Loosing All My Teachers

About 2 years ago, a big company based in Dubai took over our very small independant school, renowned for it's individuality- it's non-selective and it based on the idea of friendliness, where everyone feels comfortable and is almost like a 'family.' I was always proud of my school and happy to be in it. Then this company came in, forced the old headmistress to leave and began to run it VERY badly- basically, without going into too many details at there are millions of problems, but we have had 4 head teachers in a year. Our deputy head has been at the school for 20 years and yet he was told under no circumstances was he even entitled to apply for the headship. He is an incredible teacher, all the pupils, parents and staff respect him and yet because he was not part of their 'company image' he has been overlooked and treated like dirt, until he eventually was forced to hand in his notice after a year of battling with them.
This wasn't too bad, he was 'acting' head for a term due to the company's appointed head leaving halfway through a year and then he was going to move on. On Wednesday, they decided they didn't want him anymore and told him he was to leave at the end of this half term. The students weren't happy and so staged a silent protest on the field. The 'acting' head then recieved a phonecall to tell him he was to be out of the school by the end of the day and he was banned from the premises, despite doing nothing wrong and having 3 children at the school.
It just makes me so angry, this company have ruined our school- 20 teachers have handed in their notice this term, including all of my A Level teachers, meaning that next year for A2, I will have all new teachers to cope with. On top of this, the head I have mentioned is my ancient history teacher- so now I'm on a really specialised course without a specialised teacher and the school is not planning to hire one- they seem to think the teachers who know about WWII will be able to teach Roman history at A2 level.

AGGGGGHHH!
Sorry this is a long post I just needed to get this off my chest!

Reply 1

kellywood_5

17

Is there any way you could move to another school or college for your A2s? If you could find one offering the same subjects and exam boards, it might be an idea.

Reply 2

PinkPigeon

OP

13

I can't because no other school in the area offers Ancient History A Level- it's a nightmare because it's quite a rare course!

Reply 3

lirael

7

I can't believe i you must feel very pissed off. I can't imagine that happening to me. Poor you. :frown:

Reply 4

kellywood_5

17

Yeah, I thought that might be the case. It looks like the only thing you could try is getting as many parents as possible to complain and try to get something done. In a state school, I doubt that would work, but since the parents are paying for the pupuls to be there, I'd imagine they have more influence as the school needs their money. Worth a go anyway.

Reply 5

PinkPigeon

OP

13

kellywood_5

Yeah, I thought that might be the case. It looks like the only thing you could try is getting as many parents as possible to complain and try to get something done. In a state school, I doubt that would work, but since the parents are paying for the pupuls to be there, I'd imagine they have more influence as the school needs their money. Worth a go anyway.

Yep- thats exactly whats happened today, over 200 parents, pupils and staff went to a meeting to come up with an 'action plan' on how to deal with this company. The problem is that they aren't interested in the students education- for example. removing this history teacher 2 weeks before our A/S and a month before the A2's is just thoughtless! Hopefully something will happen after today though- there are a lot of very angry parents around! :mad:

Reply 6

PinkPigeon

OP

13

Sorry to bring this back up again but I just have to add how proud I am of the parents in my school and pleased with the amount of publicity we are getting over this:
BBC News
The Times
:biggrin:

Power to the people!

Reply 7

kellywood_5

17

Hey, that's great! Hopefully something will have to be done now.

Reply 8

trev

15

I read that news on the BBC website. It's quite amazing to find a student studying in that school is on TSR (the person who posted this therad). :redface:

There's bound to be these problems, if companies (i.e. GEMS) own schools like your's. :frown:

How come they are doing these stuff to the private school?

Reply 9

PinkPigeon

OP

13

trev

I read that news on the BBC website. It's quite amazing to find a student studying in that school is on TSR (the person who posted this therad). :redface:

There's bound to be these problems, if companies (i.e. GEMS) own schools like your's. :frown:

How come they are doing these stuff to the private school?

Yep, I'm studying there- not so sure if it's a :smile:

though! Basically, it used to be a very flexible, family style school where all abilities were welcome and everyone was looking out for one another. The main reason they are making the changes is because,quote from Sunny Varkey (the owner of the company) 'a good school is high in the league tables and profitable.' :mad: