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)

it's a lot of money

Most of our High Need children currently get £4800 a year from the LA. This is on top of the £6000 a year that school have to provide from the notional non-ringfenced budget. That is not ‘a lot of money’ with which to attract and retain high-calibre TAs.

@Phineyj

Completely agree we really do need a revolution on sen.

Unless you have personal experience of it it's hard to describe.

Re ehcp doesn't work well my experience of that is because teachers don't understand sen so a student may have breaks written into the ehcp but the reality is the teacher has zero knowledge of what adhd actually means and is totally blind to the breaks needed. It's just buried through actual lack of training and ignorance.
It just perpetuates the lack of trust in the "system".

The money and trouble we would save as a society if we could just train teacher's on this and sort sen out from really early on!

I just scrolled through TA jobs on TES and saw £10.50 per hour. I mean, FFS.

@Appuskidu

There are lots of issues around that mentioned in long running threads eg lack of respect within the system.

Schools need rating

I disagree. I’m all for the auditing of school safety and think supportive targets being set for schools can work well, but an arbitrary ‘Outstanding’ based on a 2 day visit, means nothing.

@Appuskidu.. They still need a form of rating.

I didn't say Ofsted is. Failsafe and needs to stay.

I said they need rating and feedback needs to be given.

Something akin to trip advisor maybe better.

Do you think £10,800 is a lot of money to recruit a TA? What EHCP funding have you seen?

Are hospitals rated? Police stations? Fire stations? Prisons? I literally have no idea.

I said they need rating

and I’m disagreeing. I don’t think they do need a rating.

BornFreeButinChains
Schools need rating and need to be held accountable in some way.

Yes they should, but they shouldn't be held accountable for outcome, when the input material is infinitely variable.

As for ECHPs and SEND, I can (and have had) 6 pupils with the 'same' SEND all with different ECHPs, add to that the other children with SEND and all of the conflicting required support that is contained within the documents teachers are going to lose before they even begin.

You keep saying that they need rating like that’s an argument for rating them when it isn’t.

@Appuskidu.. It's certainly not insignificant but money isn't a sole reason that people may not be attracted to roles like that.

It's easier to blame money than disrespectful teachers and slt, a huge work load, little job security, no flow of information between ta and teachers rather teachers telling the ta stuff.

No consistency between teachers and ta on sen, eg a ta may be up to date on adhd and understand the ehcp and the child needs breaks. However the ta can't support the child because the teaches doesn't understand the ehcp ( if they have even looked at it) and the ta isn't allowed to facilitate those breaks.

Or the ta is hugely qualified and has a wealth of experience and wants an easier job than still being a teacher but the teacher they work with is insecure and won't utilise their amazing knowledge and the head doesn't have the skills to recognise those skills.

It. Is. Madness and comes down to far more than money.

We need an urgent revolution on sen, yesterday.

How do I give them enough appropriate breaks when I am the only adult in the room?

I have a sofa in the book corner
I have sensory bags and games.
If they need to leave the room / run around / do some sensory circuits/ who is keeping an eye on them / supporting them?
If it's me - who is watching my class?
It's not about 'understanding' SEN it's having the help and resources to support the children or those children being in suitable provision.

@Appuskidu

Oh OK!

Well obviously I disagree.

I think I understand ASD and ADHD fairly well, having a DC with those difficulties. However, I'm sure I'm not providing a great experience for students with those and other conditions in my GCSE and A-level classes. There's only one of me and up to 24 of them and loads of syllabus to cover. Some of my students have time out cards but their option is basically to roam the corridors. Or they can sit in a room with someone in charge who doesn't know the subject. Who's that helping?

Covering more SEN in training would create more understanding but it won't allow anyone to clone themselves...

We have a reasonable complement of TAs, some of whom are "higher level" but I very rarely get them as my students are deemed too able (and seeing what/who they need to deal with, I agree!)

Can you explain this Trip Advisor idea ??

Didn't we already have that bag of shite with rate my teacher/school?

@twinkletoesimnot

Obviously a lone teacher can't take a child out for breaks.

I said that with the assumption that the child /class as a TA.

Obviously so many dc don't have that support because.... As I have said earlier they don't get diagnosed or support because unfortunately it's not a requirement of the pgce to learn about sen Senco don't have to be trained properly so the child is not learning, and no one knows why and has no idea how to help.

That leads of a range of problems for everyone.

Or because there's no money for a TA?

Children with SEN but no EHCP don’t get TAs at all. Children with EHCPs may get a TA but that TA may end up being shared with other pupils with EHCPs. I know this is illegal.

You’re saying it’s not money but it clearly is. There aren’t enough TAs and schools are struggling to hire the ones they are legally obliged to provide because they don’t have enough money to pay a decent amount.

The alternative to rating would be to make sure all state provided education was acceptably good... Ofsted does not tell parents what they need to know, but if there wasn't so much variation, there wouldn't be so much need to know anything - you'd just use the local school unless you had a very specific need (special school, specialist e.g. elite music or sport, boarding).

@Piggywaspushed

No I can't because it's something I just thought of now and haven't gone deeper into it.

But if you know trip advisor then you will understand rhe basic premise.

Obviously it would have to ban any personal information. It's hard because so many children will do well wherever they are inspite of a crap school.

Some schools will have far more issues to deal with in tough areas than those from different demographics.

But the clients do need some sort of transparency and grading.

It would help if the government also took some action to reduce the spread of infections in schools at the moment. The sickness levels are causing all sorts of problems for both staff and pupils. The answer at the moment seems to be to pretend it's not happening which is just making the problem worse.

You realise hotels have been forced into closure by vexatious and malicious reviews? Likewise some are being over represented as wonderful because their mates submit reviews?

I counted the other day. My school has 60 DC with EHCP in years 7 to 11. There are two SEN staff. That means if all they did was check in with each of those students once a week they'd need to see 6 a day. And also do nothing for the larger group with additional needs but no EHCP. It's crazy!