Do you appreciate teachers more, or less now than in normal times?

[Bluewavescrashing]

Genuine question. I'm a full time infant school teacher. Our school is offering more than most in terms of online education, personalised learning, 1:1 zoom sessions etc. But I wonder how parents feel. Has lockdown showed you how much teachers give to your children through planning lessons, making resources, delivering lessons to cater for all levels of attainment? Do you find it easy to teach your child? When lockdown ends would you carry on with home learning and deregister as they have made more progress 1:1 with you or are you looking forward to sending them back to school?

Nb I have a large group of key worker children, up to 25 each day whom I teach in person in school - this is aimed at parents accessing home learning rather than key worker / vulnerable provision in school.

[CoffeeWithCheese]

Had the utmost appreciation for the teachers at the infant school (I'm an ex-teacher myself) who were utterly superb at what they do. Pissed off we lost a good chunk of the year with an amazing year group team of amazing professionals cos of fucking covid.

The pro-union, schools closed for ever screeching tweeting waste of space that doesn't believe in special needs that we're currently stuck with at the juniors - no appreciation left at all for that one (we were running low even with me thinking the sparkliest sparkly thoughts anyway).

So basically - good ones great, bad ones terrible. Same as ever really.

[AgnesNaismith]

Well, erm, kind of the same. I’ve always thought teachers should be paid more and the amount of work you have to do is crazy!

But currently....I haven’t changed my opinion! I have to work and try to homeschool using sheets set by the teacher. That doesn’t mean I appreciate the teacher more it means I can’t do three fucking jobs at once.

[Puffalicious]

Whinging? I've not been whinging despite using 2 teaching platforms- Teams and Showbie- and Glow email all day every day whilst teaching 165 pupils a day and homeschooling 3DC, one with significant ASN. No provision for my kids at school.as I'm technically working from home.

I miss the kids and am desperate to get back to work. The only whinging I've done is that my kids are being thrown under a bus because I don't have time to teach them.

[pitterpatterrain]

Comments like this that get me frustrated, the impression it gives that some in the teaching profession are naive to broader working life: “In any other sector, staff would be given 3 days' paid training on teams or zoom with a cushy lunch.”

I mean - what crap.

I do appreciate our school and the direct teachers we engage with are doing a good job and are responsive, but seeking out a pat on the head for being doing paid work? I find it part of the infantilising tone we seem to get from school comms. As a teacher you are an adult who chose a job, do it well or don’t, up to you

[Roastednotsalt]

I don’t appreciate teachers anymore than I did before. There’s been many difficult situations for many of us for various reasons for lots of people.

[Bluewavescrashing]

It's not seeking a pat on the head for doing paid work. None of us resent working

It's the fact that we have had to adapt everything we do with no funding, no time for training and in many cases no leadership

[Bluewavescrashing]

I do it extremely well, thanks.

[Bluntness100]

In any other sector, staff would be given 3 days' paid training on teams or zoom with a cushy lunch

You have to be kidding, every single person I know it’s self taught. No one needs three days to learn to use zoom. Five mins and you have it.

[justanotherneighinparadise]

I haven’t had a chance to really watch any of the live lessons with my ks2 as I’ve been so busy helping my youngest. However I sat and watched a recorded maths lesson the other day, after a friend telling me how crap the online teaching was, and I cried. It was fucking brilliant. The teachers were kind, the lessons well thought out and the concepts explained beautifully.

I was then cross with my son for not utilising these lessons properly and I feel like since then he’s actually engaged with them much better.

So I have massive respect for the teachers and how they’ve stepoed up and I am immensely grateful.

[pitterpatterrain]

Yet blue is that there are hundreds of sectors who have had to flex and adapt due to Covid, yes teaching is one of them but if you think the rest of the working world is some kind of panacea where there are wonderful managers and we drift around eating biscuits with money floating from the sky and deadlines being miraculously flexed waiting to be trained on zoom it isn’t true

[user1506328491]

For the record I don't think you would get three days training on Teams / Zoom 🤣

[2021vision]

Hasn't changed my view on my DCs teachers, there are some brilliant and some not so good. Occasionally I catch parts of lessons and it's clear that some are very good at online learning and others not i.e. not engaging, not using the tech to its full advantage.

