I am a teacher (secondary) AMA

[Piggywaspushed]

The atmosphere has become toxic on MN in the last few days with insults and generalisations being flung and teachers becoming increasingly defensive , aggressive probably and anxious certainly.

I am using this board to reach out and answer in a calm non AIBU way any questions you might have about what I and my colleagues are doing, how I am feeling, what my concerns and fears are, what my hopes are, perhaps to share a fuller understanding.

I work in a very large state secondary and DH in a large private secondary so can also answer questions about the two sectors.

Just as a rider, any aggressive posts or questions I will just sail on by : I don't want an argument. I had no sleep last night as it is!

Ask away...

Thanks for the thread Piggy a question from my DD going into year 7...
My brothers say all the girls have a handbag not a proper bag. Can they fit everything in it? Do they have to have another bag for PE? Does everyone throw everyone’s bags around? Do more girls wear skirts or trousers? Thank you Mrs Piggy

@IHateCoronavirus

That made me smile . DD's HT begged us in a meeting before DD's Year 7 started, NOT to buy our DD's handbags for books as they created so many issues. Not big or practical enough and competitive "designer" bags leading to bullying etc

My previous school - a lot of the girls had handbags by year 10 but not in year 7.
In my current school I cannot think of any girls at all who have handbags instead of bags. Some have tote bags though

Oh bless her. The bag thing is definitely A Thing!
Someone once started an innocent thread about bags for uni and the MN vipers descended on her with all their venom!

The handbag thing seems to have dwindled. A few years ago they literally had the smallest bags! Lots of them now have those Swedish (?) backpack things that begin with a K and the older girls have tote bags. At some point they learn that these are not great in the rain or if the handle snaps. The size might depend on whether your DD's school ahs lockers and some schools have rules about bags.

And yes to a separate PE bag! But , be prepared, she will lose it....

Bag throwing is not something I have seen except when boys decide this is a primitive way of flirting with girls. Then they throw the bags in trees... It's a bit of a phase. On the whole , though, boys are the more likely bag throwers and more likely to throw each others!

Skirts v trousers varies form school to school and year to year. At the moment it's definitely skirts at my place but trousers are making a comeback. The younger girls tend more to trousers than the older ones.

Hope that helps!

Bless her.

Good to know YgritteSnow

Thanks for this piggywaspushed. Hope that you are okay.

My question -

Do you think that secondary schools are/should be looking at more distanced teaching from September onwards for the foreseeable?

I mean rather than 'let's get them back and fingers crossed, but we'll probably have to lock down again at short notice' the DfE starting now to plan a strategy to deliver the curriculum with a significant chunk being distant learning?

This would involve focusing on addressing Broadband poverty, lack of tech at homes, upskilling teachers, parents and children about how to use the various online resources, identifying children who need to access the school site due to not enough space/too much noise at home/parents working v long hours etc rather than the current push to 'get them all back'.

TIA.

Thanks Piggy can I be greedy and indulge in asking my own question?

I noticed you are an English Teacher. How do you feel about acrostic poems?

Yes, I do think so.

I read only today that my subject of the main subjects (English) has the fewest helpful learning platforms (certainly toe Oak stuff is weak for English) and is the least likely subject to get remote work submitted (I haven't found that with my students so maybe I should market my stuff!)

Lack of tech at homes and broadband rollout are massive issues : obviously very much so at the moment with nearly everyone at home working in some way in some households.

It is also a teacher training issue : most teachers did not sign up to be remote facilitators of their subject and so aren't really experts at this kind of teaching. I think too much screen time needs to be looked at soon, too.

So, I am not sure who needs to grasp the horns on this : individual schools doing what they think is right seems to trouble some people and has probably led to rather too much diversity of approach but a one size fits all won't really work either.

It will certainly be a different world for schools going forward.

In what way IHate ??

I haven't given them huge thought. I have used them as icebreakers and to reinforce adjectives. I also use them for year 11 revision which is fun.

But they aren't really poems worthy of deep study!

I hope you aren't going tot ell me you are the world's foremost acrosticist now!

