Teachers' Strike: Is your kids' school on strike today?

Idiophreak

Just a quick note...I've been reviewing my contribution to the thread and am not entirely happy. I think I come across as a bit of a militant pro-teacher enthusiast that's trolling the thread and I just wanted to apologise for that and clarify my position.

As I've said earlier in the thread, my wife's a teacher and has been for several years - I'm very proud of all she does and am in awe of the effort she puts in. I also recognise the sacrifices she makes in order to continue in this career - in terms of her health, her social life, our relationship...her profession puts strain on all aspects of her life.

I don't want people to think, however, that my concern for teachers comes from a place of bitterness, that I don't get to see my wife enough, that I'm worried about her health, that I'm fed up of paying peak prices for holidays....of course, that stuff's true , but it's not what drives me in these discussions.

Honestly, I'm pleased when people come forward and start challenging what teachers do - because it gives teachers (and those close to them) a chance to shed a little light into the darkness which often surrounds the profession... And I know that sounds very holier-than thou, but that's not my intention.

I was once completely ignorant of the teaching profession...when my wife said she was going to do a PGCE towards the end of her degree, I thought "good shout...get paid to train, job for life, nice long holidays"...much of the same stuff I'm now rallying so vehemently against...I was even a little envious that, whilst I was slogging away at a 9-5, she'd have such short days. Needless to say, from the PGCE onwards, I've been continually shocked by the amount that's expected of teachers, the amount of time they put in and the amount of recognition they receive for their efforts.

I've seen people's faces change from sneering, to doubt, to open-mouthed fascination in an hour, when my wife explains to them what it actually is she does - she can explain it far more eloquently than I can, I assure you. People come to realise that teachers aren't whiney layabouts who bunk off at every opportunity, that they're hard working, dedicated professionals...who *aren't claiming* to have the toughest job in the world...just saying that what they do is pretty tough.

Of course, not being a teacher, I have time to spend on these boards discussing the matter - and this is why on these threads you often here from friends and family of teachers, not from the horses mouth - so I just try and do my bit to further people's understanding of what's required in the teaching profession - but I do apologise if my enthusiasm causes me to overstep the mark on occasion.

GobbledyGook

poet123 wrote: »

That will probably be the next step, performance related pay based on assessment by learners!!;)

Many kids would judge teachers as good if they allowed them to do no work and banned homework.

I would far rather my kids respected their teachers for their ability to teach and their ability to manage a classroom, than liked them.

Exactly. One of the teachers I worked with who was incredibly popular with the children wasn't a good teacher in the eyes of her bosses (who eventually got rid of her), parents or results.

It took me until I was at university to realise just how good a teacher my English teacher was at high school. When I was a kid I seriously disliked him and would have told you he was the worst teacher in my school. We always had a respect for his command of the classroom and I realise now that there is no co-incidence in the step up in my grades!

tea_lover

Idiophreak, lots of us know (or are) teachers. It comes across that anyone disagreeing is only doing so because they don't understand, which is a bit patronisingly. There are some amazing teachers who work a lot of hours, there are also a lot of teachers who do enough to get by and who make the most of having 25% of the year off (I certainly know teachers in both camps). There are good and bad in all professions, of course.

But it is irritating when someone claims people are only daring to disagree because they haven't had it all explained to them.

suejb2

Anyway back to the original post! My children's school didn't close if anyone is interested. As usual this has been hijacked by for and against (teachers in this case),start your own post if you want to debate.

FBaby

I would far rather my kids respected their teachers for their ability to teach and their ability to manage a classroom, than liked them.

I don't think the majority of kids value the friendliness of a teacher over their ability to teach. My DD often comments on teachers being nice, but unable to keep manage the class and that really annoys her and her friends. She also complained to her head of year on behalf of her class about a teacher who although really friendly is confusing all the pupils with her style of teaching. They don't understand the lesson and the teacher won't answer their questions.

I don't know if it is common, but pupils are involved in interviewing new teachers in her school. I am sure their opinion doesn't weight as much as the others on the panel but their voice does matter and I think that is a school that shows they listen and consider the views of its pupils.

daisiegg

Idiophreak can I just say I for one appreciate your comments on this thread. As a teacher I always read these threads but rarely get involved as it is just too emotive for me and I can't be rational and impartial! I think you have done a good job of explaining things clearly, realistically and rationally.

