It’s not about the money

Except it is…

Another newsletter hit the mailboxes of parents yesterday (27th March 24) trying to justify the blatant discrimination of the children that attend Harlow Fields School & College.

I want to be absolutely clear that these changes are not being proposed due to budget constraints or in the interests of cutting costs for the school.

The reasoning is then listed as LSAs requiring additional time to prepare lessons.

Currently, our Learning Support Assistants arrive at the same time as our pupils each day and leave at the same time as our pupils four out of five days per week. This allows 30 minutes for essential safeguarding updates and work with class teachers per week.
The proposal has been put forward to increase the time that class teams have to plan and prepare for your child’s learning. The changes would allow more time to plan and prepare brilliant lessons for our pupils, improving the learning environment.

A formal admission that LSAs do not have enough time to prepare for lessons i.e. do their job, the obvious answer is therefor the LSAs require additional time to perform the role the school expects of them.

Rather than invest in more LSA’s or pay LSA’s for the additional time required to do their job, the school and Essex County Council would rather reduce time from your child’s education.

This is ALL about money, last year the school were over £116,000 over budget, they are looking to make more savings and the easy target is the children who don’t have their own voice.

The “community benefits” are nothing but insulting for parents, carers and children.