Helpline eases `agony' of heads
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Your support makes all the difference.WHAT DO you do about a pregnant teenager who won't admit that she's expecting? Should you expel a child from school for stealing? And how do you deal with an incompetent teacher?
These are just some of the questions dealt with by one of education's busiest hotlines - the advice service run by the Secondary Heads Association.
The latest "agony uncle" to staff the line for troubled headteachers, one day a week, is John Dunford, the association's new general secretary.
Mr Dunford, himself a head for 16 years, believes that there is a simple explanation for the growing number of calls - 5,500 a year - to the confidential line, which is available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. "Being a head can be a lonely job and the pressures are growing all the time. You can turn to heads in other local schools, but a lot of heads won't because of competition. You can turn to a friendly head 20 miles away if you know one, to the local authority or to us."
League tables, regular inspections and a deluge of government initiatives have all ensured that the jobs of the association's 9,000 members, both heads and deputy heads, have never been more challenging.
A head rings to say he is being threatened with dismissal after the school received a bad inspection report. The job of another is in jeopardy because this year's GCSE results are not as good as last year's.
As parents insist increasingly on their rights and more are ready to leap for their lawyers, there is nervousness among new heads about following correct procedures. What is the right level of punishment, for instance, if a child is caught trying to steal?
If the child has a previous record, the advice will probably be to expel but Mr Dunford also points out that the decision has to be based on the individual circumstances of the case.
Some of the line's most common queries concern the "duty of care" which puts heads in loco parentis for pupils in their charge. A caller who asks what to do about a teenager's unacknowledged pregnancy is advised to bring in the school nurse, a family member or a sympathetic member of staff to broach the subject. A head worried about an anorexic girl is reassured that everything possible has been done if staff, her parents and the school nurse all know about the situation.
The calls come from all over the country and from all types of schools, independent, grant maintained, local authority and special. They may be dealt with on the spot, referred to the association's field officers or solicitors, if complex legal issues are involved. Schools may also be offered the services of consultants who charge a fee.
Mr Dunford believes that his session on the hotline is an important way of keeping in touch with members' concerns. "Everybody says thank you. It's something that never happened in 16 years as a head."
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