To think droves of teachers will make the decision by husband made today- to leave

I disagree. Skills can (and are) taught and many are definitely transferable. For example teamwork is a skill and it can be taught e.g. teaching turn taking, teaching children not to speak over each other, teaching children to plan a task, teaching them to allocate jobs in a group etc.

I also disagree with a lot of what you have said about knowledge vs skills but it's probably irrelevant anyway as the curriculum is the curriculum and it's not changing anytime soon so 🤷

Skills are not transferable. People use their knowledge to change jobs - either innate knowledge such as the ability to network (first order knowledge we are born with) or the knowledge they have gained in the previous job e.g. not many people go from being a historian to being an astro-physicist because they do not have the knowledge to be an astro-phycist (works the other way round, too). My skill in jointing chickens will not help me be a surgeon, I do not have the knowledge that job requires.
People often says 'skills' when they are talking about knowledge. She's a skilled dressmaker - this comes down to knowing about making and cutting patterns, how to sew etc, which are knowledge-based. You cannot become an invisible hemmer if you do not know what invisible hemming is. You won't become a good reader if you cannot decode the letters on the page and match the words to knowledge about the world that you already have, or use that knowledge to find out what the words mean (e.g. use of context (i.e. knowledge) and awareness of dictionaries and how to use them etc).
The skills I use in historical research are useless when it comes to scientific research except in the most basic way of saying 'I know you look things up and you test a hypothesis to destruction' - but even then that is not a skill, that's knowledge of the basic tenets of doing research.
Second order knowledge - the things we must teach people - is needed in order to use first order knowledge: critical thinking, networking, problem solving - things we do not have to teach but do have to practice. When people talk of a 'skills curriculum' they are often talking about teaching critical thinking etc, which cannot be taught, and cannot be used without knowledge.
Do a thought experiment. Try critically thinking about black holes. Unless you are an astro-physicist you won't be able to because you do not have the knowledge base that would allow you to critically think about them. Now try critically thinking about something you do know about - and you will be able to because you have the knowledge base.
It's knowledge that needs to be taught. The things called 'skills' are innate and do not need teaching.

I promise you: the previous curriculum was better. I wouldn't even say that the Curriculum for Excellence is skills based. It's a hodge-podge.

Labour introduced it, but the SNP ran with it because of (in my opinion) the sunk cost fallacy.

I was a Head of Dept when CfE was introduced. Staff were asked for their opinions...and then ignored. It is atrocious.

Skills are definitely transferable. That's how people are able to change jobs, change sectors etc in the world of work.

Many of us referred to it as the Curriculum for Excrement as it was such a heap of shite.

OK there isn't stuff like SATS in Scotland but it's way too much the other way.

Skills are not transferable but are attached to a body of knowledge. E.g. skill in how to make a cake (a skill related to knowledge of cooking) is not going to transfer to roasting a rib of beef (different bit of knowledge). I will stick with knowledge, which is needed for reading (decoding + knowledge = understanding the text), needed for thinking (how much can you think about string theory unless you know about string theory?), needed for recognising specious arguments (how do you recognise 'begging the question' unless you know it means assuming the answer to the question within the question itself?).
When you speak of 'skills' you may mean 'knowledge' i.e. he is a skilled craftsman in wood means he knows all there is to know about carving wood, treating it etc - his skills are entirely related to that knowledge (and will not transfer to carving stone).
NB The workforce is lacking in knowledge so it cannot acquire skills which require that knowledge.
The Scottish curriculum is called 'curriculum for excellence', however, it is anything but.

The workforce is lacking skills so I'd go for those above knowledge.

The Scottish curriculum is a disaster, worse than in England. It reportedly prioritizes skills over knowledge and has meant Scotland falling from its high PISA levels to below England. It's Labour's curriculum bought off the peg by the SNP, and likely what will happen in England with a Labour government.

