More School

[SarahBell]

Based on what evidence? They are all vastly different and the differences become more and more apparent as children's time at school develops - by the ages of 10 or 11 there may be several years difference in reading ages and mathematical ability. Very difficult for a teacher to manage.

They don't need individual lesson planning .. A class has to be taught as a class.

We can not educate one at a time.

Progress not by automatic age but ability then if they end up separated out educationally.

Do you think more lesson planning is the answer?

[bristolhunter]

No wonder children are increasingly messed up.

A class is a class is a class.

Band them at secondary school for key subjects.

But primary, they are all little chicken nuggets. Different shapes but all the same. There are some that dribble a bit more than others, but basically they're the same.

No way they're not - don't you remember group reading at school? How even in year 3, year 4, some kids would have a finger underlining the word they were on, slowly sounding out each syllable at a time, whilst others had rolled their eyes and were silently reading chapters ahead? Some kids would enter reception class unable to recognise the alphabet, some could already sit down in front of the next 'Village with 3 corners' story and get on with it. Towards year 5, year 6, some kids would stare at a keyboard wondering what to do with it, while others provided the teachers with tech support.

One of the reasons I can't see myself as a teacher is that it's such a challenging role, taking and inspiring 30 children with vastly differing backgrounds, experiences & aspirations, and trying to help them forwards simultaneously. And those differences don't simply emerge at 14.

[jammo]

No way they're not - don't you remember group reading at school? How even in year 3, year 4, some kids would have a finger underlining the word they were on, slowly sounding out each syllable at a time, whilst others had rolled their eyes and were silently reading chapters ahead? Some kids would enter reception class unable to recognise the alphabet, some could already sit down in front of the next 'Village with 3 corners' story and get on with it. Towards year 5, year 6, some kids would stare at a keyboard wondering what to do with it, while others provided the teachers with tech support.

One of the reasons I can't see myself as a teacher is that it's such a challenging role, taking and inspiring 30 children with vastly differing backgrounds, experiences & aspirations, and trying to help them forwards simultaneously. And those differences don't simply emerge at 14.

Class sizes of 30 is probably the problem, in combination with lax parenting for some. Perhaps after the baby boom years class sizes will shink down a bit and the status quo will improve.

[lulu]

Edit: obviously a uni lecturer is the easiest job in the world.

Maybe, but not once your department is expected to submit 'x' number of papers into 'quality' publications which must be of a certain level of research content to be good enough to be considered.

That on top of a full working day of lectures/tutorials and babysitting staff-mentoring a group of increasingly whingeing and confrontational students who all 'want their monies worth' -this seems to translate to insisting that they are given passes based on the fees that they have paid regardless of if they know anything or not...

Edited April 21, 2013 by lulu

[lulu]

When children work hard and achieve, their achievements are taken away. My daughter (older now, doing GCSEs) works damn hard and gets top grades only to be told that it must be because the exams are easier.

I am sure your daughter is working as hard as anyone has done in the past - maybe harder I don't know. But there is a strong suggestion that even if the exams are not easier then the levels attained by students are quite simply not as high as they were at he past.

When I worked for a University, conversations with long serving staff members were filled with comments regarding how even though all these students are turning up with fantastic results the knowledge and ability (whether this is of concepts/ideas/communication skills or simply down to spelling and grammar) was worse then than it was. Some courses had to offer remedial classes to bring students up to the level that previous first year undergraduates had been able to cope with.

Even back when I did by GCSE's (about 20 years ago now....) I could only do a GCSE in 'science' there was no option to select each individually and they were taught as a bit of mis-match of all three but from memory were examined separately.

I got a double A* (whatever that means) despite the fact that I could not do physics to save my life. My mark was obviously an amalgamation of the three but suggests I was good at them all which was definitely not the case.

[winkie]

Class sizes of 30 is probably the problem, in combination with lax parenting for some. Perhaps after the baby boom years class sizes will shink down a bit and the status quo will improve.

