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

Idiophreak

pjcox2005 wrote: »

The union/press seem very poor at communicating where the issues lie in freeing up teachers time (i.e. what tasks out of those you mentioned could be removed - which seems limited as they all sound essential) or whether more teachers solves the issue.

Given the level of hours, you'd basically need double the staff so that teachers only taught half the day and that would be a huge additional cost to education system in a country struggling to pay off its debt.

Sorry, pj, I missed your response to my post.

It's an interesting topic for me, as someone that's always worked in the private sector. Frankly, there's so much stuff teachers do that they just shouldn't be involved with - and that plainly doesn't make sense for them to get involved with -it's just there's nobody else to do it.

My wife, as ICT co-ordinator is responsible for organising which broadband supplier the school uses. She's also, as phase leader, responsible for ordering all of the pencils, books, tables, consumables etc etc. All of these tasks should clearly be centralised at that council to ease the load on teachers and ensure economies of scale in purchasing. Sadly, as the government continues its relentless march towards a nation of academies, such common sense just gets further away.

As an outstanding teacher, my wife is deployed to other schools to help improve standards and push for best practices. There used to be whole teams of consultants that did this - but they were sacked when this government came in.

My wife spends an *incredible* amount of time on basic jobs like cutting, laminating, sticking. Weirdly, both TAs and admin staff at the school seem to be much better protected than teachers, there's quite a "that's not my job" attitude when you try and get them to do these things. From an outsider's perspective, however, it's insane that quite a well paid member of staff spends so much of their time doing such unskilled tasks...but there's no budget to employ others to do it.

As deputy head, my wife's spent a lot of her time recently managing the rebuild of her school - from coordinating classroom movements (as one class is built and another is knocked down), to discussing build issues and budgets to selecting suppliers for fixtures and fittings...none of which is stuff an external project manager shouldn't be able to deal with.

Marking, also, isn't really a great use of teachers' time when you think about it. I can't believe that you couldn't pay someone half as much and just give them the guidelines on how to mark each piece.

These are just a few things that immediately spring to mind...but there are definitely things teachers get involved in that they needn't...but, whichever way you look at it, it would mean employing a whole bunch more people...which means a lot more money needs to be spent...and that's contrary to Mr Gove's awesome plans.

jap200

FBaby wrote: »

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.

The point is, they are trained to do it, but don't have the time to prepare 5 hours of high-quality lessons that engage every single pupil (no matter what their ability or behaviour) properly - day in, day out, whilst also keeping up with marking and ever-growing admin. This is not comparable to doing a one-off one-way presentation with a 5 minute brief - yes, I agree, many of us have to do that on a regular basis - me included.

You also didn't read the second half of the analogy which is highly relevant.

My own husband who I have been discussing here spent 20 years as a university lecturer in one of the UK top 'Russel Group' universities - teaching the same subject to degree (BSc), MSC, MPhil and PhD level that he is now teaching at secondary school. He is therefore very used to pulling presentations/lectures out of a hat whilst also running a world-class reaserch department. But teaching in a high-achieving secondary school is a different ball game altogether. It has been a shocking eye-opener to say the least. He does not feel that he has sufficient time, support or resources to do the job properly - let alone salary. The result is that teachers are not able to teach as well as they would otherwise be able to and pupils are being let-down.

FBaby

he point is, they are trained to do it, but don't have the time to prepare 5 hours of high-quality lessons that engage every single pupil (no matter what their ability or behaviour) properly - day in, day out, whilst also keeping up with marking and ever-growing admin. This is not comparable to doing a one-off one-way presentation with a 5 minute brief - yes, I agree, many of us have to do that on a regular basis - me included.

I too can't do all what is written in my job description (and ultimately what I am being evaluated on). Part of my job is accepting that we evolve in a crisis time when organisations cannot employ people to have the time to do everything to the top of their ability. What is expected is to be as efficient as can be, and that means finding ways of doing things quicker. There are things I don't do because I don't have the time that would be good practice, I accept that. I worked longer hours than contracted and do the best I can. I am measured on outcome rather than input, again, this has become very common.

Idiophreak

FBaby wrote: »

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.

I notice you're making a common mistake immediately, by assuming that things are worse in the first year - they're not. It's a very old-fashioned approach to believe teachers teach the same thing year in, year out. They don't. At my wife's school, a topic will come around every few years. In between times teaching methods, areas of emphasis, curriculum etc (and the mix of intake) will have altered considerably - so the relevance of lesson plans etc from previous sessions is practically zero. Plus, all the resources you had will doubtlessly be knackered, or out of date, and need refreshing anyway.

