Ed Sec looking to reduce teacher workload to avert strikes (England)

[noblegiraffe]

The Telegraph is reporting that Gillian Keegan has instructed the DfE to look into ways to reduce teacher workload to avoid strike action, because the government is still refusing to look at pay either this year or next.

Apparently teachers spend 22 hours a week teaching and 29 hours a week on non-teaching tasks according to research by Ofsted in 2019.

Suggestions to reduce this include 'websites that mark answers for you in maths' (Are there any maths departments without a subscription to one of these already?), and stopping trying to quantify progress for Ofsted.

Better suggestions would be:
Scrapping Ofsted graded inspections and replacing with safeguarding checks
Increasing the number of qualified teachers (improving pay would help here) to reduce workload for experienced teachers who have to plan/support/pick up after supply or unqualified teachers
Guaranteed minimum one PPA per day (this would need more teachers, see above)
Funding CAMHS and stopping expecting teachers to do this job
Funding SEN provision properly

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/02/15/teachers-workloads-could-cut-bid-halt-strikes-schools/ (paywalled)

Read @thebridgeinny and @Michaelmonstera on
Page 1 for starters. I'm not going to make you a longer list. It's just to to easy to shout PRU, AP when faced with a need to include or differentiate

I don't doubt you do. But you're not suggesting an end to inclusion is the solution to workload. My anger is with those who write children off without actually thinking about how those young people will survive and be educated. Why should they be the target of reducing workload? Why not send the "others" that these teacher do want to teach to PRUs or AP or EHE? That's never suggested.

I don't need you to make a list. The things your daughter's school can provide, we can't.
We don't have the money to do it.
We can't get the staff to do it.
We need AP for some of our students because we simply cannot meet their needs. But AP is expensive and the LA don't want to pay, and even when they do, it's not available.
It's not about not wanting to include or differentiate. It's about being totally inadequately equipped to provide the education required for a small group of students, and in some cases, to be able to keep them and others safe.

For me stop Deep Dives, stop OFSTED, safeguarding visits only, heads being willing to buy into schemes to reduce planning and prep time, constant book trawls, learning walks to stop, the micro management needs to change and valuing UPS teachers and the ethos that experience teachers should do more and more work because they are UPS.

Stop making schools and teachers responsible for every aspect of a child's life that parents and / or healthcare professionals should be responsible for.

My deleted point about it being unacceptable not to change a restaurant menu for allergies still stands. This is the basis of inclusion. For ALL needs.

If that was all you wrote it wouldn't have been deleted.

SEND in schools in chronically underfunded. The government has cut back, not only the money, but also by redefining the borderlines of accessibility for provision, the amount of pupils that can receive SEND and ehcps

I didn't ask for a list.

@FrippEnos yes it is underfunded. also because LAs break the law on a daily basis by not funding EHCPs as they should. Parents have judicial review with legal aid in the child's name to challenge this.

However my anger remains directed at those who believe the solution is to end including these children who need some difference. Square pegs in round holes. Why not exclude the round pegs? To just announce "end inclusion" as earlier posters have remains abhorrent to me in a civilised society.

I have a finite amount of time. Three children in my class require an individual curriculum. They can access nothing from my year group planning. All of that needs specifically planning, resourcing and organising alongside my usual lessons. I have never taught children working at pre KS1 before so it takes a lot of work and I have no clue whether I'm doing it correctly.

How about cutting out making schools teachers be social workers and let them teach.
Also cut back on the subjects taught and make sure that the children have a sound knowledge of the core subjects rather than having to do eg a foreign language when their English comp/grammar is poor or behind/struggling with maths.

To be fair, I called it the end inclusion comment!

But I also know someone who got into uni from a PRU. To do philosophy .

• Called out....

And yet of the two people that you listed only one said end inclusion.
The other wanted at least one dedicated teacher in the school to aid in resourcing lessons and more money to fund more TAs.

We are all angry at the underfunding of SEND and inclusion, but direct your ire at those that are causing the problem. Not those that are having to deal with it.

@Piggywaspushed that's brilliant! I hope more become this aspirational. They've tended to be seen as a dumping ground by schools desperate to move 'problems' on. There are some amazing people working in PRUs.

Mainstream schools are often 'dumping grounds' for children who desperately need an AP.

I think if "millions of pounds" were being spent on state schools to fund specialist provision that could possibly make them more able to say "can meet need"?

Have to be honest, it's because the boy was very very clever. They were terrified of him at the PRU.

Note some schools demand workload
I'm sure you've seen this doing the rounds on Twitter. Definitely a school Head that won't tolerate inclusion judging by number of times detention duties are mentioned. Willing to work "ridiculously hard"?

www.tes.com/jobs/vacancy/assistant-headteacher-1786164

I’m sure someone has already said it but I’d like…

• a TA all day long please
• my very low ability children in an ability appropriate group for English and maths
• sats to not happen
• All schools to have free access to the full subscription parts of resource sites (white rose, twinkle etc)

that’s just off the top of my head after three very strong beers and only being back in the job half a term after ten years raising my children!

primary by the way.

Not all schools or heads are like that.

I realise that @MrsHamlet, what was the point of your comment. I said "some" ...

I'm going to bed and hope never to have to cross paths with @thebridgeinny again. This sort of casual discrimination destroys lives. I've seen it first hand.
That mumsnethq allow it to stand is very poor show.

The point of my comment is that you're judging all schools by the standard of one frankly batshit one.

You are obviously angry. I get that. But we're allowed to be angry too, and point out that inclusion isn't working. And that's not our fault: it's a fault with the whole bloody system.

you don't know that they wont tolerate inclusion as it doesn't comment on it. it is also requires the opposite of your deleted post.

Erm, if mainstream schools were like that, inclusion would work. But they are not like that.

I've been SENCO, I work in a therapeutic school with an in house AP for literacy support, I'm self funding an SEN masters. I like working with children who have special educational needs. But I am not happy with the current levels of inclusion considering the lack of funding, so I'm leaving teaching for now.

Funding is 'all' when it comes to inclusion.

Should students who are violent to staff and other students be accommodated in mainstream though?

When I'm talking about students going to AP, I'm talking about students who have hurt others - including in more than one case leading to a student or staff member needing an a and e trip.

I genuinely don't believe there's a way to have these students in mainstream education and keep everyone safe. It's not acceptable for education staff to be hurt, spat at or threatened with violence and it's not acceptable for other students either.

In the case of other students, it's not about hassle, it's about being unable to meet their needs with the rest of the class which imo is only achievable through smaller class sizes.