The Cluster Games: The Cost of Indifference

My first “Cluster Games” post/rant was back on Twitter in 2020 (should have trademarked “Cluster Games” at that point. A merch line would have sold well.) It was a reflection on my first cluster games experience and a cautionary tale for new school leaders to avoid the ignorance that led to the most stressful day in my first year as Principal.

My first experience of the Cluster Games was in early February 2019. I was in the Principal hot seat about 6 months, and while there were many, many challenges I felt like I was doing ok. Then the morning of the 2nd February hit and the staffing schedule dropped. I couldn't have been more unprepared. This had never come up in Principal meetings, in Misneach, I hadn't seen it on Twitter. With the staffing schedule the SET hours came. They were every two years at that point.

I went to look, thinking nothing of it really, and realised the hours didn't work out. You see, a full time SET post (a permanent job) needs 25 hours. So you look at this page, and it just shows a total amount of hours and points. At the time we had 5 SET in the school. The new staffing schedule had us having 4 posts and 20 hours. We were 5 hours short. Even if you are only 2.5 hours short, you lose the post if a cluster can't be found. Sometimes the Department will step in to save the job and force a cluster, sometimes they don't.

The first half hour was me trying to figure out what that meant. It meant we were at risk of losing a teacher, unless I could find a school to cluster with that could give us 5 hours and share the teacher.

So the phone calls started. Me calling anyone on the list that had 5 hours. What I didn't realise is that experienced Principals were ready for this. They had preliminary clusters ready to go or had the mobile numbers of friends on the list to call and get sorted. I was fresh in the door to a new county where I didn't live. I knew no one well. I was already behind by not even knowing it was a thing.

The despair started as I made my way through the list. I was going to cost someone their job in their school because I didn't know, I was ignorant. Yes, they would be re-deployed but they'd leave their school, their community and the nearest Educate Together school wasn't even in the same county.

I didn't know who to talk to. I felt alone and isolated. I didn't want to break the news I hadn't even started to process myself. If I'm honest, I probably didn't want to admit such a failure in my first year. My ego thought I should have known better, somehow.

My first Cluster Games had a happy ending. A white knight Principal called and offered my 5 hours as he had gone with a different cluster and there were 5 hours left over. He saw I was short and picked up the phone. It was a kindness, a collegiality. It did nothing to benefit him really, but he did what Principals do all the time and looked after the newbie.

I wrote my first post in a light tone, in jest, with the “May the odds be ever in your favour”. I was still quite new to Principalship, in the early days of online advocacy, and I wanted to make sure people didn't get caught the way I was.

But when I look back now I don't look back and laugh. I feel anger.

I feel such anger at a system that allows this to happen. This doesn't happen due to malice in a Department, or someone purposefully trying to get Principals and schools. It happens due to apathy and indifference. I think that's the galling bit.

It's not that they're out to get us.
It's just that they don't care.

That's nearly worse.

Simon Lewis, Anseo.net, played around and found a computer programme could match the vast majority of schools effectively in seconds. Paul created a cluster finder which he updates annually to help you:
https://teacherbuilt.me/setclusterfinder/?source=post_page-----9b5b122e99f9---------------------------------------#/ 

Why is this a role for Principals, now an annual one? I get the calls from the other side now every year. We always have a few hours. I might have 10 panicked Principals calling in fear of losing a job.

Every year.

The Department could just do the clustering. They'll argue for school autonomy, and some Principals might agree with them.

Principals could just refuse to engage. Some do. And that would force the Department to move. But who wants to be the person telling a valued member of your community that they'll be redeployed because you need to make a point to the system? For all my talk of standing up for what's right, I know I wouldn't do it at the expense of losing a staff member I care about.

What does it say of the broader system? The continued indifference to the workload of school leaders, to the burnout of teachers, to the recent uncaring treatment of SNAs. The annual uncertainty adds so much to that burnout for everyone.

Why don't they care?

Why don't they publish a date that the staffing schedule will release and stick to it? A couple of years ago it released on the Monday of the Easter holidays. A colleague who was in the air en route to the US when it released messaged as they missed out on a cluster and would now lose a teacher.

Those first few hours are like a royal rumble in the Cluster Games.

A system that respected teachers, respected leaders, respected SNAs would clearly state when allocations would release. It would clearly communicate in advance what will be included, what it will mean and what people, especially new leaders, might need to be prepared for.

A system that respected us would show leadership, and clarity of communication is the cornerstone of leadership.

What we see in reality is a leadership gap. From the Minister to the person who presses the button to release the staffing schedule. A leadership gap defined by apathy, by indifference.

We still don't know when this year's staffing schedule will drop. It could be this week. It could be next week, the week of the holidays so we can watch leaders scrambling heading into two weeks of holidays where they won't be able to get it off their minds.

It could even be during the holidays, again.

Or they could leave it to after the holidays, mid-April, and push everything to do with recruitment back two months from where it was last year.

Do they consider the impact?

Do they consider the people behind the numbers?

Do they consider the stress, the burnout, the harm?

How can they continue to stand over this, and how do we continue to accept it? I say that as someone who perpetuates that system.

For those facing into it, as school leaders, as teachers who may lose posts, knowledge is power.
But I'm wary of sharing a message that props up a system built on apathy.

As always, “May the odds be ever in your favour”.