Ex-Rawmarsh head wins new role as adviser

As teachers at Rawmarsh Community School resumed strike action on Wednesday and yesterday over job losses caused by a budget deficit, council education officials defended employing John Lambert in a consulting role.

But the strikers’ NUT union has criticised the “failures” of the former and current head, governors and the council, which it claims was “negligent” in monitoring school finances.

Mr Lambert held the post of head on a job-share basis with his wife Lesley until he left in September last year to work for Rotherham Borough Council, initially on the now-scrapped Building Schools for the Future programme.

After Dr Stuart Wilson took over he said that a £400,000 deficit was predicted for this year and 34 jobs, including 25 teachers, were being made redundant.

But after some teachers left, others went part time, shared jobs or took voluntary redundancy, the number of enforced redundancies among teachers was reduced to four.

The only NUT member still facing being forced out is union representative Ralph Dyson.

The union said: “The NUT is not responsible for the budget deficit. This is a direct result of management failure.

“Those responsible include the head teacher(s), school governors and the local authority who were involved in managing the school prior to September 2010.

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“The NUT believes the local authority has a responsibility to make good this matter due to its negligence in properly monitoring the school accounts and that this action could be resolved by co-operation between the LEA and the school. 

“We think those responsible for the budget problems should be held accountable.

“It is unfair that teachers should lose their jobs and pupils’ education should suffer because of the failures of those whose job it is to manage the school.

“NUT members are fighting for their jobs and children’s education—the two are inseparable.”

The NUT expressed concerns about the size of the leadership team–there are currently two deputy heads and three assistant heads.

The union also claims refurbishments are due to take place, including a new canteen, computer rooms and offices.

Head Dr Wilson said: “We are again bitterly disappointed that the NUT has decided to take this action, particularly when we have worked hard to reduce the number of potential compulsory redundancies.

“This has resulted in the numbers dropping from 25 to four and two colleagues have potential opportunities elsewhere which we hope will mean the figure falls even further.

“We are continuing to work with staff and unions to find solutions to these difficult circumstances and we have had constructive discussions with other unions who are supportive of what we are trying to achieve for our students.

“Year 11 students are not affected by the strike and have been attending school as usual.

We have also made arrangements so as many Year 10 students as possible could attend.

“However, we have reluctantly had to ask parents to keep Year 7, 8 and 9 students at home. We have ensured they have access to online learning materials although we realise this is not an ideal situation but strike action like this does have an impact on our students’ learning.

“As Ofsted recently concluded, we are an improving school that knows about any weaknesses and knows precisely how to deal with them.”

Talks between the NUT and LEA are due to take place next Wednesday.