Teacher shortage prompts school to launch ‘lecture style’ lessons
ASECONDARY school is combining classes after more than half of its science teachers left due to personal reasons.
John Cabot Academy has launched what it describes as “lecture-style” lessons for its science curriculum, bringing together two classes for each lesson.
In a letter to parents this week, the Kingswood school said: “You may be aware that there is currently a shortage of specialist science teachers and that within our team, some unfortunate circumstances have prevented some of our strongest practitioners from [sic] being with us for the coming months.”
Headteacher and executive principal Sally Apps told the Post they have been trying to bridge the gap with science supply teachers, but parents have complained about the situation.
She said the number of permanent teachers will be back to full capacity by September next year, but they needed to find a solution.
“This short-term lack of capacity is unusual and has led to our team thinking creatively about how to optimise the experience of our students in science over the coming months,” the letter added.
Parents have raised concerns the new lessons are a response to the lack of funding for South Gloucestershire children, but she denied the move had anything to do with school funding.
From next year, all science students from John Cabot Academy - from Year Seven to Year 11 - will take part in these ‘lecture-style’ lessons. Starting with Year 11s, it means bringing two classes together for the lessons.
They will be taught by one science teacher while an assistant head or member of the senior leadership team will help out. The other teacher is unlikely to be a science teacher.
Not all science classes will be combined in this way, with some sticking to the traditional size of 30 pupils. Practi- cal lab sessions still be held at individual class sizes, Mrs Apps added.
“They will experience some lecturestyle lessons delivered by our biology, chemistry and physics staff, supported by learning support assistants and senior teachers,” Mrs Apps told parents.
She said it would mean pupils will not have different supply teachers every few weeks, and said she knew of other schools doing the same.
Some of the classes will be held in the school’s ‘super labs’, which has removable walls to combine classrooms, while others will be taught in assembly halls.
The new timetable is being written up and is set to be implemented by January.
The school, which has some 1,250 students, has lost six of its 10 science teachers in a short time due to personal reasons, the Post understands.
Some will be coming back in time for the new school year, but it means the school has a gap which Mrs Apps said they did not want to fill with supply teachers.
She said parents’ feedback showed they did not want their children to be taught by supply teachers.
Nationally, there is a recruitment crisis for science teachers, while more leave the teaching profession under extreme stress.
“We have covered all of the vacancies in time for September, but some people can’t start [at John Cabot] yet,” she said. “We are in an unusual position.”
Parents have raised concerns on social media that the school is being forced to make cuts by expanding classes because of the financial situation.
Children in South Gloucestershire are the worst-funded in the country and heads in the area have written to the Government about the severe financial pressures they are under.
But Mrs Apps insisted the current situation was not about saving on supply teachers or about funding.