Secondary teacher AMA

[Whynotnowbaby]

I have been head of y13 and in charge of UCAS and other pathways. Now in charge of school based teacher training. Also a classroom teacher three days a week.

Slightly off subject but I'm considering retraining to be a teacher. But I've heard so many scary stories. Would you recommend teaching as a career?

What can parents do to support the school? It's fairly easy when they are at primary school but what can we do once they go to high school?

How many of the children who go through your hands do you remember years later, and why?

(I'm partly asking as I found out last year that my English teacher from some decades back remembered me rather too clearly, and knew who my friends had been. Not sure if that was a compliment or quite the reverse!)

Once a pupil completes and submits their section of the UCAS form, what additional information do you provide?

• I know about predicted A-level grades.
• Reference: is there a separate reference from every subject teacher, or one joint reference (if the latter, who provides this?)
• Do you provide other info (e.g. attendance)?

Thank you

Hi, good timing, there's quite a few of us with Y12 DC fusing over the first time UCAS applications.
Any general advice?
What about predicted grades? Here's my story
My son thinks his predicted grade will be B but he's usually an A student. He had a slip when he was ill. I think we should appeal.
I wondered why some teachers seem to be scared to predict high grades? Is there any feedback from UCAS or Unis if the schools predictions are off?
(my argument would be if you predict him an A and he doesn't get it then that's his problem not the schools, he'd still have an insurance)

• Yes I would recommend teaching as a career but it is a lot of hard work and you have to find the right school for you. I work in a state school with very good results, good behaviour but intense demands in terms of planning, marking and feedback, I love it but there is never a free moment. Some colleagues who have come from other schools have felt it isn’t the right place for them and prefer schools with more challenging pupils where they feel they can be more innovative. (We are quite traditional).

I think it is much harder to be an engaged parent at secondary level. We generally don’t want you to help your child with homework too much and you don’t see us on the school yard as you did in primary. We really appreciate good communication from you (email is generally best from my POV and I will always reply within 24 hours), and do get in touch with the subject teacher or form tutor (for pastoral matters) before escalating to head of department or year. Lots of secondary schools have a PTA or similar and we are crying out for parents to help - we are just as underfunded as primary schools!

Re UCAS: I always err on the side of generosity with predicted grades, we don’t want to over-inflate - if we did this routinely the universities would get to know that and wouldn’t trust our judgement - but if someone is borderline we go up rather than down. In our school we always reveal predicted grades and invite students to discuss with us if they aren’t what they had hoped for. Only one reference is provided but it will be fed into by all subject teachers and the form tutor. We also invite students to supply additional references for inclusion e.g. from relevant work experience. We will include a general comment on attendance and punctuality. Worth noting about attendance and punctuality is that many employers contact us years after a student has left for a reference and are interested in attendance information (as unis don’t generally keep registers as we do).