Avoiding budget meltdown

The following e-mail is unfortunately not uncommon: We are in a major falling roll situation and need to look at the curriculum to reflect this. If we don't reduce staff costs we will be bust by 2011!

This scenario is one that many schools may well find themselves facing. For some this is seen as a threat but for others it could well be an opportunity. At the very least it should stimulate a very healthy discussion regarding curriculum design and realisation. Demographic data is readily available and you should be able to get predictions of your likely intake several years in advance. Downturns in pupils numbers should therefore not come as a surprise and should allow you to be planning at least 2 to 3 years in advance. Unfortunately not all timetablers, or those responsible for curriculum planning, are given access to this data or fail to ask for it. Failure to consider this data can result in stressful and painful situations and can well delay the construction of the timetable. If redundancies are necessary the various procedures that have to be followed can be extremely lengthy and extend the timetabling season well into the summer holidays. In extreme cases it means re-writing the timetable in the autumn term.

What can be done? Reductions in learner numbers mean reductions in budget. Realistically this can normally only be achieved by reducing staff numbers. There are a number of ways to achieve this:

Look at your staff age-profile to see if there are staff who are approaching retirement age and would welcome the opportunity to go early.
Look at the teacher allocations for all staff. The school with this particular problem had a standard allowance of 42 out of 50 teaching periods for a standard grade teacher with the rest pro-rata. By increasing the teaching load to 44 periods they were able to save 2.7 FTE.
Review the areas of responsibility of the leadership team. Can some of the jobs be shared around to reduce the headcount in the team? In this particular school there were 5 Assistant Heads. A close review of their roles showed this could quite easily be reduced to 3 with no detriment to efficiency of the school. This reduction offered the potential to reduce the budget by £100k!
Increase in class group size and the reduction in the number of classes. In the above example the 2006 intake is 126 and is considered to be 6 FE thus giving an average class size of 21. Reducing to 5 classes would give an average group size of 25. For many teachers this would be a perfectly acceptable group size. However looking ahead to 2012 there is an expected intake of 90 and 4 forms of entry. This will give groups of 22-23 which may be considered a little low but the alternative of 3 classes would give groups of 30 which for most is not acceptable. If these figures are looked at over a 3 year period savings made in 2010 can be 'banked' to cover the lean year in 2012.
Reduce the number of options in KS4. Traditionally options are very expensive as far a group size is concerned. In times of falling roles you must ask yourself if very small groups can be justified. With the advent of 3 year KS4 courses the problem can be magnified. Some schools are looking to combine options across year groups. This increases the size of the option blocks but offers a greater chance of minority subjects having viable numbers. Large blocks like this will challenge the skills of the timetabler but this is better than having to make staff redundant in order to balance the budget.

No quick fixes There is no magic wand to resolve challenges such as this and no quick fixes. When you start to analyse things in detail you will find that you cannot simply remove 1 English teacher or 1 Geography teacher. You might need to reduce overall English by 0.7 and Geography by 0.3. Reductions in staffing are likely to necessitate teachers sharing teaching groups and you will end up with more split teaching than you have been used to. Staff may well have to teach in more than one curriculum area. These challenges are not insurmountable but they need careful thought and planning. If things are thought about in detail sufficiently well in advance appropriate training can be built in. Increasingly traditional subject teams may well become challenged. A number of schools are now saying that in Y7 and Y8 they want 'teachers' first and 'subject specialists' second. In other words they want a teacher who can teach across a number of subjects within a multi-disciplinary team. If this team functions for 25% of the week in Y7 and includes a talented Science teacher this could well have serious consequences for Science teams higher up in the school.

There are some interesting times and challenges ahead!

Do you feel this might happen in your school?
If you feel that your school maybe facing a declining student intake or facing a budget reduction due to other factors and would like to discuss anything further please contact MIST Services. MIST Services works with many schools, colleges and Academies each academic year, ultimately being exposed to literally hundreds of curriculums and timetabling problems. Just remember that if your school actually understands and is aware of the boundaries and impacts this is half of the battle solved!