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Stafford College merges with Newcastle-under-Lyme College
- Thread starter joshua
- Start date
DeafnAble
Newbie
After being the lipreading teacher for Stafford college for at least 8 years, I contacted the office in the college yesterday morning ( Friday 31 March), when I arrived in Stafford from my home in Telford, I asked for the dates for the new term so I could inform my lipreading group, when we will be meeting again. The response I got was, "There are no classes running next term."
When the group members turned up for what ultimately is their penultimate lesson, I asked the group, if while I was on my honeymoon, had they had any correspondence from the college with regards to the classes?, the answer was a resounding , NO.
I appreciate, that there going to be cuts, even though the notice at the start of this thread says
"Lesson delivery and the day-to-day running of courses will not be impacted as a result of the merger."
However,what appals me is, when was I going to be told I was laid off, and more importantly, when was the college going to inform the Class Members.
A DISGRACE
When the group members turned up for what ultimately is their penultimate lesson, I asked the group, if while I was on my honeymoon, had they had any correspondence from the college with regards to the classes?, the answer was a resounding , NO.
I appreciate, that there going to be cuts, even though the notice at the start of this thread says
"Lesson delivery and the day-to-day running of courses will not be impacted as a result of the merger."
However,what appals me is, when was I going to be told I was laid off, and more importantly, when was the college going to inform the Class Members.
A DISGRACE
John Marwood
I ♥ cryptic crosswords
Resist
Cue
Well-Known Forumite
Fun fact about all this, heard through various grapevines due to the missus previously being a mature student at the college.
Apparently, this whole thing is coming about because the previous principle (you know, the one that caused a massive teacher's strike or whatever?) basically pissed away the money, had one hell of a salary and was incredibly toxic for the college's finances.
Just what I heard though, naturally nobody will confirm or deny that officially.
It's always been a bit bad with money. They regularly upgraded facilities (notably, English had a great computer lab) in other departments and left the IT and Compting departments with the absolutely worst stuff in the college.
Apparently, this whole thing is coming about because the previous principle (you know, the one that caused a massive teacher's strike or whatever?) basically pissed away the money, had one hell of a salary and was incredibly toxic for the college's finances.
Just what I heard though, naturally nobody will confirm or deny that officially.
It's always been a bit bad with money. They regularly upgraded facilities (notably, English had a great computer lab) in other departments and left the IT and Compting departments with the absolutely worst stuff in the college.
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
As an employee I can offer some insight. Basically she who shalt be named screwed us over, very badly. Money was like water, I have no idea how she escaped unscathed although it's heartening to hear she can't find work in the UK regardless. I had a very interesting restructure under her, makes the actions of Donald Trump rather familiar feeling. The interim management were there to fix the sinking ship, they barely managed to stabilise it. I'm not involved in the financial side so can't accurately comment on that, but I'd not have imagined us lasting another 5 years. A downturn in students along with the weird lagged funding model was causing a downward spiral, some courses cost money to keep running dues to low numbers and the better subscribed weren't balancing them out. The government are far from generous, I believe spending per pupil has decreased from 2010 onwards.
Where we are now? Interesting times. There is a massive effort to balance things out, resulting in a large loss of staff. Those taking voluntary redundancy leave next week, but there are more to follow. Morale is far from good, obviously. There are many positives, the new STEM building is looking very interesting and all the IT infrastructure is being overhauled long overdue. The loss of staff is concerning though. I can see a future, but I can see a pretty rough road to get there. I'm in a rare position where my job actually got better recently, others aren't so fortunate. I'll be saying goodbye to a lot of friends over the next few months.
Where we are now? Interesting times. There is a massive effort to balance things out, resulting in a large loss of staff. Those taking voluntary redundancy leave next week, but there are more to follow. Morale is far from good, obviously. There are many positives, the new STEM building is looking very interesting and all the IT infrastructure is being overhauled long overdue. The loss of staff is concerning though. I can see a future, but I can see a pretty rough road to get there. I'm in a rare position where my job actually got better recently, others aren't so fortunate. I'll be saying goodbye to a lot of friends over the next few months.
tek-monkey
wanna see my snake?
I've just re-read that, and alarmingly I sound a lot like management. I'm far from that. I can see a future for us though, I'm just scared these current cuts are too deep. A lot of people have stayed at Stafford College because of the people, I hope we don't lose so many that we lose that sort of closeness.
We weren't great before the bitch came along, but we were good. She ran so many people into the ground then got them to volunteer for redundancy it was scary, the board of governors that brought her in then refused to remove her should hang their heads in shame.
EDIT: I guess as long as they volunteered it wasn't officially like she forced them out? She did though. I had 4 different managers under her, all quit!
We weren't great before the bitch came along, but we were good. She ran so many people into the ground then got them to volunteer for redundancy it was scary, the board of governors that brought her in then refused to remove her should hang their heads in shame.
EDIT: I guess as long as they volunteered it wasn't officially like she forced them out? She did though. I had 4 different managers under her, all quit!
Cue
Well-Known Forumite
I suspect it's partially an issue of poor distribution of department budgets. English gets a big budget because they have rooms full of students but the subject doesn't need nearly as much money for facilities as the likes of IT. Of course, sciences always get an abundance of budget but they do actually need it for all the crazy stuff they buy.
John Marwood
I ♥ cryptic crosswords
age'd parent
50,000th poster!
don't work for me, try this...
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