Can I just comment quickly on the idea that planning gets easier the longer you have been teaching because you can recycle things. You really can't, if you are doing your job properly. As an example, I teach English and every year teach Of Mice and Men to GCSE. Just taking the past three years, I have been unable to 'recycle' the vast majority of my lesson plans and resources. Three years ago, I had a GCSE class who ranged in ability from low A (one or two in the class) to D, and they were a particularly 'worldly' and challenging class who needed very specific types of tasks and activities to help them learn. The next year, I had a top set of mostly A* and some A students. Again, they needed stretching and challenging, were working towards a different Controlled Assessment question than the previous year group, and needed completely different lessons and different types of teaching. Now this year I have a bottom set of very weak students with some behaviour problems and yet again they need very different lessons; they need heavily structured, teacher-led lessons, which would have been patronising and dull to my top set, and would have been boring and failed to engage the lively mixed ability class I had the previous year.

So, despite it being the same text, every year you have a completely different cohort of students and need to teach them in a very different way. Added to which, Of Mice and Men is a bit of an exception in being taught every year (although it is disappearing from the syllabus very shortly!) - with the other texts we teach, we choose the text according to the class. So, I did a different novel and play with each of the aforementioned classes, because they had different needs and abilities. Not to mention how quickly everything changes - speaking and listening being removed from the GCSE syllabus halfway through the academic year last year being one example.

Anyway, I am not saying we work longer or harder than anyone else, but I did want to correct the misconception that we just recycle the same lessons year after year. Not if we are doing our jobs properly, we don't.

Oh, and marking - whoever mentioned 6 mins per book earlier in the thread clearly was not talking about English books! It can take upwards of 30 minutes to properly mark an A Level essay. A GCSE essay could easily be 15 minutes, and if you think when I take in a GCSE book, if it has been 6 lessons since I last took them in (as is our school policy) there could easily be 3 essays in there, as well as general notes and practice paragraphs etc. KS3 books if it is just classwork and no assessments are probably closer to 6-10 minutes a book, though. But I have a year 12 class, two year 11 classes, two year 10 classes, a year 9, a year 8 and a year 7. You can see how the time spent marking does add up! Oh, and I am part time, and I get 4 hours a fortnight of PPA (planning, preparation and assessment - or non-contact time) and usually lots of these are taken up with reports, phoning parents, meeting students for extra help, responding to emails, admin and paperwork etc. I do no marking at school - it is all done in my 'own' time. I get to work by 7.15am each day.

Again, I am NOT saying I work harder than anyone else. I know I don't. My husband works in finance and he works longer hours than any teacher I know (he also gets paid ten times as much as any teacher I know!). My mum and sister work in the NHS, my dad is in the private sector, etc. I do know we are not the only people who work long hours. That is not what I am trying to say...just explaining where these hours come from.

daisiegg

Oops, I said I wasn't going to get involved and then wrote a novel! Sorry

For the record, I did not strike, and my school was unaffected - only two teachers out of over seventy went on strike.

lostinrates

daisiegg wrote: »

Idiophreak can I just say I for one appreciate your comments on this thread. As a teacher I always read these threads but rarely get involved as it is just too emotive for me and I can't be rational and impartial! I think you have done a good job of explaining things clearly, realistically and rationally.

Can I just comment quickly on the idea that planning gets easier the longer you have been teaching because you can recycle things. You really can't, if you are doing your job properly. As an example, I teach English and every year teach Of Mice and Men to GCSE. Just taking the past three years, I have been unable to 'recycle' the vast majority of my lesson plans and resources. Three years ago, I had a GCSE class who ranged in ability from low A (one or two in the class) to D, and they were a particularly 'worldly' and challenging class who needed very specific types of tasks and activities to help them learn. The next year, I had a top set of mostly A* and some A students. Again, they needed stretching and challenging, were working towards a different Controlled Assessment question than the previous year group, and needed completely different lessons and different types of teaching. Now this year I have a bottom set of very weak students with some behaviour problems and yet again they need very different lessons; they need heavily structured, teacher-led lessons, which would have been patronising and dull to my top set, and would have been boring and failed to engage the lively mixed ability class I had the previous year.

So, despite it being the same text, every year you have a completely different cohort of students and need to teach them in a very different way. Added to which, Of Mice and Men is a bit of an exception in being taught every year (although it is disappearing from the syllabus very shortly!) - with the other texts we teach, we choose the text according to the class. So, I did a different novel and play with each of the aforementioned classes, because they had different needs and abilities. Not to mention how quickly everything changes - speaking and listening being removed from the GCSE syllabus halfway through the academic year last year being one example.

Anyway, I am not saying we work longer or harder than anyone else, but I did want to correct the misconception that we just recycle the same lessons year after year. Not if we are doing our jobs properly, we don't.

