HebrideanHecate“We’ll all be telling teachers, ‘Hooray, you’re getting a pay rise, but the bad news is some of you will lose your jobs as we can’t afford it,’” she said. The head said her school now had far greater numbers of children with special educational needs, some so complex that “it would be dangerous not to give them one-to-one support”. But the school is now employing people on temporary contracts because it can’t afford to hire permanent support staff. Four teaching assistants have left in the past 12 months and only one has been replaced.
She added the school was having to ask teachers to do “so much more” to compensate for failures in other cash-strapped public services, including supporting children who are homeless or living with domestic violence.
“Sometimes you have to prioritise a child’s wellbeing over what they are doing in geography. But how do we juggle all this with fewer staff? It’s scary,” she said.
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