That is why the school hours should be longer so that children can do their 'home work' in a good calm, environment with help on hand (teachers could be marking books and planning future lessons)....

Some kids have no parents at home when they get back from school, out at work, or no place available where they can concentrate to work, they are hungry and cooking for themselves is more important....they do not have parents to assist and talk with them about homework, either because the parents are stressed, don't understand, have other children to look after or are not remotely interested if they do the homework or not....these children are not only being let down by their living circumstances but also their schools, some of them are highly intelligent and if not spotted and nurtured will never reach their full potential, I am sure any good teacher recognises that, but the schooling system is after all like a tube, you enter pass through and get pushed out at the end to be dropped unceremoniously into reality, all the while have created tick box statistics for the educational institutions to compete amongst themselves in the league table championships.

[the gardener]

+1

They keep changing the topics around which even the core stuff is taught, which means replanning an entirely good lesson. We wouldn't do that in industry, if you get something right, keep it! Not the DofE, they change it round every couple of years so that they are seen to be doing something.

The thing is I can't understand why teachers put up with this nonsense from the DofE. Teachers are heavily unionised and could tell the DofE to do one. If this sort of bull went on in my company we'd kick up a stink, wilfully obstruct the new imitative, work on a 'go slow', deliberately make errors and sabotage the whole thing and show no initiative whatsoever, refusing to improve the process even if we could see easy ways to do things better. In short we'd make it bloody difficult to implement anything. This is in private industry where we are not unionised at all. Teachers are and yet they let themselves get walked all over. I can't work it out, I really can't.

[billy budd]

Other than their first 'enthusiastic' year, has a teacher ever taken anything home?

Back in my day, all normal making was done during the lesson and the lessons mostly followed the book, so required little or no planning. Teachers always had a couple of free lessons per day.

My wife has been teaching for 4 years having previously worked in the City, and in our own business. In term time she works 2+ hours each evening and usually all Sunday afternoon at the weekends.

She has 2 (maybe 3?) "free" lessons per week but these are often wiped out by some painful parent wanting to come in and talk to her or some other matter.

I think things have changed a lot since your day, and are changing all the time.

The holidays do not make up for the additional stress, so she is looking to go part-time from next year.

[billy budd]

And you have to repeat the lesson planning every year? Even if you're teaching the same stuff?

Is it not all very formulaic?

Maybe for some; in my wife's school each year there are changes to which lessons she teaches so eg she might be teaching yr6 French this year, but yr7 French next year, which requires different lessons.

[winkie]

My wife has been teaching for 4 years having previously worked in the City, and in our own business. In term time she works 2+ hours each evening and usually all Sunday afternoon at the weekends.

She has 2 (maybe 3?) "free" lessons per week but these are often wiped out by some painful parent wanting to come in and talk to her or some other matter.

I think things have changed a lot since your day, and are changing all the time.

The holidays do not make up for the additional stress, so she is looking to go part-time from next year.

Good idea......far better to have two good part-time teachers that can give it 100% than one teacher that doesn't want to be there, can't take the pressure, only doing it for money.......work/life balance.

[billy budd]

The thing is I can't understand why teachers put up with this nonsense from the DofE. Teachers are heavily unionised and could tell the DofE to do one. If this sort of bull went on in my company we'd kick up a stink, wilfully obstruct the new imitative, work on a 'go slow', deliberately make errors and sabotage the whole thing and show no initiative whatsoever, refusing to improve the process even if we could see easy ways to do things better. In short we'd make it bloody difficult to implement anything. This is in private industry where we are not unionised at all. Teachers are and yet they let themselves get walked all over. I can't work it out, I really can't.

My guess is that it is because

1. Most teachers are women, and the secondary earner in the household

2. they are nice, middle-class people who hate to cause a fuss

3. they actually care about the children

[porca misèria]

Can't see teachers being happy.

When was there last a time when teachers[1] weren't throwing their toys out of the pram?

My memory goes back to my schooldays in the 1970s, they were doing it then, and it's been an intermittent news story throughout my adult life.