Oh, and marking - whoever mentioned 6 mins per book earlier in the thread clearly was not talking about English books! It can take upwards of 30 minutes to properly mark an A Level essay. A GCSE essay could easily be 15 minutes, and if you think when I take in a GCSE book, if it has been 6 lessons since I last took them in (as is our school policy) there could easily be 3 essays in there, as well as general notes and practice paragraphs etc. KS3 books if it is just classwork and no assessments are probably closer to 6-10 minutes a book, though. But I have a year 12 class, two year 11 classes, two year 10 classes, a year 9, a year 8 and a year 7. You can see how the time spent marking does add up! Oh, and I am part time, and I get 4 hours a fortnight of PPA (planning, preparation and assessment - or non-contact time) and usually lots of these are taken up with reports, phoning parents, meeting students for extra help, responding to emails, admin and paperwork etc. I do no marking at school - it is all done in my 'own' time. I get to work by 7.15am each day.

Again, I am NOT saying I work harder than anyone else. I know I don't. My husband works in finance and he works longer hours than any teacher I know (he also gets paid ten times as much as any teacher I know!). My mum and sister work in the NHS, my dad is in the private sector, etc. I do know we are not the only people who work long hours. That is not what I am trying to say...just explaining where these hours come from.

I was hoping you'd post daisy. I think this is a really balanced post and very much what I had expected from my experienced with friends who do your job and jobs with demands similar to your husbands'.

I am absolutely positive the stress of your job can be horrific, and the responsibility tremendous, the balance of comparison perspective makes your arguments less hyperbolic and more reasonable.

Fwiw, I think it would be pretty good if everyone could have more reasonable work conditions.

I do think it would be interesting to see where teachers go when they decide teaching isn't for them, ( for example, a friend of mine who was an English teacher is now a rural solicitor, and struggled with the stress of that too, though it very much less stress ful role he admits and its absolutely a normal working hours one) and from where later entrants to the profession come.

FBaby

So, despite it being the same text, every year you have a completely different cohort of students and need to teach them in a very different way

Just to comment on this. I am totally opened to understand better because at the moment, I really can't fathom why it wouldn't get easier with years. For one, surely even if you might have a different class year on year, there are not totally different every single year? So even if Y1 is different to Y2, that will be different to Y3, there's bound to be a year when you are back to being able to use what you have done in Y1.

But more than that, surely preparing for a class is not just about the content of what is being taught? It must be about processus and organisation, which surely with years of practice does get easier. That includes learning how to best manage a class to get the best out of it.

It's all very confusing because what is written on this thread is so different to what my teacher friends tell me. My best friend has been teaching Spanish for almost 20 years and she does say it is so much easier now because she can get on with things so much quicker. One thing she told me recently is how she used to really struggle remembering all her pupils' name, but now she has learnt trick to associate something about their behaviour with their names so it stays in her head easier and quicker. This friend told me a few years back that she was getting a bit bored with the job because she didn't have the same challenge to better herself as a teacher as she used to. She has since been promoted as Head of languages and she now comes home later and has more work to do, but she is happy about it. I have known her to be tired at times, but never exhausted or stressed, certainly not more than I.

lostinrates

FBaby wrote: »

Just to comment on this. I am totally opened to understand better because at the moment, I really can't fathom why it wouldn't get easier with years. For one, surely even if you might have a different class year on year, there are not totally different every single year? So even if Y1 is different to Y2, that will be different to Y3, there's bound to be a year when you are back to being able to use what you have done in Y1.

But more than that, surely preparing for a class is not just about the content of what is being taught? It must be about processus and organisation, which surely with years of practice does get easier. That includes learning how to best manage a class to get the best out of it.

It's all very confusing because what is written on this thread is so different to what my teacher friends tell me. My best friend has been teaching Spanish for almost 20 years and she does say it is so much easier now because she can get on with things so much quicker. One thing she told me recently is how she used to really struggle remembering all her pupils' name, but now she has learnt trick to associate something about their behaviour with their names so it stays in her head easier and quicker. This friend told me a few years back that she was getting a bit bored with the job because she didn't have the same challenge to better herself as a teacher as she used to. She has since been promoted as Head of languages and she now comes home later and has more work to do, but she is happy about it. I have known her to be tired at times, but never exhausted or stressed, certainly not more than I.

Its easy to see there must be differences in subjects too though, Fbaby. Teachers most certainly are not the most stressed in our social group, but I do think they are in a particularly odd position where on the one hand we applaud the work they do when its good yet strip them down when it goes wrong.

Its difficult to have reasoned discussion when people want to see any dissent as 'evil teacher bashing' or any support as ' unrealistic'.

For example, I find the view of the public and private sector in teaching while understandable, a little sad. All are teachers, and it seems that to view teachers as idiophreak did as 'departed' when they have moved to the other sector rather dispiriting. Like it or not both are teaching, and that kind of divide fuels rather unnecessary and unuseful pettiness. Both sectors exists, in all types of career, if not directly, then transferable skills, many work in both across careers.