Four-day week for SEND school amid staff crisis

A secondary school for students with severe or profound and multiple learning difficulties has temporarily reduced its timetable from five days to four due to funding and staff shortages.

Uplands School in Swindon, Wiltshire, notified parents that each class would spend a day at home between 10 and 16 June.

Jackie Fieldwick, CEO of the Brunel Academies Trust (BAT) which oversees Uplands, said the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system was a "national crisis".

The Department for Education (DfE) said it was proud of its "once-in-a-generation reforms" to overhaul a "broken" system that had "failed children for too long".

Parents said they were told about the four-day week at 16:00 BST on 5 June but Fieldwick said parents were warned "before half-term" that one four-day week might be imminent.

Uplands is one of the lowest-funded SEND schools in Swindon with "no inflationary increase since 2021/22", according to Fieldwick, who said the council was "distributing the money as well as it can".

Addressing staff retention issues, she said: "They can earn more money working at Asda with less stress.

"Don't give me money, give me 100 qualified teachers".

Fieldwick - who said redundancies at the trust had made a "substantial saving" for schools - also said she wanted to reassure parents that staff were "keeping children safe, happy and managed" with "swimming lessons" scheduled this week.

A proposed merger of Uplands with another BAT school in Swindon, Brimble Hill Primary, has been approved in principle by the DfE.

Sister organisation, Uplands Enterprise Trust, was also set to provide BAT with "experienced qualified staff", Fieldwick said.

One parent, who wanted to remain anonymous, said they would not be able to work on their child's designated day at home.

"It's just the constant having to fight for your child - we are all just exhausted," the parent said.

Referring to fines for unauthorised absence, they said: "There is one rule for parents and one rule for the school."

Another parent, also anonymous, said they felt authorities were trying to "pull the wool" over people's eyes.

"It has made us uneasy to make plans for the rest of term because I think it will be something that happens more than once," they said.

"Lots of the good old staff have left."

The MP for Swindon North Will Stone said he was due to have a meeting with the headteacher of Uplands after being alerted to the issue by parents.

In February, the government unveiled its Schools White Paper in which it pledged £4bn and said it would write off 90% of SEND-related debt for councils.

The DfE said its reforms would ensure "every child gets the right support, at the earliest possible stage, without having to fight for it".

It said: "Our plans are rightly ambitious which is why we are backing them by £4bn... alongside £3.7bn to create 60,000 specialist places."

Swindon Borough Council's Cabinet Member for Children and Education Kate Tomlinson said the council was working with BAT and the DfE to "support the school in stabilising staffing".

She said the council wanted to ensure that any impact on children and their families would be kept to a minimum.

"Our priority is always the safety, well-being and education of children," she said.

"We will continue to work with the trust to support a return to a full timetable as soon as possible."

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