Trainees no longer ready for workplace

I would bet that those trainees had Saturday and holiday jobs even if they didn't need the money.

Shut uppppp this is absolutely outrageous!! 😂

Agree with this. I went to work at my old secondary school a while ago. When I was a student there it was a very good school and super strict with high expectations. I still believe it was too strict back then personally, but even I was shocked as a staff member at how mollycoddled and pandered to the students are now. Lots of refusal to go to lessons, smashing windows etc and the staff could do nothing, students just laughed in the headteacher's face etc. I remember gently asking some girls to move as they were sitting on the floor leaning on and blocking the main entrance doors, and they straight up refused to move! And these were nice 'nerdy' girls, not 'naughty' ones! The challenging children were on another level altogether.

I don't think schools should be as strict as they were when I was young, but they certainly need a touch of that bringing back to help kids get used to having to work in a hierarchy, and build some resilience! I couldn't believe how soft the kids were, coming to me crying all day long often because of the most minor things, and I can fully believe a lot of them are carrying this into their young adulthood and it's not doing them any favours. Some also knew their parents would phone or come into the school screaming at staff if they didn't get their way so they felt invincible.
Just to add they weren't all like this, but a very large number were..

I’m hoping the same for my Gdcs. Signs so far are good! 🙂

I do a weekly session for the trainees and they are worse at common sense than my students

I teach in a different room before the session which is Period 2 in our day- so it takes me about 4 minutes to walk down to my normal room. Last week, they turned up exactly on the bell and because I wasn't there , they all left immediately (bear in mind that normal classes line up outside and don't immediately abandon the lesson if a teacher is late)
Then as none of them check their emails in the school day (too overwhelming apparently) I had to spend 20 minutes of the session walking round school finding them. One thing I am finding is the older staff are doing loads as you ask the new ones to do it and they seem put out that they shouldn't have to do things

I wish I was making this up- I feel like a Daily Mail rage baiter!

I'd sack anyone who was stupid enough to get lip filler!

Im hoping my kids when they hit the workplace will be the ones who understand how to be reliable and responsible. Im trying my best 🤞

Sending my SIL a link to this thread, OP. She was a teacher all her life but left about five years ago after seeing how things were going.

Yep I have a trainee at the moment who has a really quiet voice- she will talk at the same level - yesterday she told a student the same instruction that the student couldn't hear (lovely student who was getting more and more embarassed) TWELVE times. Each time the student didn't hear- she just did a pained face as if to say 'what can I do about this?'
In the lesson feedback I said she needed to be able to speak louder to which she said 'I just cant'
At some point we need the teeth to be able to say 'Ok then you can't be a teacher then'
We are constantly undervaluing the profession- it's not for everyone and we should be proud of that.

I think you need to have earnest talks with them on their first day.

Give strong direction of what calls for them to stay home and appropriate hours at work etc. ie: Negative Covid test or getting broken leg set or Grandma's funeral.

When I was a trainee we were given a two week time table of when we would be expected, with assistance, to plan and take the lesson for the whole class (or a group of children). We wrote up plans to show to the classroom teacher and keep for assessment. All other hours were spent in the classrooms, helping and observing.

You should point out school start times and when assembly is held, where they could be expected to participate. We were used in the lunch time rotation of play ground supervision too as well as being asked if we had any skills to share in a lunch time club with the children. We helped with athletic and swim training etc.
Being on time was always half an hour early.
.
I am truly shocked!
I imagine you have to label your trainees as very poor at punctuality.
How do you find graduates?
Do they have the skills to teach properly?

Can you tell us which uni it is? Or PM me?
My daughter's looking at teacher training courses so want to tell her where to avoid!

I'm not from the UK so I'm not familiar with the system but it sounds like the problem is the University.
They are lowering standards and expecting you to do the same so most of their students pass.
Which might work for them in short term, but I imagine that a qualification from that university will not be worth much if the graduates get a reputation for being unfit to work due to poor training and lowering of the bar. The qualification is meant to have prepared you for the job and show that you are of an adequate standard to carry it out surely?
You say that the University is constantly pushing for a lowering of the bar, disregards reports, can the school not push back and refuse to take any more trainees. They sound more trouble than they are worth and cannot be benefitting your students.
My guess is that once the traineeship doesn't stay a rubberstamping exercise and trainees are required to perform at certain level or fail, there will be an improvement. Right now, why would they bother putting in the effort if they are going to pass anyway?

This is sadly true. Schools are not schools anymore. They are full of ‘teachers’ wanting to be friends with students. No discipline, and any teachers who expects order in their classrooms are more likely to face the wrath of parents. The profession is sinking and is unrecognisable from 20 years ago.

I work in a different field and have found the same with a lot of (not all) graduate trainees. There’s an expectation that they will be excused if they don’t do the job.

I had one who was asked to prepare packs to send to the payments team - fairly standard trainee job - it didn’t get done because they needed to work from home because of their anxiety.

