'Working together on workload'

[lovelyjubilly]

Sorry if this has been done before. I'm on maternity leave and have only just seen this video by Damian Hinds on the expectations of ofsted when it comes to unnecessary workload.

Anyone else seen it? What did you think?

neu.org.uk/workload

[gingerbreadbiscuits]

I wish my SLT would watch it.

I think the Osfted requirement are still wishy washy and unclear.

[CuckooCuckooClock]

Agree it's too wishy washy.

I think ofsted need to start actively penalising schools slt who do not tackle workload around marking. That's the only language my slt understand.

We are expected to mark everything in green and kids must respond to feedback in purple every lesson.

I've even heard of one colleague who gets kids to write down a transcript of her verbal feedback in their books to evidence that she has given it.

I just can't keep up and will probably loose my job soon for this reason even though my exam classes get good results. Partly because they get shit loads of individual, verbal feedback each lesson but because there's no paper trail of this feedback, slt refuse to acknowledge that it happens. Fuckers. Sorry turned into a rant. Love teaching but am pissed off.

[Changebagsandgladrags]

Out of interest, where did these crazy-loon ideas on marking come from?

[noblegiraffe]

I believe some school did triple-marking, it was praised in the school’s Ofsted report. Heads started passing it around as an example of ‘good practice’ and it just got totally out of hand.

That video. Well. I’m guessing the poster from last year didn’t work too well so they’ve decided to take it up a notch. .

Scrap Ofsted grades. Get rid of performance-related pay. Get each school to publish the average years of experience of their teaching staff. Get them to publish how many unqualified teachers they have on payroll. Get them to publish what percentage of their teaching staff quit each year. Get the NUT to put those details on that map they had for the school budget campaign so that parents can see exactly what a state their schools are in.

Then we might start to see some movement on retention.

[CuckooCuckooClock]

I don't know but my slt think feedback = marking so they use all this evidence of how important feedback is to insist that marking is fundamental to good teaching.

[CuckooCuckooClock]

Ah yes triple marking. I'd forgotten but I got told off for not triple marking last time I met with my hod. Happy times.

Yy to publishing teacher turnover rates.

[noblegiraffe]

Now they’re not allowed to grade lessons, way more focus has been put on book scrutiny. I swear more people have looked my students’ books in the past year than looked in them the previous decade.

[Theworldisfullofgs]

I'm a school gov and we've been working really hard on workload. Our biggest problem is trying to stop teachers over planning.

[noblegiraffe]

What does over planning mean?

[Theworldisfullofgs]

It's a term our HT uses a lot. Planning for every eventuality and not using what comes up spontaneously in class ( we found the whiteboards promoted this so we got flip charts as well). Planning from scratch when there are lesson plans and resources on the shared drive rather than tweaking them for the class.

We're also trying to cut down on pointless marking. Marking is for progress not to show ofsted.

But we're stroppy govs who would be prepared to argue our case with ofsted (primary - good school - no recruitment problems).

[Piggywaspushed]

The school I work at is approximately 9000 years behind every initiative. So, yesterday at training day we discussed marking/ feedback (and, yes, a couple of us pointed out the difference) and SLs were talking about bringing IN green pens and verbal feedback transcripts. FFS. Time to bring out my 25 years of educational fads thread again. I just sat going

[CuckooCuckooClock]

How is marking for progress not to show ofsted TheWorld?
I don't understand what that means.

[CuckooCuckooClock]

Just to derail slightly RE green pens. When I was a kid I thought the best thing about being a teacher would be getting to use red pen. Always loved writing in red pen. Then they take that small pleasure away from me. I feel I've been cheated.

[Piggywaspushed]

I have to say and I think you sound like a governor who wants to be supportive, why are you intervening at all as a governor and making decisions/ judgements about what is good planning/overplanning? Why not just let teachers do what makes them feel prepped, creative, satisfied and leave them to make professional judgements as the ones with PGCEs. Such an interventionist state these days! And governors getting involved in this way is often for Ofsted too....

It is true people overplan (esp NQTs) but at my gaffe we get absolutely no intervention form governors on our teaching. Long may it continue.

As a governor myself , there are some meetings between governors and middle leaders (I don't get involved in this) but certainly no work or guidance on actual teaching and learning at this level.

[Piggywaspushed]

But I thought we could use red? Green is for the students?

I mark in whatever colour pen I can find

[CuckooCuckooClock]

No no no. Students self assess in red, teachers mark in green, students respond to feedback in purple. It's a FUCKING RAINBOW of bullshit.

Each colour must appear in approximately equal quantities. Any deviation will result in an amber rating for marking and feedback.
Three Amber ratings and a teacher will find themselves on a pathway 4 support program.

[noblegiraffe]

not using what comes up spontaneously in class

You can’t tell inexperienced teachers not to plan in detail and just wing it! . It is all very well for experienced teachers to do it, but it comes with experience. Whenever I’m teaching something I’ve not taught before I end up spending ages on planning. If I’m teaching fractions I write ‘adding fractions’ in my planner and that’s it. Someone telling me I overplanned the first topic would get told to bog off!

[noblegiraffe]

Three Amber ratings and a teacher will find themselves on a pathway 4 support program.

And an after school detention? Treating teachers like school kids is the sign of an insecure SLT.

My department is pretty good for workload around marking. The days of writing ‘well done you have got the hang of Pythagoras which is level 7, in order to get an 8 you need to wait till I’ve taught you trigonometry’ are behind us! Those days were such a waste of time.

[Theworldisfullofgs]

Sorry I'm not explain well. This is from the teachers and head teachers comments. It came out of our discussions with them and they asked us to keep challenging them as in their words 'habits are hard to change'.
We are not teachers and we do not make teaching decisions and we do challenge!
Major area on our SIP for the last two years has been staff well being. We want to get to a point of better work life balance.

[Theworldisfullofgs]

*explaining

[YaBasic]

No longer actively in the profession...where do the kids who have rarely got even a blue or black bic getting these red and purple pens from?!!!!

[noblegiraffe]

I’ve got a box of green pens in my desk and whenever we need to do some ‘green pen marking’, I have to dole them out, then collect them back in at the end.

[Piggywaspushed]

I love the idea of not being actively in the profession. It conjures up images of you being a passive teacher. Feet up on the desk, saying 'juts get on with your work' and getting your copy of The Guardian out.

This is genuinely what my mentor was like on my first teaching practice placement, bless him.

[noblegiraffe]

That what English teachers call a ‘library lesson’ isn’t it?

[Piggywaspushed]

Oh, yeah you want to try one of those some time noble with a bottom set ! suddenly remembers has private reading lesson on Friday

My DH freely admits he says 'turn to page 23 and do exercises 1,2,3 and 6. When you have finished that , turn to page 24'