CLASS SIZES DOUBLED TO 60 PUPILS
CHILDREN at a South Gloucestershire secondary school face being taught one of their most important subjects in classes of up to 60 pupils due to teacher shortages.
John Cabot Academy has seen more than half its science teachers leave due to personal reasons in a matter of months.
It has now launched “lecturestyle” 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 being with us for the coming months.”
Headteacher and executive principal, Sally Apps, said they had been trying to bridge the gap with science supply teachers, but parents had complained about the situation. She said the number of permanent teachers would be back to full capacity by September next year.
“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 com- ing months,” the letter added. Parents have raised concerns the new lessons are a response to the lack of funding for South Gloucestershire children, but Mrs Apps denied the move had anything to do with school funding.
From January, all science students from John Cabot Academy – from Year 7 to Year 11 – will take part in these “lecture-style” lessons. They will be taught by one science teacher while an assistant head or member of the senior leadership team will help out.
Not all science classes will be combined in this way, with some of the classes sticking to the traditional size of 30 pupils. Practical lab sessions will still be held at individual class sizes, Mrs Apps added.
“They will experience some lecture-style 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 would 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 have removable walls so as to combine classrooms, while others will be taught in assembly halls.
The new timetable is set to be implemented by January.
The school, which has some 1,250 students, has lost six of its 10 science teachers, it is understood.
Some will be coming back in time for the new school year.
Mrs Apps said parents’ feedback was that they did not want their children to be taught by supply teachers.
Nationally, there is a recruitment crisis for science teachers, with more leaving 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,” Mrs Apps said. “We are in an unusual position.”
Pupils 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.
“I will support the drive for more funding, but this is not about the funding,” she said. “This is a short-term problem that we are trying to find a solution for.”