Proof that the Kent system is not working ?

[TalkinPeace2]

www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/10056577.Rival_tries_to_tempt_our_teachers_away/
250 leadership vacancies currently in Kent schools

as how many teachers, given the choice and a one hour drive, will want to work in schools where every child has been labelled a 'failure' by the 'system'?

[RichTeas]

Do the other GS counties (Bucks, Essex etc) have the same issue? Kent always seems to come up as the county where GS is divisive?

It (poaching teachers) does seem a slightly shoddy idea somehow.

[APMF]

The 'I hate Kent GSs because my DC didn't get in' brigade never ceases to amaze me with their feeble arguments.

The London Met Police has done something similar much to chagrin of nearby police forces. Local chambers of commerce have done similar things to encourage businesses to relocate. And so on and so on.

But Oh My Gawd! Shock, horror! Kent is nicking our teachers. How can they look at themselves in the mirror.

[StillSquiffy]

Not sure it is as simple as that - geographical stuff comes into play too. Kent borders only London and Sussex (tiny bit of surrey too), and a large part of Kent (Thanet) is too long to commute to if you live outside of Kent. Realistically you can only commute if you live in London, but why would anyone want to do that, especially given that London has much higher levels of vacancies than Kent (1,493 versus 194, according to Guardian teaching website).

If you look at same guardian website there are precisely 5 mgmt-level vacancies in teaching, similar to other counties. Now am sure there are different roles advertised on different sites, but I doubt the numbers will stack up particularly against Kent.

Seems like simply good tactics on the part of the council to cast their net wide in search of good talent.

[RichTeas]

APMF, there is a bit of a problem there. Teacher continuity in a school is generally a good thing, educating children is not quite a commodified as say, selling bonds. It does seem if LEA's start aggressively competing for teaching staff, salaries will have to rise and it will be a case of musical chairs (as in the commercial sector). With education funding being stretched as it is, that doesn't seem like the way to go, not good for budgets, not good for children. Good for teachers though, and I don't suppose they would be complaining.

[CaseyShraeger]

Not "250 leadership vacancies currently in Kent schools", 250 leadership positions advertised last year in Kent schools. Bit of a difference there.

And many of those will be in primary schools, or in selective schools. At a minimum, if you eant to start drawing conclusions, you'd need to know how many current senior leadership vacancies there currently are in Kent non-selective sevondary schools and how that compares to the rate of vacancies at non-selective secondary schools in other counties.

[Sabriel]

What a bizarre thread. This hardly proves anything, and after 27 years in Kent know plenty of teachers who work in high schools. As has been repeated many many times on these threads and the GS hating posters choose to ignore, the vast majority of Kent pupils do not take the 11+. You can't fail something you don't take, and nobody is labelled a failure.

FWIW my DS went to a Kent high school and did very well, and we moved away from Kent recently for work in a different area. People moving for work is nothing unusual.

[mummytime]

Kent seems to have more of an embedded Grammar system than Essex, which has a few Grammars, but also a lot of good Comprehensives including ones you would fight to get your child into.
Surrey also had problems, as it has a high cost of living, however it does have some schools which use quite imaginative approaches to get and try to retain teachers eg. Several teacher training providers, a good HR team, overseas qualified teachers schemes and active recruiting.

I think the Kent story only made the papers because they seem to be trying to poach teachers from places like Surrey and Berkshire.

[LettyAshton]

I live in Hampshire (home of Daily Echo where link is from) and I know that many schools here have no Heads. I can extrapolate from that that maybe everywhere has the same problem.

Dd's school is head-less because, apparently, heads on the look-out for a job want a challenge. They don't want to walk into an outstanding school and risk being blamed for a downward trajectory.

Also, there seems to be a lack of decent applicants. The school at which I was a governor found it really difficult to find anyone worth interviewing for the headship. You have in your mind's eye this inspirational leader and what turns up is an incredibly lacklustre individual spouting tired old jargon. It's really dispiriting.