Schools urged to share teachers as recession bites

Birmingham: Schools should consider sharing music, language and physical education teachers to reduce spending in the recession, according to the government's top expert on school leadership.

Steve Munby, head of the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), planned to tell its annual conference here yesterday that schools face "austere" times as the government cuts public spending in the economic downturn.

Headteachers will have to come up with new ways of saving money or face having to cut teachers' posts across the board. He said this could include sharing specialist teachers in languages, music or sports to make savings.

He said: "These are tough times ahead and there will be need for efficiency savings. Schools won't be immune to that. It's going to be tough. At times of austerity we need innovative leadership, otherwise there will be cuts.

"School leaders could consider federating with other schools, joint appointments, such as school business managers or it could be music, language or sports teachers.

"Joint appointments should become the norm and we want to see schools working much more closely together."

He went on: "As school leaders, we are preparing a generation of children and young people to grow into a world that we don't fully recognise and where the future remains uncertain. But we shouldn't be despondent.

"We know that working together enables us to achieve much more than we can alone and I call on all school leaders to draw on the talent within and beyond their organisations."

He acknowledged that the tighter public spending climate could also mean the NCSL would have to make savings. The college was set up by Tony Blair in 2000 as a government-funded, non-departmental public body designed to improve headteachers' training.

Munby was made chief executive in 2005 after a career of more than 20 years teaching and working in local authority school improvement teams.