Who is going where? Teacher Allocation

There are pros and cons to whenever you decide to do this and tell people.

My own professional opinion is that you should do it after the half term cut-off date for resignations, which in maintained schools is the 31st of May. The only year I did it before this and told everybody, I had a resignation from someone who didn't like what they were given and the entire structure fell down like a house of cards. The other issue is that without anybody meaning to, when you tell teachers who their next class is, they move on in their head — albeit unintentionally — to their new class. For every minute that is spent thinking about their new class, that is a minute not spent on their current class. At this point in the year there are still about 10 weeks left, and in a year which has 38 weeks in it, that is a quarter of the year for teachers to not have every minute thinking about their current class.

The easiest way to ensure people are happy, or at the very least satisfied with what they are allocated, is to try and combine their wishes with what you want for the school — both in terms of best teachers with the right class and opportunities for professional development. On the other side of that, of course, there is the idea of removing a teacher from the group they've been in for years to keep them fresh.

I have always asked my teaching staff to let me know their first, second and third choice of year group for the following year, and if there is anything they really do not want to do. Be careful with this though, because some people will look at the children coming through rather than the curriculum and the age group of the children, and will avoid that class or year group for the wrong reasons.

With teaching assistants, I would ask them to tell me how happy they were in the role they're currently in and what role they would really like to do — for example, if they are a TA in a class but would like to do more intervention work, we can take that into account. Moving TAs with anxious year groups can work. It all depends on how you allocate your teaching assistants and how much movement you want amongst them, but keep them informed about what you're asking teachers to tell you and invite their comments about their own roles. This will all feed into the decision making.

I would tell the staff I would do my best to meet their needs, but the children's needs would come first. I never made a guarantee because sometimes it just can't be done. However, in a two-form entry school there are usually one or two people who will say "I will go wherever you want me to go," which is really helpful.

Then I would decide — with my two heads of school or with my deputy head — who was going to teach where, starting with the classes with the most need. That could be anything: low levels of attainment or progress, high levels of special educational needs, or a class that is heavily weighted in one gender. One year, a whole class got their current Year 5 teacher in Year 6 purely because of the relationship that teacher had with a looked-after child, which we felt was too important to lose in that child's final year.

Another issue to think about is how important each year group is. If you put your strongest teacher in Year 6, they will be playing catch-up all year on what other teachers have not taught well enough. If you put your strongest teacher in Reception, the children get off to a flying start but may flounder afterwards. Years 2 and 3 are also crucial. (Actually so are years 1,4 and 5!) So consider what the key learning is in each year group, as well as which children are going into that year group, and then which teacher is best placed to teach them.

Sometimes teachers are completely aware of what their professional development should be, and other times they resist it. It also depends on the ethos of your school. If you are a school where Mrs A always teaches Year 6, Mrs B always teaches Year 5 and Mrs C always teaches Reception, and you are happy with that — those teachers become specialists in those year groups and those curriculums — then that is absolutely fine. But you could equally be a school where Mrs A goes from Year 6 to Reception, Mrs C goes from Reception to Year 2 and Mrs B goes from Year 5 to Year 3, because that is what will expand their experience and strengthen their curriculum knowledge, or because their curriculum expertise is needed in those year groups where it has been lacking.

The next issue is when you tell parents. Please make sure you tell the teaching staff before you tell the parents. That sounds obvious, but it has happened by mistake. Personally, I would do it as late as possible, because parents do the same thing as the teachers — they disengage from the current teacher and start bombarding the next teacher with all the things they think have gone wrong. They want individual meetings and there just isn't the time. All of this would be covered in handover meetings between the previous teacher and the receiving teacher, but parents are becoming increasingly particular and anxious about small details. If one thinks they can have a one-to-one meeting with the new teacher by grabbing them in the playground, they all will. It's not that you don't want to meet with parents — it is just that there is not enough time in the day to hold an extra parents' evening with your new class.

But at the end of the day, this is your school and you allocate the staff in the way you see fit. Do you insist that teachers who are parents of children on your roll never teach them, or is it a case-by-case basis? This is your decision and yours alone. Getting input from other staff is great, but it is your decision — not governors', not parents'. If I ever had a particular request from a parent for a particular teacher, I would always set it aside, it is not their call - the decision is yours.

Good luck.