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

pollypenny

ViolaLass wrote: »

I hate the idea of someone else doing my marking for me. It's my way of understanding where the kids are, how they can improve, communicating with them, seeing what I'm getting right/wrong, where I can improve...

It's part of my relationship with them.

Agree absolutely!

It's like the banning of red ink, which is often seen as punitive. I returned work covered in red ink, most of it in the form of ticks and double ticks, marginal notes etc. then there'd usually be a three line comment at the end.

Marking is to praise and guide, never to punish.

Caroline_a

poet123 wrote: »

I am missing your point could you explain please?

You didn't read Jojo's previous post then.....?

poet123

Caroline_a wrote: »

You didn't read Jojo's previous post then.....?

I did read it.....?

jellyhead

My teenager loved OMAM He'd never mentioned any school book before then, and he thought it was amazing and didn't understand why the rest of the class didn't cry, bless him.

I remember feeling the same about 'The Color Purple'.

I've forgotten what this thread was about now

I used to be a classroom volunteer which took some of the pressure off the teacher. I'd do photocopying, cutting out, gluing things into books, printing out the spellings lists and homework and I marked the spelling tests and multiplication tests for her, but gave her feedback of who got half marks or less, or whose multiplication speeds weren't improving. Obviously she marked those herself sometimes to get a feel for how the pupils were doing.

I don't know how teachers fit those things into their day. I suppose they photocopy instead of having a break?

Idiophreak

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

But, if that poster's suggestion were to be implemented, you'd be able to give it to the admin person to do, as she only has unskilled jobs to do (and presumably lots of spare time).

What could possibly go wrong?

I don't recall saying that marking should be given to "an admin person", or that "admin people" only do unskilled work...or that presumably they'd have lots of spare time...I also didn't describe marking as unskilled. That's a lot of wrong in a single sentence.

Indeed, I well understand the value of good marking in a class, I just don't agree that this is only achievable through doing the marking yourself. There are many instances at present where teachers mark work set by other teachers - PPA cover, sickness, class shares...They cope. The children would build a relationship with a team of adults, rather than an individual. My suggestion was not that marking should be farmed off to faceless, absent, unskilled "admin people".

If you want to disagree with my idea, that's fine, but do try not put words in other people's mouths.

Other people will not bother to read back in the thread and see what I actually said, to misrepresent my suggestion so is just incredibly rude.

susancs

daisiegg wrote: »

Did you honestly not do OMAM at GCSE most years? Must have been one of the only schools in the country that didn't if so! Among other things, of course, but I am given to understand by older colleagues that it had been pretty constant for decades! Also, budgets come into it. I didn't really want to do An Inspector Calls with my top set Y11 this year as I felt it was not challenging enough for them....but we had no money to buy a set of a new play.

My daughter did her GCSEs last year and did not do "Of Mice and Men", she did "To kill a Mockingbird" and "Lord of the Flies". I understand that her friends at other local secondary schools did the same texts. She did Blood Brothers as the play. Parents have always received an email asking them to buy GCSE books in advance of starting work in school as the school did not supply the texts. There was mention of a fund for those parents on low income to fund text books.

pollypenny

susancs wrote: »

My daughter did her GCSEs last year and did not do "Of Mice and Men", she did "To kill a Mockingbird".

I love that, too. Kids get choked when Scout realises that the man in the corner is Boo and at the end.

Another book that went down well is 'Anita and Me' by Meera Syal, which has echoes of 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Idiophreak wrote: »

I don't recall saying that marking should be given to "an admin person", or that "admin people" only do unskilled work...or that presumably they'd have lots of spare time...I also didn't describe marking as unskilled. That's a lot of wrong in a single sentence.

Indeed, I well understand the value of good marking in a class, I just don't agree that this is only achievable through doing the marking yourself. There are many instances at present where teachers mark work set by other teachers - PPA cover, sickness, class shares...They cope. The children would build a relationship with a team of adults, rather than an individual. My suggestion was not that marking should be farmed off to faceless, absent, unskilled "admin people".

If you want to disagree with my idea, that's fine, but do try not put words in other people's mouths.

Other people will not bother to read back in the thread and see what I actually said, to misrepresent my suggestion so is just incredibly rude.

The only people in a school on half a teaching salary would be admins. You suggested giving it to people paid half as much.

I didn't think you were suggesting employing a while new tranche of people as markers, as that would increase costs rather than save them.


The only people who should be marking anything above a multiple guess paper are the teachers themselves - and a teacher would still need to sit and analyse what went right or wrong on a multiple choice paper, so that would be doubling the work to have somebody else mark it, only to have to go through all again anyway.

daisiegg

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I didn't think you were suggesting employing a while new tranche of people as markers, as that would increase costs rather than save them.
.

This is exactly what I thought he was suggesting, actually!

I absolutely hate marking and often joke about wishing we could 'outsource' it. Not to non-teachers, but it could be a nice 'winding down' job for older teachers wanting to step back from the classroom. I know realistically it would never happen because marking is an important part of teaching - but I do fantasise about it sometimes!

pinkshoes

I worked in engineering for 10 years, on high pressure design projects and budgets running into the millions.

It was a walk in the park compared to teaching! I'm in my first year and probably of about 50 hours a week. Yes, I'm only in school from 7.30am until 4pm, but I then do about 2 hours when I get home, then another hour of two once my son has gone to bed. Oh, and then there's weekend work, test marking, book marking, lesson planning (must show progress of all pupils every 20 mins...) tutor group stuff etc...

A day yes, so far I have worked every holiday, a couple of hours each day minimum.

I love the job, but it's such hard work. Pension is fine, but salary is rubbish! I see so many new teachers quitting after a few years as they want their life back.

Personally I've asked to work part time next year, as I really do want a bit of bit life back.

Saying that, I also see other teachers doing the bare minimum, which is quite sad to see. Pupils need to come first.