Each school will find its own solution. Parts of what we did were only possible because a staff member retired and we could look at how their hours could be best used. Other parts were achieved through looking at how time was allocated and used.
THE PROCESS
THE PROCESS
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Was begun early (January 2003)
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Involved all staff working together
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Was not dominated by “management” (two important and valued staff developed proposals from discussions)
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Attempted to pass decision making to lower levels about use of time
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Is on going
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Has important areas which have not been fully sorted.
THE OUTCOMES
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Only 4 or 5 of the tasks needed to be considered
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More administrative time for the office. This is to ensure that:
- all communications are dealt with at this level
- teaching staff are not chasing money
- stock is in place -
Clear guidance on the use of support staff time. Including that some of the time is for teachers to make decisions about (as year pairs)
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Blocking some support assistant time at KS level across several classes has freed time for other uses
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A little time to support ICT is going in
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A closer relationship between teaching and support staff
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Support staff “attached” to year groups for much of their time.
DIFFICULTIES AND FUTURE ACTIONS
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Funding – even a small amount of extra resources would have smoothed the process and enabled us to be more creative
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There are areas in the 24 points which have not been fully solved; particularly ICT
- 10 hours of focussed ICT support to go in but training is needed for support staff who may work in this area
- The issue of resource preparation “copying” will need to be turned to
- Issues around efficient planning will have as great an impact on teaching staff as the “24 tasks”.