I have a question for current year 10's.
Is there a general deadline for coursework next year? My child has coursework due in October which seems to have only just been set. Bit panicked about it as missing lots of group discussion about it. Do you think coursework deadlines will be extended?
What do you think should I kid be changed if anything about the GCSE's next year?
Obv I should be asking my school this and I will.

Thanks for the thread.

no Piggy don’t worry. My DC are bright top set kids but whenever they get an open ended poem to write they all plum for an acrostic. I worry it is a bit of a cop out. I was just testing the waters to see if I was being unnecessarily judgemental

Oh, yeah, no, those aren't real poems!

As a general rule, children are very bad at writing poems and teachers are very bad at teaching how to write them! And then, one day, you find a child who is a poet and it is amazing!

Thank you Piggy

He’s a good reader, but writing for pleasure is definitely an area he needs to develop!

Thanks Piggy you are a star .

I’m off to find nice poems for my brood.

Hi cuddling what a nice user name!

That won't be a 'proper' deadline. that sounds like the school might be trying to get in coursework early . There might be several stages to it perhaps (so in my subject they do the first bit for Christmas). the final final deadlines are around Easter.

Personally, I 'd like the exam boards to be asked to look at GCSE (and A Level) content and slim it down . This is easier said than done ,and easier in some subjects than others but it seems only fair on kids and teachers to me. I'd like the exam boards and Ofqual to consult teachers on this.

Hello @Piggywaspushed

I curreny work in finance and looking to make a career change in a couple of years time (currently pregnant so being realistic this is 3 years away). Teaching secondary maths is something I'm considering.

My question is do you think that I'd be too old to be a new teacher at 40? Do teachers work until 60- 65 these days before retirement?

People either look at me in horror or puzzlement when i suggest i might like to teach, but i don't actually know any secondary teachers, so can't ask anyone IRL who has relevent experience.

Bag throwing is not something I have seen except when boys decide this is a primitive way of flirting with girls

That brings back memories. Plus ça change!

I don't think 40 is too old, no. Plenty of trainees are career changers. It is exhausting though! I had lots of energy at 22 that I find hard to summon now..

But, boy do we need maths teachers!

I'd advise (not now obviously!) visiting schools first before deciding. It's definitely not like the ads on telly!

Thank you!

No the ads on the telly are nothing like I remember secondary school being either!

I used to work in finance. I work much longer days and under more stress in teaching than I ever did in finance. I think I work the same number of hours per year just squeezed into term time (half of which you are not paid for) I am also still, after 15 years of teaching, not earning as much as I did in finance.
I would think carefully

I'm secondary science. One of the biggest things to hold kids back is poor literacy. Get them reading!

Sorry to jump in. This is a great idea piggy and hopefully resets the tone.

@RenegadeMrs, I'm a head of maths and would welcome someone with your experience rather than taking on the other extreme of someone fresh out of uni, that summer and thrown straight in to the classroom. I love teaching maths. My advice would be to choose your maths department carefully as I would say there are broadly two ideologies about the best way to teach maths doing the rounds at the moment; a mastery approach or a more prescriptive stance. Personally, I don't think they need to be mutually exclusive ideas, but many heads of maths take a polarised view on this at the moment. I'd recommend listening to Craig Barton's podcasts to get a flavour of what is rocking the world of maths teaching at the moment. It might put you off, or convince you it's your calling!

Thanks so much for responding to my questions Piggy and no need for you to apologise, it's not teachers fault that not enough guidance has been published.

My son did his GCSE's last year. He was a pickle at school, good boy/quiet, but didn't do his homework/handed in late/not good enough and teachers pulled him up a lot for this. He pulled it out the bag for the real exams, but up until then, his teachers were not too impressed.

Just wondering what grades you'll be giving to the students who are clearly bright but haven't put in that much effort, but were going to cram/pull it out the bag last minute?

They do present problems , those students, as do the very diligent ones who bomb mocks. We look at a range of data, including target grades for bass ability. We did discuss lazy ones a lot and did tend to assume they would improve. Our data team gave us lots of graphs which showed last year's improvement from mocks, so we were expected to reflect that in our grades.

There will be winners and losers, but there always are in exams, to be fair.

That process has been really stressful...