‘Things will improve with Les Ozouets decision’ - Director of education
Secondary school students have faced an unacceptable level of upheaval in recent years, with teaching staff turnover almost twice the national average, the director of Education has admitted.
Nick Hynes said last year’s churn in the States-maintained sector had been 17%, which was considerably higher than the equivalent figure for England of 9.5%.
However, he said last month's States decision to fund the Les Ozouets campus – combined with an ongoing programme that has seen more than 100 secondary posts allocated – has reduced the instability and uncertainty that was driving staff to look elsewhere. He was now confident that things would improve.
‘The biggest positive thing that could have happened to support our staff maintaining their roles within our sector, is the decision the States made in order to continue to move forward with the Transforming Education Programme,’ Mr Hynes said.
‘For years, our staff have been in periods of uncertainty and it’s been completely unfair and unsustainable – quite simply not acceptable.’
An illustration of the instability, he said, was that fully 75% of senior leaders across education had been in temporary posts ‘because of the delay, delay, delay’.
In addition, 55% of ‘middle-level leaders’ – such as heads of department – had been in temporary management posts.
He acknowledged staff had been leaving ‘for a variety of reasons' with some leaving for the independent colleges, but said that recruitment and retention was ‘already looking more positive’ than it had in the recent past.
Mr Hynes also gave a reassurance that lessons had been learnt from the closure of St Peter Port School and students would not see their opportunities diminish during the one-and-a-half academic years remaining in the life of La Mare de Carteret as a high school.
‘There is absolutely no wind down of the access to specialist subject teachers for those students who are remaining on the La Mare site,’ he said.
Director of Education Nick Hynes and Education, Sport & Culture president Deputy Andrea Dudley-Owen were guests on a special education-themed edition of the Guernsey Press Politics Podcast, which will be released this week. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
