I began my position of teaching principal in 2014, with 56 staff and three class teachers. In 2017 we opened a special class for children with autism. This has been a very tough year, trying to coordinate both temporary and permanent accommodation, recruiting staff and running a mainstream school as well as the special class. I am allocated 15 principal release days, set to increase to 17 days this year. Our school now has 86 children, six teachers, four SNAs, three bus escorts, a secretary, cleaner and caretaker. There are not enough hours in the day to deal with this workload, let alone deal with the increasing number of ‘bright ideas’ coming from the department via the post and the internet. I have 29 children to teach, however the department fail to recognise our special class for the purpose of release days. There needs to be a drastic change as this workload is not feasible.
