The management saw 'malleability' rather than 'ability' as the most important attribute when it came to employees. Staff that could follow through with the more Kafkaesque aspects of the Colchester Institute culture were always favoured above anyone who knew their subject and were able to teach.
Being a wealthy part of the country, with good schools etc., Colchester has always been a great catchment area. If the management had done nothing at all for several years, my department, purely on reputation alone, would still be well attended. As the numbers have dwindled recently I can only assume they actually worked very hard to destroy this reputation.
As has been stated in previous reviews the management leaves a lot to be desired. Incidents that I have witnessed that stand out as some of the more fantastic blunders are :-
1. Bribing (or whatever the correct Orwellian double speak term is) the Ofsted inspectors to do a mock Ofsted inspection prior to the real one.
Suddenly clocks appeared in all the classrooms that never had them before, all members of staff were issued with fake folders of paperwork we never knew we were supposed to have. The first page in the folder even had handy tips on how to dog ear our new paper work and add a few coffee rings to make it all look authentic.
We even had a coffee machine on our floor but apparently according to Ofsted it wasn't supposed to be there. Consequently it was boarded up temporarily to hide it from the inspectors. Even with the bribe and the ensuing farce of an inspection; incredibly the management still only achieved a grade 2. To cap it all they spent so much money on this endeavour there wasn't enough money left to pay the wages of staff the following year and the zero hour contract staff had their hours cut.
2. This is a classic. The management wrongly believed that they would be entitled to a grant for a new library - if they didn't have one already. To meet the requirements they demolished a perfectly good library only to find they weren't getting a grant after all. To this day there is a temporary library in the corner of the car park in a giant porta-kabin that I assume is hired at great expense.
3. My line manger was an alcoholic. If I needed a meeting I had find him in his drinking club.