When I called to ask where the stuff was - because we were almost at deadline the guys mum answered the teams call and said we were being too hard on him expecting too much and she didn’t understand what he was meant to be doing so how could he possibly.

this was a job he’d done a previously. Mum was also upset he wasn’t included in meetings (he was) and annoyed he had been assigned training. When we did hold meetings that day she was on the teams call with him.

I did have to point out that her son was 25. And I didn’t think it was appropriate for her to be sitting next to him while he worked. Because confidentiality etc. apparently they didn’t have any secrets between them…

Yes, definitely a number of things. I used to work in CAMHS and it was always multi factored. Parents are part of the picture, especially the kind of parents who can't believe their kid could ever make a mistake/behave poorly and demand for them not to face proportionate and appropriate consequences or make amends to others. Pandemic (and how parents/peers responded to it), schools being a strange mix of overly strict about silly things like uniform and pens and mollycoddling in other ways, like not dealing with bullies strictly enough or making sports days and things non competitive or never celebrating extraordinary achievements to ensure others don't feel bad, which is well intentioned but then kids who are good at certain things never get to shine. Expecting too much of the kids who aren't academically minded while expecting too little of those who are capable of being challenged a bit more. Social media and what kids are exposed to on there as well. Expecting an influencer lifestyle without doing any work for it.

I've only had experience of two of this age group at work recently (undergrad placement students), but I'd have to say they were both great - did everything they were asked and did it well and to the deadlines, so they're not all bad!

@RegardingMary I think this is one of the worst things I've read on this thread so far, terrible that you were then targeted for trying to uphold basic and decent standards, what a disgrace.

OP, as a university lecturer I can promise you that many of their tutors will find them just as infuriating, and will be utterly embarrassed by the idea that their students are behaving like this. But there's very little they can do if they're not getting genuine feedback from you guys about how bad it is, so do tell the university at every opportunity. Formally, if at all possible.

From our perspective, students don't read, can be breathtakingly helpless, and without doubt have much higher levels of anxiety and mental health issues than even ten years ago. Someone earlier said it was all about expanding education. Yes, that's kind of true, but not necessarily in a bad way. When I went to university if you couldn't cope, you dropped out - see ya. Was that better? Well, maybe - except at least one student I knew dropped out via the roof of his accommodation block. The university back then took no responsibility for the struggles of its students and actively discouraged people to apply if there was any chance they couldn't cope with the pressure. I'm glad that's changed, but it means undergraduates include a much larger cohort of first generation students, of students who wouldn't have cooped with the previously highly competitive environments, and of students who have far less resources (mentally, socially and financially) than previous generations.

We do our best to prepare students for work, but it's largely impossible when contact hours at university are an average of 8 hours a week for many courses, and it's ultimately their course to fail; we don't have many levers. The pressure of the job(s) they eventually get will see them harden up - as several have said, the first few years of full time work will weed out those who can't manage it or who are too entitled. I recall some of my first jobs now and the memories are excruciating in terms of how helpless I was...

We have had only one like this - brilliant exam results but resilience was very low, needed a lot of hand-holding and an exceptional amount of support and training - ironic given how confident she was about how much she was worth, she was going to make an enormous contribution - I told her if she did she'd be looking at a great bonus, she suggested I should increase her salary because it was up to me to encourage women to ask for more money - at that point I was very worried and suggested we considered withdrawing her employment offer.
There are people with imposter syndrome and those with an over-inflated notion of what they are worth and what they can achieve.
Thankfully she left voluntarily because the performance review was just around the corner.

I used to mentor trainee teachers 20 years ago. They were always a bit of a mixed bag but I don’t think many people see it as a desirable job any more and that is reflected in the type of applicants you get now.

DD is half way through her first placement on a PGCE. Science based.
She says the problems are partly expectations based. Management at her placement school said "Why on earth do you want to go into teaching?" she has a first in a STEM subject, wants to teach - she was inspired to by a couple of great role models, both at school and uni. Gets told her enthusiasm won't last long... they don't see many like her etc...
And partly bursary based. Get a 2.2 in a sciency degree and apply to teach a science subject... £25k+ bursary. Will not necessarily attract those motivated to actually teach, many are those who wish to continue in education with a fair income for a student.
Her course has 60 would be teachers spread across many subjects. About half are there for the bursary. A lot of the rest are there to not have to get a job yet. She and half a dozen others can't wait to get their qualification.

I have just retired from local authority work, and yes, I agree OP. Over the last few years we have had both school and university leavers who are not work ready, and seem to think that they should immediately be promoted to a senior position whilst having no concept of attending work on time, working with others (at times, working at all) or generally being an asset.

You sound like a great parent, your son is lucky to have had you x

Unfortunately I can’t say I’m surprised, when too many kids are so mollycoddled, led to believe that they don’t have to do anything if they don’t want to, and ‘mental health’ is increasingly used as a more or less unchallengeable get-out for anything.

I would certainly hope that there are still many who don’t fit this depressing bill, though.

I didn’t see the post above, just the one where you said it wasn’t a profession. The tone was very hard to gauge so I do apologise!