The curriculum is tons better 😂😂

Teachers in Scotland teach a max off 22.5 hours a week which is a lot less than in England.
The curriculum is tons better.
The pay is better.
The focus isn't on constant targets

Although admittedly, I've only taught in England and not Scotland so my knowledge of Scottish education is through reading not direct experience.

It's odd that teachers are leaving in droves in England creating loads of jobs but in Scotland I know of teachers who did their NQT several years ago and there have been no full time permanent jobs for them.
That said, the conditions up here are only marginally less shite.

Actually many people know this happens in London and then is also exacerbated by uneven development from the 90s to present.

It was one of the “Educating” programmes but I can’t now remember which one it was. The female pupil accused the male teacher of touching her inappropriately when all he had done was asked her to take her coat off and hang it up. Thankfully the school had cameras in the corridors and they showed everything the teacher had done. I’m sure it ended with the girls mum being called and the girl being suspended after the headteacher with mum present tried to impress upon her the seriousness of the allegation she had made and what the outcome for the innocent teacher could have been if the cameras hadn’t caught it. Who would want to be a teacher now with potential threats like that every day just because a pupil takes umbrage at what a teacher has asked them to do.

There is constant fights and disruption at my child's secondary. She is quite timid and absolutely hates it/feels constantly anxious. I feel so awful that she has to go there and desperately trying to move to a different area. Last week 2 girls (year 7) came into one of her lessons and started throwing chairs around, flipping tables over and drawing on the walls. The teacher was pretty powerless to stop it and the kids were really scared, some crying. Staff were alerted quickly but 4 of them were unable to physically stop these girls. Any time the male teacher tried he was called a paedo.

These girls are regularly excluded from school but as someone said before it is a very long process to get them permanently excluded so the school is stuck with kids like these. I feel so sorry for the kids that do want to learn and not have the constant threat of violence hanging over them. The local police have said countless times that they'd be patrolling after school but so far I've not seen any, just regular fights.

I never minded doing anything that was beneficial to my teaching or the education of my pupils.
What I did object to was the amount of time spent reinventing the wheel. After 30 years I'd seen and done it all before.

It was shite the first time around, it wasn't going to be any different the second or third time

Someone upthread mentioned false allegations from pupils; this is yet another factor in staff leaving. The threat of being filmed or audio recorded whilst you are teaching or interacting with pupils is unreal.

I would hazard a guess that 100% of my male colleagues have been called a "paedo" at least once, many if not most of them more than once. Female colleagues occasionally get called it, too, though not at the same rate.

It's a mug's game.

So depressing and sad.

Nothing of value to add. I’ve just left and won’t be returning. It wasn’t the kids for me but the toxic culture and stress and insane workload: the majority of which provided zero benefit whatsoever to teachers or learners.

Adding more and more work that is patently worthless speaks volumes about the perceived value of teachers time and wellbeing.

As someone else said I feel like I’m getting out of an abusive relationship and it’s going to take some time to process and put myself back together again.

I will genuinely miss the kids and teaching. It’s a shame it isn’t the job or culture I signed up for over 20 years ago or I’d happily continue.

The 'inclusion' agenda not only fails those children most in need, but the rest of the classes who are just held back in many cases. It was a cost cutting exercise that fails everyone.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft yes I can see how way too much is put upon teachers and schools rather than actually giving them the resources they need to be able to accommodate kids who need more.

Teachers are trained as general class teachers - not specialists in every area of SEN. Teachers are often teaching classes with a third of children with SEN/English as an additional language - often more. Some SLT are worse than OFSTED. Parents and children are often emotionally pampered for poor behaviour. 'Called someone a c*nt... There there! Let's do some play therapy.'

@NotTooOldPaul has the right idea but not enough support for it these days (unfortunately) - and that is why it's all going down the pan.

I suppose all parents should support the teachers just as my parents supported the teachers when I was at school, and I supported the teachers while my children were at school.
Maybe schools should simply tell all parents that if they wish to discus any issue they need to make an appointment (and the wait for an appointment could be several weeks).