[1] Or, to be fair, teaching unions. Not every teacher is a spoiled brat.

[porca misèria]

How about the same for MPs. Can't see them being happy either. People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones

MPs should be working in the constituencies they purport to represent. Reduce Westminster to a meetup, maybe three or four times a year.

[Frank Hovis]

I used to work full time as a senior teacher in primary school. I don't anymore.

Lesson planning is becoming more and more detailed and specific to individual children. I used to have to name individual children in my lesson plans and indicate how I would target them individually with individually tailored prompts and questions. I'd have to indicate how I was addressing the needs of individual children, by name, both in terms of their specific needs and needs identified from assessment of them in the previous lesson. I have rarely taught classes of less than 35 children. One teacher cannot plan for the others, every child is different, every class is different. Year group team planning does take place, but even then lessons have to be adapted right down to the individual child. As a primary teacher, I had no "free lessons" for planning and preparation for a long time, then that changed 2005/6 ish (can't remember exactly) and I had a half day a week. I have worked under one head teacher (at the beginning of my career) who worked to drive down the paperwork and bureaucracy for us, bless him, but it was a losing battle. Every other head since then has required a form to be filled in for everything, you know, in case OFSTED ask.

That is a total nonsense and the same that is seen across the public and quasi-public sector (I have worked in both). All the effort going into providing "evidence" for the inspectors rather than the actual teaching. This is the same reason that councils spend thousands on PR whilst closing down leisure centres because they have "insufficient money".

As it happens I agree with Gove. School is both a preparation for work and the bulk of childcare for parents, so making it close to normal working hours means it does both better.

Most of the curriculum is really about just keeping everybody busy. I did two years on the history of the corn laws and Irish emacipation. I wasn't interested (but learnt it and got the A) and nor was the teacher and I still don't see any intrinsic worth from doing that. However it meant I was sat quietly, wearing a tie, and doing something I wasn't interested in without complaint. As I said, an ideal preparation for work.

[Frank Hovis]

When was there last a time when teachers[1] weren't throwing their toys out of the pram?

My memory goes back to my schooldays in the 1970s, they were doing it then, and it's been an intermittent news story throughout my adult life.

[1] Or, to be fair, teaching unions. Not every teacher is a spoiled brat.

IMO it all changed mid to late 80s (unfortunately I can't blame Labour for that one); the national curriculum restrictions ground out the individuality and opportunity to display their enthusiasms that the best teachers were in the job for. The wildly enthusiastic chemistry, physics and maths teachers (the main reasons I did those subjects) all referred to "changes" and within a couple of years had taken early retiremnt. These were not radicals or trouble makers but the sort of teacher people refer back to as inspiration; increased regulation took the joy out of for them so they went.

[Timak]

My dad was a teacher.

He taught woodwork (rebranded lots of times but still effectively woodwork) and certainly didn't put in the hours other teachers work.

However there were two reasons for this:

(1) The subject he taught did not involve any marking

(2) He used to stand up for himself. When asked for lesson plans he'd produce 1 side of A4 to cover an entire terms lessons (e.g. lesson 1 - design, lesson 2- select materials). Others would hand in masses of detail giving a minute by minute breakdown. He never got into "trouble" for this nor was critisised by Ofsted.

However other teacher friends of mine do the crazy 14 hour working days plus weekends. I don't get it. Just stand up to the people asking for this extra work and say no.

[the gardener]

My dad was a teacher.

He taught woodwork (rebranded lots of times but still effectively woodwork) and certainly didn't put in the hours other teachers work.

However there were two reasons for this:

(1) The subject he taught did not involve any marking

(2) He used to stand up for himself. When asked for lesson plans he'd produce 1 side of A4 to cover an entire terms lessons (e.g. lesson 1 - design, lesson 2- select materials). Others would hand in masses of detail giving a minute by minute breakdown. He never got into "trouble" for this nor was critisised by Ofsted.

