Nearly £4,500 spent on Truro headteachers' trip to Rome
QUESTIONS have been asked after thousands of pounds was spent on sending Truro head teachers to Rome for three days.
Heads from eight schools and one state nursery flew to meet with Italian colleagues.
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Barbara Vann, head teacher at Penair School.
The trip is understood to have cost taxpayers nearly £4,500.
The teachers said the trip, for which they gave up their weekends, helped to develop the teaching of foreign languages.
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The modern languages development group is made up of Penair School and primaries Archbishop Benson, Bosvigo, Devoran, Kea, St Erme with Trispen, St Mary's and Tregolls, and Truro Nursery School.
Several parents contacted the West Briton to question whether the trip, the latest in a series of overseas visits, and the expenditure were necessary. One parent, who did not wish to be named, said: "I fail to understand, in so-called times of austerity, the justification for a group of primary school heads and a secondary school head disappearing off.
"Spending out of school funds on a 'jolly' is taking scarce resources away from schoolchildren and staff out of school.
"It can't be justified."
Penair head teacher Barbara Vann told the West Briton funding remaining from under the previous government to Penair had been used to cover accommodation costs of £330 per person.
Each school then contributed £163.30 towards costs of the trip, for a total of £4,442.40.
Head teachers personally met other unspecified costs.
Speaking on behalf of the school group, Dr Vann, who will retire this year, said: "The purpose of the visit is a leadership opportunity to continue to develop our already thriving proactive teaching of primary languages across our school network, giving a cross-phase co-ordination of language teaching for all our children aged 3 to 16.
"This is already paying great dividends both in the positive and creative teaching of French and Spanish by our own staff at nursery and primary level, and reflected in the number and success rate of secondary pupils taking languages at GCSE."
Italian is not on the curriculum at Penair.
Dr Vann said "some" schools in the group were teaching Italian but when the West Briton asked every primary school only Bosvigo School said Italian was offered, as an extra-curricular subject, as part of a course on Italian culture.
3 Comments
by sas03cws
Friday, March 08 2013, 11:29PM
“Heaven help our schools if leaches like these are in charge - a total disgrace when teachers salaries have been fixed. This would not be tolerated in the private sector so why in the public sector - totally outrageous, and ms Vann and colleagues should be ashamed!!”
by SimonJPalmer
Thursday, March 07 2013, 2:44PM
“With a jargon filled and meaningless quote let's hope she's not teaching English. Basically they've give no valid reason why they went on this trip.
They should be made to pay this back out of their own funds and lose a day's annual leave to make up for the school day they missed.”
by SimonJPalmer
Thursday, March 07 2013, 2:38PM
“I work in the media and that is one of the worst quotes I have ever read. It is full or jargon and meaningless. Maybe their time would be better spent improving a grasp of basic English.
It is a disgraceful waste of money. When the funds were pledged is meaningless; they are still funds that were available for teaching children that were wasted on nothing more than a weekend away in the sun. For headteachers to fly off to Rome for a long weekend at the taxpayers expense is a damn cheek. Worse still they appear to have used a day when they were paid to be in their schools.
They should be made to repay this amount from their own wages and lose a day of annual leave to make up for the school day they missed. The issue should be raised in Parliament so that similar 'jollys' don't happen elsewhere.
Think about the huge amount of resources for children the €4,500 could have bought.”