e. share one with another school).