However other teacher friends of mine do the crazy 14 hour working days plus weekends. I don't get it. Just stand up to the people asking for this extra work and say no.

+1

We get asked for stupid amounts of documentation at times. If asked I usually say yes I'll do it and then don't. Else I'll drag my heels and do enough for me to refer to and copy and paste it into the format they want, not wasting too much time making it look pretty. Then I'll delete important bits just to make sure it's useless to anyone who needs to follow it.

As for teachers spending ages marking. Get the children to do it. Tell the children to swap books and then read out the correct answers. Thus you mark one book and the children do the other 35. Job done.

Assessment and filling in forms etc? Make up the statistics to reflect well on you. Learn how to type fast and also make use of the copy and paste function.

Share resources, don't reinvent the wheel. OK so a new format lesson plan is required. Take you old ones and copy and paste the majority of them into the new format.

With proficient use of IT you can make short work of bureaucratic bull. Save all your reports and assessments from year to year and recycle them for each new class, changing a word here or there. Have a few different templates for each ability level and hey presto you can churn out reports by the bucket load. You don't have to tailor everything to each child to the nth degree. Sure children are unique but they'll be an awful lot that are similar enough in ability from year to year.

Nobody would run a business like a school. If I was asked to do something and I know that my colleague had done it before I'd go and ask them for their notes etc and copy them.

[MrPin]

My dad was a teacher.

He taught woodwork (rebranded lots of times but still effectively woodwork) and certainly didn't put in the hours other teachers work.

My woodwork teacher had a missing finger!

[longtomsilver]

I have been trying to date a primary school teacher for the last 3 months.

Take the hint and try to win someone else heart.

Just my twopennies.

Edited April 21, 2013 by longtomsilver

[DabHand]

My woodwork teacher had a missing finger!

That wasn't mr Kesby was it?

[This Username Is Taken]

+1

We get asked for stupid amounts of documentation at times. If asked I usually say yes I'll do it and then don't. Else I'll drag my heels and do enough for me to refer to and copy and paste it into the format they want, not wasting too much time making it look pretty. Then I'll delete important bits just to make sure it's useless to anyone who needs to follow it.

As for teachers spending ages marking. Get the children to do it. Tell the children to swap books and then read out the correct answers. Thus you mark one book and the children do the other 35. Job done.

Assessment and filling in forms etc? Make up the statistics to reflect well on you. Learn how to type fast and also make use of the copy and paste function.

Share resources, don't reinvent the wheel. OK so a new format lesson plan is required. Take you old ones and copy and paste the majority of them into the new format.

With proficient use of IT you can make short work of bureaucratic bull. Save all your reports and assessments from year to year and recycle them for each new class, changing a word here or there. Have a few different templates for each ability level and hey presto you can churn out reports by the bucket load. You don't have to tailor everything to each child to the nth degree. Sure children are unique but they'll be an awful lot that are similar enough in ability from year to year.

Nobody would run a business like a school. If I was asked to do something and I know that my colleague had done it before I'd go and ask them for their notes etc and copy them.

You are not making any great revelation here. Sometimes we get the children to mark their own work but this approach does not lend itself to most work that children do. Marking a child's work isn't just a busywork task that has to be done, it is a medium through which I can assess. Ideally I'd like to mark a child's work with the child next to me every time so that we can talk about it. The opportunity for that is rare. In my experience, marking in lesson time is frowned upon; you are supposed to be teaching, not marking. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this, it's just the way it is.

We do share resources and planning. I have written subject schemes of work to be used for the whole school, from year 1 to year 6 and I hope that they have saved my colleagues some time, but I know that they haven't saved them from having to write lesson plans. Their lessons still have to be tailored to their class and to individual children. What the problem is is that everything has to be written and recorded. I can teach a lesson with one line written down - the learning objective, once I know the class and children then I don't need anything else. I know the needs of each child and how to individually prompt and question them and differentiate their work, but the powers that be demand that I prove it by writing it down.

