Teachers ask ‘Where has the money gone?’ at £1m deficit school

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

Striking teachers at a north Wales school have asked ‘where has the money gone’ as it remains partially closed today and fully closed tomorrow.

Staff at Darland High School in Rossett, Wrecsam say they are still in the dark over how the school has got into such a dire situation, with a £1.02m deficit, proposed cuts estimated to mean class sizes of 40 pupils in Year 10 from September and teachers feeling unsupported, demoralised and dealing with the fallout from a number of staff cuts.

Following last week’s industrial action at the school a new interim head – Sarah Hatch – has been appointed.

That prompted the NASUWT teachers union to call off proposed strike action scheduled for today (Tuesday) and tomorrow (Wednesday), allowing the school to partially open for Year 7 pupils this morning.

But the NEU went ahead with its strike having not seen what it considers any tangible progress on the core concerns that drove staff to take action in the first place.

“The council have come in with an oversight body and we’re on our second interim head,” said Daniel Jones, Head of History at Darland High School.

“What moves have they taken to deal with the main issues? They’ve taken steps we’re grateful for, minor steps, easy wins. The big stuff is why we’re still out here and that hasn’t really been dealt with yet.

“It’s the size of senior leadership team, the timetabling issues, the mismanagement of the school.”

Maths teacher Matthew Edwards was concerned about Darland’s deficit – the largest in Wrexham County Borough.

“I’m still wondering where’s the money actually gone,” he said. “Where is the £1.02 million, because it’s clearly not been spent on the building or the staff.

“There’s been no tangible progress on any of the matters that got us here. When will we see tangible progress on the size of the senior leadership team (SLT)?

“Ideally, we need a reduction in SLT, and then what is spent on them could be spent on specialist frontline teachers. Where is the plan to return Darland to the school that it used to be, and the direction that it was going in?

“We’ve not seen any sort of pathway, any way out of this at all. You know, it’s all bluster. Where is the concrete plan of getting us out of this mess?”

NEU representative Cai Jones said everyone involved in the industrial action felt they had no other choice to get the school back on track.

“I’ve said this to county officials, teachers that don’t care don’t go on strike,” he said.

“It’s the ones that care that go on strike because they want the best for the school. We’re all deeply sad that we have to be here.”

Wrexham County Borough Council provided no further comment at this stage.