Jobs to go in Whitchurch school shake-up
Staffing hours will be cut at a Whitchurch school amid plans for a shake-up of the department supporting children with special needs.
Sir John Talbot's School says it intends to "restructure" staffing in the special educational needs department. It intends to make a total of 75 hours in cuts – but it has not been revealed exactly how many members of staff this will affect.
Headteacher David O'Toole said there would be redundancies, adding: "The school is looking to restructure aspects of its staffing to ensure efficient and effective support for all learners in the light of special educational needs (SEN) reforms.
"This appears to be achievable with voluntary redundancies, creating some flexibility in the staffing structure.
"The future provision of SEN in the school will have a clear structure enhancing teaching and learning to ensure that we have highly trained teachers who deliver first class lessons."
The school was put into special measures in 2013 after an Ofsted report rated it inadequate. The school's former headteacher resigned a week before the report was published.
An executive board was put in place to bring the school up to standards and Mr O'Toole, former deputy head of Marches School in Oswestry, was officially appointed head teacher in January last year after working on the interim board.
The board applied to the Department for Education to become an academy, in February last year, and it opened its doors as such an academy with The Marches Academy Trust as sponsor in September.
In the Shropshire 2014 GCSE league tables it was named the most improved school in the county before being rated "good" by Ofsted. The school has been described as going from "strength to strength" and Mr O'Toole said that he hoped the plans to restructure staffing would ensure provision for SEN students was kept to a high standard.
He added: "The SEN department will continue to provide specialist support for individual needs as required by statementing and early help learning plans."
"Teachers will continue to monitor students closely and to provide high quality intervention where it is needed.
"Sir John Talbot's has a clear mission to provide the very best quality education to all its students providing individual support where there is a need".