If you've ever watched ' teaching Yorkshire', this is so insightful. It shows you what a difference a good teacher can make. It does however show you how awful it can be for so many kids if the teacher or Head cannot deal with the kids effectively. ( Supporting the victims of bullies properly for example).

The thing is, no school can expect to have all excellent teachers with outstanding classroom management. By definition, most teachers will be average, and some below average. Unfortunately some SLTs totally fail to understand this. They operate on the basis that if you can't stop bad behaviour, it's your fault, and they make you feel like you are a failure.

But the fact is that stopping bad behaviour in your classroom sometimes isn't really possible. There are kids who are unmanageable for all or nearly all teachers. SLTs need to acknowledge that, and shape policy accordingly. Such as (in a secondary school) by having a couple of SLT members circulating at all times and removing disruptive students.

I can see there are parents like this. Sorry to keep flogging this, but some parents will be those with SEN kids who are being punished continually for things they really need help with - fidgeting, struggling to sit still for an hour without movement.

We've experienced this. My son is intelligent , does well in school, great reports. Yet, this part is a challenge. He is kind, he isn't mean but he is ' annoying'.

I cannot win against the system and I am a very responsible parent. I have never and never would go storming in over anything. But a point can come where a parent says, no more, please stop punishing. Could you just please try this? It's a nightmare as most SEN parents will tell you, because some teachers just haven't got the skill or patience. I do get that it's hard for them if not experienced in this.

My son got dragged into class by the collar in year 2 of primary. His friend also. I didn't complain. Because overall the teacher was good, he just lost it that day and it was a one off. I kind of understood. If the teacher was a bully then it would have been different. I also want my son to realise that I can't come in and fix everything because I feel that causes issues. The other parent complained non stop about this. I did see her point of view. My son wasn't too phased and we laugh about it now.

If you've ever watched ' teaching Yorkshire', this is so insightful. It shows you what a difference a good teacher can make. It does however show you how awful it can be for so many kids if the teacher or Head cannot deal with the kids effectively. ( Supporting the victims of bullies properly for example).

I get annoyed when teachers moan about a lack of disclipine. If a pupil swears at a teacher the response should be simple "You are in detention this evening, You will stay after school for two hours". That is what used to happen at my school, it did mean the teachers had a rota to stay late to watch those in detention but it worked well.
The same for any other act that is wrong, punish it.

Fgs. Do you think teachers are stupid? Do you think they would read your post and think 'Oh yes - I could give them a detention! Why didn't I think of that before?!'

Teachers do give detentions. Detentions, or even the threat of detentions, have a deterrent effect on good kids who give a shit, but not on the ones who most deserve detention. Those ones either don't turn up, or do turn up but don't really care if they get more detentions, so they carry right on behaving badly.

Unfortunately, detention, isolation, suspension and expulsion are the only weapons in schools' arsenal. I've already explained why the first one doesn't work well. Similar story with isolation. You can only get away with suspending a student a certain number of times (it goes on the school's record), and expulsion is very hard to do, requires a LOT of hoop-jumping by the school and is often overturned on appeal. Even if you do manage it, it just moves the problem to another school, and you may get another troublesome student in return.

So sorry you get annoyed when teachers 'moan about discipline'. Maybe consider that you don't really understand the problem.

@Mirabai but London is very different to where I live. I agree, kids need to be supported in all their talents and we need people with trades and all sorts of skills in our society, but what I am saying is if there are fewer academic type children in an area, and then a significant proportion of those
go to private schools or are able to go to one or two better state schools, the ones that are left to go to the rest of the state schools stick out like a sore thumb. Top sets don't even cater for them.... They're less able to fit in if they're bookish and not into football and tiktok or whatever.

My kid has been badly bullied....the bullies take up a majority of some of his classes. It's mob rule.

Punishment doesn't work. Behaviour points and detentions. They don't care.

I would love to hear ideas on how we make state schools better for all children? Because at the moment, the answer from a lot on mn is you'd manage to send them to private school if you cared enough and as long as those badly behaved kids aren't near mine, that's fine.