So mrs_oab works for local authority on temporary contract as classroom assistant. She has applied for LEA supply teaching list.
Her head has not written (through ‘business’ the required employer statement for months, and mrs_oab has been refused for a third time, and LEA will not give reason why, but we suspect it is because application is not complete as it is missing employer statement.
The head is head of all three local schools in rural area, and mrs_oab does not want to rock boat, jeopardising possible future supply opportunities. Equally, she could earn in a day and a half what she gets a week at present, and there is a need for supply – but my view is the head gets teacher for peanuts at the moment….

Tell them she’s going to leave & do something else instead ? Should at least make the head think about it

Or if this is an empty “threat” and/or there’s lots of other potential classroom assistants, then you may just have to live with things as they are

Has she asked the head why they haven’t written it ? Could somebody at the LEA chase it up for her ?

Maybe worth writing for her ‘details’:

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/principle_6.aspx

Tell them she’s going to leave & do something else instead ? Should at least make the head think about it

Rural area, no other jobs, certainly not in teaching without this head.
Spoken to head, basically every excuse under sun, but simply ‘I haven’t got round to it yet’. I just suspect that the head knows that mrs_oab would leave her (hard to fill) post, and wants to ‘block’ her leaving.

LEA is next step, but LEA’s first action is to contact head, and only way to get them moving is a formal complaint about heads behaviour…which is just immediately reported to head to deal with….

There has to be

some

downside to living in that rural idyll.

Indeed.

It’s a game of bluff then innit ?

She says she’ll have to start to look for non-teaching posts “because the LEA is blocking her” so that the head believes she’ll be lost to the school.

If there was NO chance of getting a teaching job, would she stay in her current post anyway or is it purely a way in the door ? That’ll determine whether or not her bluff is plausible – at least in terms of whether she’d be willing to walk away

How about she tells the head that LEA keeps refusing her applications and asks them to pursue the LEA for a reason ?