TGS - high staff turnover?

[wishful]

Hello

Having put TGS on my CAF, I was looking at their website and previous news letters. OK maybe I should have done this first! What concerns me is that 11 teachers left at the end of the Summer term! This was announced with the wording 'As is customary at this time of year, we say goodbye to '. So I looked at the newsletter for the same time the previous year and it was the same - another 11 teachers!

It doesn't seem to affect their results though but that could be down to being super selective.

Is there anyone out there with DC already at TGS who could throw some light on this and reassure me, or am I being paranoid?

Many thanks

[hermanmunster]

depends how many staff there are at the school? Always seem to be more than you think!

There is supposed to be a "healthy" turnover rate at schools - too low can be as bad as too high. Not sure what the figure is though


edit: quite a few schools seem to quote 5% per annum

[wishful]

Thanks Herman for your prompt reply. According to Wikipedia the number of teaching staff at TGS is 80, so 11 teachers leaving is roughly 14 per cent which seems to me quite a large chunk of staff! Also this seems to be happening every year, I wonder why?

I would be much obliged if any parents out there could comment on this.

Many thanks

[omg]

Did the letter say that they were all teachers or staff, as around half of the employees in a school will be non teaching staff?

[wishful]

All teachers, one or two office staff too but I didn't include them

[Toby]

This is not unusual for many schools of similar size. While I don't know the specifics at TGS, a lot of schools now employ newly qualified teachers and/or graduate trainee teachers on one year contracts. These people spend a year then many move on, some are offered permanent contracts at the end of that year.

[kentmum1]

I wouldn't worry about this. As previously said, there may be many NQT's on contracts and moving on is also the fastest way for promotion, especially if you want to be a Head of Dept. Maybe they have ambitious staff! Another local secondary school Head told me it is unusual to be there for more than 7 years these days. I don't think this should be an issue to prevent you from putting your daughter there.

[wishful]

Thanks Toby and Kentmum for your reassuring replies