This pandemic has highlighted how poor some teachers IT skills are as well as pupils. The standard of IT skills teaching in schools seems poor. I think it's also shown how, like in many professions, there are those that have risen to the challenge and those that just like to whinge and do the minimum they can.

[Bluewavescrashing]

OK bit of an exaggeration but on top of a full teaching week 15 mins in a staff meeting being shown our various learning platforms, teams, zoom, purple mash, goodle classroom, google drive then being expected to deliver everything we do via a combination of these whilst maintaining safeguarding, progression, standards and professionalism is a bit much.

[Bluewavescrashing]

It's not learning how to use the tech. Piece of piss.

It's learning how to use it to deliver good teaching and learning.

[Rowenasemolina]

What lockdown learning has taught me is that three quarters of what we do in school is totally unnecessary and a complete waste of energy and resources.

Time for a complete change. Clean sweep

Other countries concentrate on actual education and not all the pointless faff, and their children are taught to the same academic levels but in a time span that is years shorter

[velveteenrabbittales]

so so much more now. The teachers at DD's school have been fantastic during lockdown abs have gone over and above I have have so much more respect for what they do

[pitterpatterrain]

I appreciate it’s a lot, yet the dynamic on these types of thread tends to circle down to “teachers have it the hardest versus anyone” and that is where I think it doesn’t help

Coronavirus has changed a lot of people’s working lives in huge ways, we are all going through a lot of challenges and many are hugely unique yet nonetheless problematic

[user1506328491]

Half a million teachers - some worthy of appreciation, others not.
The loudest, most militant teaching voices have probably dampened parents' appreciation of teachers, which is pretty unfair on those who are going above and beyond.

[Bluewavescrashing]

there are hundreds of sectors who have had to flex and adapt due to Covid

This is true. But education was woefully underfunded and neglected from way before the pandemic. It was only going to get harder for teachers. We have never been trusted to make our own professional judgements. This will be the nail in the coffin for many teachers who were on the edge of walking out

[huggzy]

I've always appreciated teachers anyway, but definitely appreciate them even more with what they're doing at the moment.

[Thislittlefinger123]

No change at all in my view. As before the pandemic, there are very good and not so good teachers. Very happy with the school pre pandemic. But our school home learning provision is pretty poor, so it's definitely not the case that my DCs teachers are going "above and beyond" so my feelings towards the teachers themselves have stayed the same. The leadership team however could not be lower in my estimation if they tried 😂

[Bluewavescrashing]

The vast majority of pointless faff is imposed by ofsted and school leaders.

Most teachers, left alone, would teach well and their class would make progress.

Classes should be smaller. Funds should be bigger. Facilities should be better. Parents need to realise how much their children are being compromised by this government.

[user1506328491]

Plus there's always going to be an emotional / irrational response - some parents want schools open so they'll be unlikely to have their hearts swelling towards those who they feel are gunning for them to stay closed.
Even if they think their kids' teachers are doing a good job at online learning, their more basic emotional response is going to be frustration atm.
Hearts will un-harden as the situation diffuses.

[Pinkblueberry]

I think some parents can feel a bit hard done by and teachers feel that they are not well understood - but let’s not forget that many teachers a parents too, and they can see it from both sides. My colleague is teaching remotely as well as homeschooling - I don’t know how?? - and quite often feels frustrated with her child’s school, just like other parents but then is also dealing with parents who think she should be doing things differently...

[Bluewavescrashing]

I also think that if we weren't pushed to the limit by expectations to catch children up and assess them constantly in the autumn term we would be in a better place right now. No thought has been given to the mental health of these children. The expectations of the curriculum are developmentally inappropriate plus year 1 5 year olds sitting on chairs in rows all day is unnatural. These children need to explore, play, discover and this is really hard to provide for within covid safe guidelines. Which are a nonsense anyway