Manipulating the statistics to reflect well upon myself isn't serving the children well, besides the fact that it is soon discovered. We handle a lot of data in school. As for recycled reports, well we have our stock phrases and templates; that's great, but I myself have received a school report for my daughter with another child's name embedded several times in it. Reports are expected to be considered, demonstrating that you know the children and should be an accurate report of their ability and progress to their parents.

If I could change things it would be to trust that teachers can teach lessons. I wouldn't make them plan each individual lesson, just write a scheme of work for the term (for each subject) and annotate it, if necessary. I'd trust that teachers know their children as individuals and are taking their needs into account. I'd significantly reduce class sizes, but that won't happen because it's too expensive. Instead of the artificial lesson observation where a teacher has to jump through hoops to demonstrate a perfect lesson while $h1tt1ng herself about 'failing', heads should be in and out of their teachers' classrooms frequently and "informally", talking to the kids, asking them about their work, perhaps even helping. I have had lesson observations where I have made the observer sit with a group of children; if there's an extra teacher in the classroom then they can bloody well make themself useful. I'd get rid of "marking policies" that insist on using "consistent" signs, symbols and approaches and insist on a comment on every piece of work. If I have a comment to make about a child's work, I'd rather talk to them about it.

My daughter has been forbidden from being a teacher, not because it is bloody hard work, but because it is thankless. Worse than thankless, it is despised.

[Mugwump]

You are not making any great revelation here. Sometimes we get the children to mark their own work but this approach does not lend itself to most work that children do. Marking a child's work isn't just a busywork task that has to be done, it is a medium through which I can assess. Ideally I'd like to mark a child's work with the child next to me every time so that we can talk about it. The opportunity for that is rare. In my experience, marking in lesson time is frowned upon; you are supposed to be teaching, not marking. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this, it's just the way it is.

We do share resources and planning. I have written subject schemes of work to be used for the whole school, from year 1 to year 6 and I hope that they have saved my colleagues some time, but I know that they haven't saved them from having to write lesson plans. Their lessons still have to be tailored to their class and to individual children. What the problem is is that everything has to be written and recorded. I can teach a lesson with one line written down - the learning objective, once I know the class and children then I don't need anything else. I know the needs of each child and how to individually prompt and question them and differentiate their work, but the powers that be demand that I prove it by writing it down.

Manipulating the statistics to reflect well upon myself isn't serving the children well, besides the fact that it is soon discovered. We handle a lot of data in school. As for recycled reports, well we have our stock phrases and templates; that's great, but I myself have received a school report for my daughter with another child's name embedded several times in it. Reports are expected to be considered, demonstrating that you know the children and should be an accurate report of their ability and progress to their parents.

If I could change things it would be to trust that teachers can teach lessons. I wouldn't make them plan each individual lesson, just write a scheme of work for the term (for each subject) and annotate it, if necessary. I'd trust that teachers know their children as individuals and are taking their needs into account. I'd significantly reduce class sizes, but that won't happen because it's too expensive. Instead of the artificial lesson observation where a teacher has to jump through hoops to demonstrate a perfect lesson while $h1tt1ng herself about 'failing', heads should be in and out of their teachers' classrooms frequently and "informally", talking to the kids, asking them about their work, perhaps even helping. I have had lesson observations where I have made the observer sit with a group of children; if there's an extra teacher in the classroom then they can bloody well make themself useful. I'd get rid of "marking policies" that insist on using "consistent" signs, symbols and approaches and insist on a comment on every piece of work. If I have a comment to make about a child's work, I'd rather talk to them about it.

My daughter has been forbidden from being a teacher, not because it is bloody hard work, but because it is thankless. Worse than thankless, it is despised.

