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)

@Phineyj agree that is of course what we should be aiming for but how 😂.

Anecdotal i know but my dc attend a leafy outstanding primary that has deep pockets. Most parents are similar.
One dc went through achieving top grades /brilliant school , the other was failing/ bad school.

How on earth should it be graded?

It is widely acknowledged that Ofsted ratings generally correlate with how advantaged or disadvantaged a school intake is. It’s rating the kids more than anything.

The DfE delivered CO2 monitors to all classrooms last month. (Only two years after schools reopened, thanks).

The air in my classroom is disgusting, is what I have found. The maximum is supposed to be 1500, it’s mostly well above that even with open windows. 🤷‍♀️

And why do children with sen not get an ehcp!

Because not all SEND pupils require them and because the government made it much more difficult for those that do about 5 or so yrs ago

Here here to the setting of cover work. If I'm too sick to come in therefore I'm too sick to set work, especially on the two special forms for each lesson

Noble something else is going in if the readings are that high.

Are you sure you have human pupils in there and not some alien life form?
I totally agree classrooms and schools should get overhauled and updated where they should be with proper air purifying systems however I've witnessed these monitors and never saw them get that high.

@thebridgeinny
Did I really just read "get rid of inclusion"?

Ableist. People with attitudes like yours are to blame for the horror that many with additional needs face in this world. You should be ashamed and deserve no job in education. What a disgusting attitude.

I've witnessed these monitors and never saw them get that high.

You’ve never seen one over 1500? In a classroom?

@FrippEnos and because its the blind leading the blind and as I noted earlier some for some of dc by the time they get a diagnoses it's too late.

Or some students who have a diagnoses may not need a fully funded ta but they do need to be taught by someone with a small idea of the help they need and unfortunately they don't get it.

In my experience teachers think helping someone with dyslexia for instance is giving colour paper and that's it.

Nope.

Not with windows either open or being opened regularly.

This action was taken by time it went orange and it came down.

Sorry to hear that noble :-( I have heard many similar stories.

I wish I could say I was surprised :-(
They need to provide air filters too.

I still don't have one in my classroom. Unless its been fitted over half term

I don't have one. And before Xmas, with broken heating, it was 7C inside. The same room was 44C in the summer.

We also don't have windows that open, but that's another story...

@Forever42

Have you had experience of ofsted coming in and if so do they actually talk to you about this?

This sort of thing needs to be highlighted or sent to mp.

Schools need proper send support and help and Senco

Mine is well over that all the time.

I'm not sure that you understand how long it tasks to get a diagnosis, then ehcp for a child.

We have pupils that we start when they enter the school and still don't have anything by the time they leave 5 years later.

As for training for SEND how will this be funded?
Where will it take place?
Is it going to be another wasted CPD given to 'experts' that don't really know anything?
Also on a thread about teacher workload all you are doing is increasing it.

Do you genuinely think that if Ofsted didn't exist, schools would just stop teaching?

IMO, results/progress are more telling than a 10yo Ofsted report, anyway. I accept this may not work so well for some schools.

I know a school that was rated inadequate due to offrolling. In all other aspects, the school was rated good, but overall it had to be inadequate, due to the offrolling of two students. Obviously that is terrible, but the fallout of that inspection (Changing heads, changing MATs, losing a lot of staff) has damaged the education of hundreds of kids who now don't have permanent teachers in some subjects.

I am not, for one moment, suggesting offrolling is acceptable, to be clear. But I don't think the longer term outcome for the school is right either.

My monitor is regularly red. Usually around 1800.

It misses the point, though, that the numbers were fudged. Good air is nowhere near even 1400.

Schools need proper send support and help and Senco

You say this as if its a new thing.

In past years its just been another lazy teacher whinge.

I saw France set the recommendation at 800. My room is only that first thing before the kids come in!

WRT meeting needs for SEN students, most students, even with ECHPs don't have a full time TA in secondary. In reality, due to staff absence etc, many will not have a TA even when the ECHP says they should.

As a teacher, I can maybe meet the needs of the child with the ECHP, at the expense of the rest of the class BUT that means others, including those with SEN but no ECHP miss out.

Certainly in my largest classes, it's very difficult to meet the needs of some students, because the room is crowded, it's to some extent distracting even during "silent work" because of so many bodies etc.

Very often, a child is one of 5 or 6 in a class with SEN needs, and so the level of support available with just a teacher is limited.

Sometimes, it genuinely is a toss up between meeting the needs of that child, and meeting the needs of the rest of the class. Which is obviously rubbish for everyone, and I don't think I always make the right calls.

But I think for inclusion as it currently is to work, something needs to radically change. And it's not training of staff, because in a perfect world, I could do it- but I can't in the situation I'm currently in.

Oh don't be ridiculous. I always have the windows open and teach a class of 20 in a classroom made to accommodate 30+. I don't have any complaints about ventilation but mine is always around 1800 when there are children in the classroom.

Basically inclusion now is govt shutting special schools but not funding schools to replicate what the special school offered, then teachers getting frustrated when they can’t work miracles and parents getting frustrated when their child’s needs aren’t being catered for.

The idea of inclusion where disabled children who could access a mainstream curriculum given reasonable (like wheelchair access) adjustments to bring them into mainstream education was great.

What we have now is kids who should not be in mainstream education struggling in mainstream education, and kids who could access mainstream education if given reasonable adjustments not getting them due to no funding/no resources/huge class sizes and competing needs.

This, so much!

And it ultimately ends up with some of the students in AP anyway, which often still isn't exactly meeting their needs.

But they aren't safe in mainstream.