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

pavlovs_dog

There is an excellent article here that many teachers will relate to.

This article was written by a maths teacher, who will have fewer classes but more contact time with those classes (8 hours over a fortnight). As a language teacher, I have an average of 3-4 hours a fortnight per class, and will teach more classes as a result. I teach 356 pupils. If, as the Secret teacher suggests, I were to spend just 6 minutes per child's book once a fortnight, that is already 29.6 hours on marking alone, or nigh on 15 hours a week. I have 7 hours of non contact time over a fortnight. I 'lose' two of these to mentoring sessions with the student teacher who works in my department. So that is 10 hours of work to do after the school bell before I even begin.

I teach 43 hours over a fortnight. If I were to spend just 10 minutes planning each lesson (an assumption that relies on me having existing resources I can recycle and tweak if necessary), that is another 3.5 hours a week of work done at home (you'll remember that my non contact time for planning, preparation and assessment has already been accounted for). If I don't have any existing resources - which is quite possible given the government's love for moving the goalposts and forcing syllabus changes - then I am looking at 30 minutes to an hour to put a decent new lesson together.

So far we are on 41 hours a week (22.5hrs teachings, 15hrs marking, 3.5hrs planning). Which doesn't look entirely unreasonable at the moment, does it? But, like Secret Teacher, my job does not end there. There are weekly staff meetings, emails, paperwork, parents to contact, detentions, duties, reports, parents' evenings, revision sessions, clubs and extra curricular activities. 60 hour weeks ARE the norm for me from September - June. Despite these insane hours, my to do list continues to grow exponentially. It isn't sustainable, and for the first time in my career I am actively considering leaving the profession. Many of my colleagues are doing the same. The perfect storm is brewing. Gove is very much mistaken if he thinks it is a storm in a teacup.

jellyhead

nw_mum wrote: »

I was given three days notice of strike

How come?

The teachers who were striking in my youngest's school sent letters home on the previous Wednesday.

I asked at the school office if any more teachers were likely to be striking, and the office said that no, the deadline had passed. So, does this mean that all schools knew a week ago yet chose not to tell parents?

kafkathecat

ViolaLass wrote: »

I don't buy the idea that people shouldn't try to get better working conditions just because others might have it worse.

Thank you Viola! People once fought for us all to have a decent standard and quality of life now all I see is people who think that everyone else has it too easy. This hurts us all in the end.

girlsmum

The stupid thing is all the school can do is speculate how many teachers are likely to turn up as they are not allowed to ask who is striking! ridiculous i know but there you go, some teachers will say, but they don't have to, therefore the school might be aware of who is likely to now be there and who belongs to that union, that is why only some classes were not in so they would have enough cover

msb5262

girlsmum wrote: »

...the school might be aware of who is likely to now be there and who belongs to that union, that is why only some classes were not in so they would have enough cover

Remember that schools cannot "cover" for the work of a striking teacher, thank goodness, or the rights of union members to strike would have been effectively removed years ago.

Gleek

FBaby wrote: »

Both schools closed but thankfully kids note old enough to be home alone. What makes me laugh is the claim that teachers work 10 hours days. I pass my DR'S school the times a week at 7:45 and the car park and adjoining roads are deserted bur for a few cars. Same after school, DS does activities at that school twice a week at 5pm and the car park is pretty empty and that's a very good school. I think there is a bit of confusion between what might happen once a week and every working day!

My cousin had a heart attack a couple of years ago through the pure stress of being a teacher. His headteacher was (and still is!) ridiculously unsupportive and wanted the world from her staff but didn't want to pay any extra for it or acknowledge the good work they did for it. He would work every night - both in the school and at home and mostly weekends too.

He used to get abuse on his home and car too as obviously they'd see his car and realise who it was - or see him go inside (he lived about a mile and half from the school) and key his car or bang on the door and make a lot of noise whilst my aunty - who he lived with and looked after too - was a very ill woman. He was forced to move because of it. They knew exactly who it was - yet the head did nothing (after lying that she'd help!) We want him to retire (he's still so so poorly!) but he's dedicated for helping his students.

A friend of mine is in at half 7 every weekday morning, right thorough to 6pm most other nights. Last week she had three nights of not getting home till 9pm. She got all of 18 hours off over the weekend. 10 of them were sleeping hours. Sadly it's not a one off - we barely see her now as she's always doing school work, marking, preparing, sorting out problems etc.

An old teacher I had (who I class as a good friend now) - well, I didn't realise how he did what he did! He did global rock, pantos, talent shows and a whole host of performing arts extras for the benefit, development and enjoyment of the children (at the same time as GCSE and A Level classes as well as normal classes) and he got paid nothing for doing any of it. The man would be doing some form of rehearsals all around the year. If he got home before 6 then it was a miracle - and he'd been doing that for 20+ years before I even got there! He even did some later night rehearsals (7-9pm) nearer the shows happening and he STILL had to fit in all his lesson prep around them! I honestly don't know how he did it - or continues to do it - without gong insane. (especially as he's approaching his 60's now, bless him!) He got nothing towards the travel/costume/set building etc too for any of them so ended up supervising the fundraising more often than not too!

I'm completely and totally behind the teachers. What Michael Gove doing is atrocious and making one of the hardest jobs even harder.

Idiophreak

We had a company conference last year. Everyone from all of our offices got together in the same place - about 500 of us. We were split into groups and given hour long "activities" to do, some of which were split into smaller activities. Then there was lunch, the head of the company gave a speech etc. I guess the main part of the day was 9 - 4, something like that.