It's true that teachers are despised and their work is considered thankless. But this should not surprise you too much. I dont know how constrained you are by the curricilum from which you teach, but if those constraints are considerable then you are probably teaching things that are considered to be worth knowing by those who have an interest in keeping the status quo. Teaching about the way the world is, rather than the way it could be, particularly in these times of hardship and alienation, is unlikely to win you many supporters. Its not your fault, of course, that you must teach perceived knowlege and wisdom. However, If you are a committed teacher, and have the courage, endurance and insight to teach your pupis how to think independently, and how to recognise the propaganda with which they ( and we) are constantly fed, then perhaps the opprobrium to which you, and other teachers' are often subjected will be worthwhile.

[the gardener]

You are not making any great revelation here. Sometimes we get the children to mark their own work but this approach does not lend itself to most work that children do. Marking a child's work isn't just a busywork task that has to be done, it is a medium through which I can assess. Ideally I'd like to mark a child's work with the child next to me every time so that we can talk about it. The opportunity for that is rare. In my experience, marking in lesson time is frowned upon; you are supposed to be teaching, not marking. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this, it's just the way it is.

We do share resources and planning. I have written subject schemes of work to be used for the whole school, from year 1 to year 6 and I hope that they have saved my colleagues some time, but I know that they haven't saved them from having to write lesson plans. Their lessons still have to be tailored to their class and to individual children. What the problem is is that everything has to be written and recorded. I can teach a lesson with one line written down - the learning objective, once I know the class and children then I don't need anything else. I know the needs of each child and how to individually prompt and question them and differentiate their work, but the powers that be demand that I prove it by writing it down.

Manipulating the statistics to reflect well upon myself isn't serving the children well, besides the fact that it is soon discovered. We handle a lot of data in school. As for recycled reports, well we have our stock phrases and templates; that's great, but I myself have received a school report for my daughter with another child's name embedded several times in it. Reports are expected to be considered, demonstrating that you know the children and should be an accurate report of their ability and progress to their parents.

If I could change things it would be to trust that teachers can teach lessons. I wouldn't make them plan each individual lesson, just write a scheme of work for the term (for each subject) and annotate it, if necessary. I'd trust that teachers know their children as individuals and are taking their needs into account. I'd significantly reduce class sizes, but that won't happen because it's too expensive. Instead of the artificial lesson observation where a teacher has to jump through hoops to demonstrate a perfect lesson while $h1tt1ng herself about 'failing', heads should be in and out of their teachers' classrooms frequently and "informally", talking to the kids, asking them about their work, perhaps even helping. I have had lesson observations where I have made the observer sit with a group of children; if there's an extra teacher in the classroom then they can bloody well make themself useful. I'd get rid of "marking policies" that insist on using "consistent" signs, symbols and approaches and insist on a comment on every piece of work. If I have a comment to make about a child's work, I'd rather talk to them about it.

My daughter has been forbidden from being a teacher, not because it is bloody hard work, but because it is thankless. Worse than thankless, it is despised.

Can't argue with any of that.

Why do Heads demand all this bureaucracy when they know it damages teaching?

Don't tell me. OFSTED.

OFSTED needs to be destroyed.

[This Username Is Taken]

Can't argue with any of that.

Why do Heads demand all this bureaucracy when they know it damages teaching?

Don't tell me. OFSTED.

OFSTED needs to be destroyed.

OFSTED is a big problem. Don't get me wrong, I believe that schools should be accountable and inspected, but OFSTED are the tail that wags the dog. Before OFSTED, HMI (Her Majesty's Inspectorate) inspected schools and teachers and then helped them to improve. My mentor as a newly qualified teacher was a HMI and he made a hell of a difference to me as a teacher in just a few months.

Many heads are fixated on OFSTED. They are afraid for their jobs. They use statements from their OFSTED reports and hang them on banners at the school gates, OFSTED language appears all over teacher vacancy advertisements. Considering that every advert insists that they will accept nothing but 'outstanding' applicants we should have nothing but 'outstanding' teachers.

[PopGun]

As soon as that oik Gove cited Asia as an example (again) I switched off.

I'd love a spreadsheet which contained all countries holdiay dates against educational attainment. That would be a good propper analysis.

I'm guessing Gove has ignored those countries with better attainment with comparable or more holiday time.