Recent social media reports (and retractions) from local activist groups have caused some confusion about Forest Hill School’s financial and staffing situation.
Councillor Paul Maslin provides the following summary of the school’s situation:
[edited to add the following]
This is dated from the end of March.
Paul pointed me towards this today - which I took to mean it remains valid.
[original post since updated with more recent statement from Paul]
Valid but possibly not comprehensively up-to-date.
He has provided a new update today:
I understand that there is a rumour circulating that says that 30 teachers have resigned from the school in addition to the staff cuts that have had to be made as part of the deficit recovery plan. This is false. Resignations and redundancies are broadly in line with what the school anticipated they would be.
Thanks. Looks like he tweeted me the wrong one. Have updated the original post.
I hope the person who posted earlier about the resignations is able to respond to this.
It does make me wonder how many resignations and redundancies the school anticipated.
It’s certainly a vague answer, would be good to hear the actual number of departures and how many will be replaced.
Paul Maslin is correct when he says that there are not 30 members of staff leaving. I’ve heard it’s more like 34 although the school is attempting to replace most of these posts except for the 15 teaching posts lost as part of the restructuring.
Our son is at the school and frankly we are now sick of the strikes and the effect they are having on the children’s education.
I understand when the last senior management team departed last summer they left behind an £800k deficit. Perhaps this deficit should have been spotted by council auditors but if the NUT have a beef with the council they should target the council directly, not the school’s new senior managemet team. The PFI arrangements are something all the New Labour-built schools are burdened by.
The head teacher Mr Sullivan appears to be a decent, honourable man. He put his own son through the school. He did not ask to inherit this mess and appears to be doing his best to put things right while running the school and reassuring current and prospective parents. There appears to be one compulsory redundancy (the rest were voluntary) and increased workload - but still below the 90% contact time many schools expect. We are also losing RE and PHSE. It is not clear to me that this justifies a strike - let alone the extraordinary number of strike days that have been and continue to be called. It appears to be achieving only damaged education and bad feeling.
My understanding is that the NUT does not require a ballot for this strike action and their London lead, Michael Powell-Davies has the unilateral power to call them - there are potentially another four called for the coming weeks. I understand Mr Powell-Davies gave up his teaching career for this full time NUT post and the NUT are reimbursing the lost income of every Forest Hill teacher that strikes. It is not clear that all the teachers striking want to strike to this extent and I worry there is disproportionate power vested in one man with possible vested interests beyond Forest Hill School.
I’m in the process of trying to work out things amicably with various groups, be it trying to find a meeting space to finding out who will communicate, and what parents concerns are to vocalising it to people that may be able to help.
I also don’t agree with School strikes as I think the only ones that suffer from this is the kids & their education.
Please bare with me on this, I’m on the case 
I just wanted to share with you a Council question I tabled and the answer provided, hopefully this should answer some of the questions raised in this thread.
Question by Councillor Upex
of the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People
Question
What steps have been taken to improve the ongoing financial difficulties faced by Forest Hill School? Has the Council has exhausted all routes to improving their situation? Please explain to residents and parents the role that central government plays in school funding and the role of the local authority and ensure that this is better communicated to parents who are understandably worried about the future of the school and of their children’s education.
Reply
The funding of mainstream schools is mainly determined by central government, with the DfE determining the size of the ring fenced Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). There is little local discretion either in terms of the overall quantum or in its distribution to individual schools. For the first time, all schools are experiencing a financial squeeze as nationally their funding is failing to keep up with rising costs. Lewisham has joined with other boroughs in protesting about the national underfunding of education.
For individual schools, responsibility for the budget sits squarely with the governing body following decades of increasing autonomy for schools. The local authority does not have a fund it can use to bail out schools which get into financial difficulties, either in the council’s General Fund or in the DSG. The council is required to be totally transparent with all schools, ensuring fairness and much of the local decision making on school funding lies with the Schools Forum which is made up of school representatives.
Council officers have worked closely with the headteacher and governors of Forest Hill School to help the school to set a financial plan that enables it to recover from its deficit situation. In particular the HR Team has supported with the staff restructuring. The school’s staffing spend was higher than that of other similar sized schools and needed to be put onto a sustainable footing. The school also experienced a serious dip in GCSE results in 2016 and the Local Authority and Lewisham Secondary Challenge have been providing school improvement support to the school all year.
The headteacher and governors have been working to keep parents and prospective parents informed and reassured, with support from the council’s Communications Team but this has been challenging given the amount of misleading information circulating on social media. The headteacher has been personally visiting all feeder primary schools and meeting with parents to reassure them.
I’m sure this article will reinforce everybody’s existing opinions on the situation:
Were any other questions asked about FHS Paul.
I am sure he is not affected. Still, good for him. I am sure he has the kids best interests at heart.
Kids’ interests at heart? Really? Another three days of strikes next week? I am much less sure than you about the NUT’s agenda.
Meanwhile the council response leaves the head teacher high and dry and themselves freed from blame as I read it. I firmly believe Mr Sullivan trying his best to turn things around despite having had nothing to do with the financial shortfall, despite being caught between an unsupportive employer and a union whose response to his attempts is at best disproportionate. It is him that needs parents’ support right now, not a Union that appears to scent his blood.
Personally I think emotions are flying high right now - Mine were initially as my son is directly effected by these cuts, but taking a step back to look at the bigger picture for the future of all the kids & not just my own son with SEN I’m willing to work & speak to all parties amicably to try and find a financial solution if possible here.
I’m in email contact with many concerned & hopefully all get on the same page eventually - which in my eyes is probably to find a way to extend the PFI repayments to give the School a bit of leeway on finances and/or for some emergency funding to be found to give the School a bit of a break with repayments short term to reemploy key staff members for the boys.
My Sarcasm was obviously too subtle 