I too get asked to do presentations at the last minute...and sometimes I leave prep to the last minute. We run "innovation afternoons" in my office that I often host - have top-brass come in to them sometimes, so you need to make sure you're always well prepared...and it's no that stressful...to do an afternoon, once a month...but because I can do that, in no way do I think I could hold people's interest for days on end....let alone weeks, or months, or years.

...and just because someone faces the same stress every day for years, doesn't make it any less stressful.

Idiophreak

FBaby wrote: »

I am measured on outcome rather than input, again, this has become very common.

Lucky you. Teachers should be so lucky.

Ofsted will assess both input and output. You could teach the children to be rocket scientists by 8, but if you can't evidence your lesson plans, how you've differentiated your class, your procedures for X,Y and Z...you'll be smacked with special measures.

FBaby

But even if things do change, the overall basis of teaching a class remains. You become more familiar with teaching methods, completion of forms, preparation of lessons.

I find it quite concerning that a teacher with 20 years experience would not become more efficient than someone who is just starting. Otherwise, what is the point of a pay incremental scale.

Caroline_a

There seems to be a lot of complaining about how awful it is being a teacher. However, nobody is forced to do this! If it's that dreadful, find something else. I would suggest that there must be reasons why teachers stay in their jobs that have nothing to do with dedication to their pupils - same as the rest of us. Work is hard whatever you do.

I did see a post on Facebook last night from a soldier who pointed out that he is paid similar to a teacher's pay, although his conditions of work are a lot worse and his hours are certainly longer when he's on a tour. His point was that soldiers don't tend to moan about it, they just get on with it.

Idiophreak

FBaby wrote: »

But even if things do change, the overall basis of teaching a class remains. You become more familiar with teaching methods, completion of forms, preparation of lessons.

I find it quite concerning that a teacher with 20 years experience would not become more efficient than someone who is just starting. Otherwise, what is the point of a pay incremental scale.

The point of the incremental scale is partly to reward expertise and experience and partly to retain people in the profession.

The idea that, after a year of teaching, you become some kind of jedi at cutting and sticking or can mark books at twice the speed is just wrong. It's also wrong to think that, after you've completed the same form once a day for a month, you're going to get significantly faster at it over the years...you're just not.

As you progress up the pay scale (certainly in order to go through threshold) you take on more responsibility. So, while an NQT may spend a lot of time in mentorship sessions or learning the best way to run a certain activity etc a senior teacher will spend a lot of time in mentorship sessions (mentoring NQTs) and sharing the best way to run certain activities with people. A junior teacher may spend extra time preparing for an observation - a senior member spends time preparing to observe and processing feedback.

Increasingly (as they move to cross-curricular teaching) schools are running team planning sessions, rather than planning as individuals...so even if, as you suggest, you develop mad skillz and can pluck a day's lesson plans out of thin air in 5 minutes flat a) you're gonna be stuck in the session for the same amount of time anyway, but more seriously b) so what? How do you know that what you're planning ties in with what everyone else is planning? How do you know that all areas of the curriculum are being covered and that everything's on track across your team? How do you know that someone else hasn't got a *better* idea for doing what you're thinking about?

As you progress through a teaching career, you hopefully get a little bit better at teaching, sure...and you deserve to be rewarded for that. But is being better necessarily going to save you time? No, you're still going to teach for the same number of hours, no matter how good you are. Any other activity that you might get faster at are offset by more stuff you're expected to do as you progress..So perhaps you're more efficient, but you won't have a lighter load.

pollypenny

Caroline_a wrote: »

There seems to be a lot of complaining about how awful it is being a teacher. However, nobody is forced to do this! If it's that dreadful, find something else. I would suggest that there must be reasons why teachers stay in their jobs that have nothing to do with dedication to their pupils - same as the rest of us. Work is hard whatever you do.

it.

Yes, there is: love of the subject, English in my case, the buzz in the classroom, seeing young people develop and gain skills and confidence, although you can't win then all.

Then there is the satisfaction of seeing former pupils as adults, having found their niches, from our decorator and our plumber, to teachers, doctors, journalists and even politicians.

The reason we do work so damn hard is not for the school or for some great principle; it's because that's the life chance for that individual pupil.

Caroline_a

pollypenny wrote: »

Yes, there is: love of the subject, English in my case, the buzz in the classroom, seeing young people develop and gain skills and confidence, although you can't win then all.

Then there is the satisfaction of seeing former pupils as adults, having found their niches, from our decorator and our plumber, to teachers, doctors, journalists and even politicians.

The reason we do work so damn hard is not for the school or for some great principle; it's because that's the life chance for that individual pupil.

Fair enough. So why strike?