The event was organised by a team of about 10 people, who worked for weeks to make sure everything went smoothly, that everyone was in the right place at the right time and that everyone got the messages that the company were trying to put across. At the end of the event, all 10 people were dragged up on stage, given presents, flowers etc for doing such a good job...

Running a school, I guess, is much like doing that same thing every day...but without the flowers or recognition.

...and to torture this analogy a little more...Anyone struggling to understand what teachers do with all the time...Imagine your boss came to you and said "tomorrow, you have to do a presentation on X topic to 20 people. You have to make sure they learn A, B and C. Oh...and some of them know a bit on the topic already, some of them know nothing, some of them are just disinterested. At the end of the day, you'll test them and see if they learnt the right stuff. You'll present the results to me and explain your performance.

If you don't get the message across to anyone, you'll fail. If people don't feel engaged enough, you'll fail. If any of them wander off, stop listening or start fooling around, you'll fail. If you don't do a good job of convincing me your results are good, you're fail.

Oh, and by the way, the presentation's got to be 6 hours long... And if you fail a few of these, you'll probably get the sack."

Just think of the amount of work you'd have to put in this evening to get yourself prepared for that presentation...and then imagine you have to do it every night...And then imagine that instead of a room of adults, it's a room of screaming, hyperactive children.

Personally, the idea makes me feel a bit sick...

jap200

Idiophreak that is a good analogy.

My teacher husband (see post above) barely slept last night having given up preparing for today just before midnight.

It is the first of 2 days of Ofsted today which he only found out yesterday. He is teaching 5 one-hour lessons to GCSE and A-level students today and several of those lessons were going to be tests and feedback - which is normal at this stage of the year a few weeks away from exams. He had already spent time preparing that work. HOWEVER, he has been told that Ofsted want to see dynamic, energetic content-rich lessons - not tests, so he had to plan all of these extra lessons last night - much of it from scratch (he is in his first year of teaching). Not only that but the pupils were told to revise for tests which they now won't get, but he will have to re-jig the timetable to fit them in next week instead.

Ofsted may - or may not- turn up to a maximum of 20 mins of any of those lessons and judge his teaching on just that few minutes of observation of this exhausted, stressed man, and a flick few a few excercise books that they pick up in class.

If they don't see him teach today he will know for sure that he will be on the list for tomorrow. He has another 5 one-hour lessons to teach tomorrow, which again, he will now have to do from scratch tonight - as again, the tests etc. that were planned can't be done.

He feels like he is going to 'fail' because what are the chances that he will be doing something engaging and dynamic for that particular 20 minutes that Ofsted see him - or that they pick up books were the marking is up to date and the pupils are doing well and not those where the marking hasn't been done for a while due to lack of time or where the pupils haven't even bothered to do the work?

The school's previous inspection was 'outstanding' hence the pressure on the teachers to keep this grading - despite the fact that the goalposts have changed so that it is now much harder to achieve.

The whole system is utterly demoralising and at times, degrading. Teaching is 'broken' and needs to be fixed - fast!

room512

jap200 wrote: »

Idiophreak that is a good analogy.

My teacher husband (see post above) barely slept last night having given up preparing for today just before midnight.

It is the first of 2 days of Ofsted today which he only found out yesterday. He is teaching 5 one-hour lessons to GCSE and A-level students today and several of those lessons were going to be tests and feedback - which is normal at this stage of the year a few weeks away from exams. He had already spent time preparing that work. HOWEVER, he has been told that Ofsted want to see dynamic, energetic content-rich lessons - not tests, so he had to plan all of these extra lessons last night - much of it from scratch (he is in his first year of teaching). Not only that but the pupils were told to revise for tests which they now won't get, but he will have to re-jig the timetable to fit them in next week instead.

Ofsted may - or may not- turn up to a maximum of 20 mins of any of those lessons and judge his teaching on just that few minutes of observation of this exhausted, stressed man, and a flick few a few excercise books that they pick up in class.

If they don't see him teach today he will know for sure that he will be on the list for tomorrow. He has another 5 one-hour lessons to teach tomorrow, which again, he will now have to do from scratch tonight - as again, the tests etc. that were planned can't be done.

He feels like he is going to 'fail' because what are the chances that he will be doing something engaging and dynamic for that particular 20 minutes that Ofsted see him - or that they pick up books were the marking is up to date and the pupils are doing well and not those where the marking hasn't been done for a while due to lack of time or where the pupils haven't even bothered to do the work?

The school's previous inspection was 'outstanding' hence the pressure on the teachers to keep this grading - despite the fact that the goalposts have changed so that it is now much harder to achieve.

The whole system is utterly demoralising and at times, degrading. Teaching is 'broken' and needs to be fixed - fast!

I hope your husband gets on okay - he has my full sympathy. I've been through Ofsted a few times and each time the pressure just increases.

FBaby

Idiophreak that is a good analogy.

I don't think it is. Teachers are trained to do exactly that and however much I can understand the stress associated with it the first year, I fail to see how a teacher could feel stressed about something they do every day for years.

My boss has asked me to do presentations at the last minutes, usually on a subject that he manages rather me. He has given me a 5 minutes brief and then sent me off with the 'don't worry, you'll be fine' because it suits him.

I have to say that all I read here as reasons to justify teachers feeling hard done by, I feel they are totally common in my industry.