The future of schools with no teachers: kids in a hall on screens

[noblegiraffe]

This just came up on twitter as a laudable story of a school saving on supply teachers by herding kids into the hall, logging them into laptops and having them teach themselves from videos or websites, while kept in order by a non-teacher who won't be able to help them.

As we have fewer and fewer teachers and more and more lessons that need supply, this will probably be the future of schooling. We know from lockdown how utterly inadequate it is. No discussions, no practicals, no personal relationships. Even with the best AI tailoring the content (which is isn't right now) it is a grim and sterile scenario.

And now we know why the only thing that the government has put significant funding into in recent years is Oak Academy. This is what they want. This is why they have slashed teacher training providers during a recruitment crisis. This is why they are playing silly buggers with pay negotiations during a retention crisis. They don't care that kids don't have teachers.

schoolsweek.co.uk/solutions-how-an-academy-trust-slashed-its-supply-costs/

@GlassBunion PPA is 10% of teaching time, so 6 minutes for an hours lesson. What do you mean by session prep?

The rise of OA is quite scary. Students don't (and won't) learn alone in the majority of cases. Strike days saw 180 students in a hall with one teacher.... Absolutely pointless for all concerned.

I think it is the way things are going.

It’s all very well talking about adults learning some things on YouTube, but we are talking about children here. And to suggest that nearly all of the curriculum is a waste of time and not useful, is to take a view that is not shared with the tiniest minority, who really just want to be awkward on a thread like this.

Anyone who has kids who have experienced this kind of lesson - large numbers watching something and getting on by themselves, without a qualified teacher, for anything more than a very occasional lesson should be concerned and complain to the Head and also to their MP.

The thing is, it’s not a good way to learn. But it probably is the way schooling is going unless funding to it increases substantially. But of course, fee paying schools won’t be using this option….which in itself tells you something.

Parents should be up in arms and demanding more for their children.

To avoid this becoming the norm, and an increasingly abysmal experience for children with severe impacts on the nation long term, schools need sufficient funding so that schools can be resourced and teaching made attractive to enough people who are qualified to train to do it. That means paying them enough and ensuring the working experience isn’t impossible due to under-funding which means there aren’t enough resources or staff, so those who are there, increasingly cannot cope and more and more leave.

Parents need to be aware of what is happening. Ask your children how often they have been in a hall like this and how often they have a teaching assistant sit with them instead if a teacher, so someone who is unable to answer questions related to the topic being taught or engage in discussion which is essential for learning. The frequency might surprise you and worry you.

Will parents ever complain or take to the polls to object? I wonder, or will this just creep creep u tiling’s the norm and people say ‘Oh I remember when I was at school and it was different - we all used to have a teacher who was trained in that subject and they made lessons for our class. But that’s not the thing anymore and it’s all technology based and those kind of adults aren’t there now. But I suppose it must be progress and work better than what we used to have’. Hmmm.

I don't think a teacher delivering a bespoke online lesson to a small group of students who would otherwise find it difficult to access education is comparable to a group of 60 students in the hall doing an oak academy lesson.

But it's still not very good for any subject with a practical element, and I don't think it could fully replicate in person tuition for a lot of things.

I also really never want to get to the point where education is limited to things people think are "useful".

Parents, are you concerned by this stuff? Are you sitting by and watching it happen? It’s like sleep-walking into a disaster for your children if they still have years ahead of them at school.

There was a lot of concern about Oak but they have some fantastic partners now. MEI and York university have great reputations for their curricular work so I've no doubt they'll do a fab job. The focus has changed so they are now working on resources to support teachers in the classroom to deliver great lessons. Surely teachers want a full set of classroom resources for free. Surely that'll help them out and make their lives easier and reduce their stress.

Education isn't about training children for a particular job. History and Geography is part of my life, not necessarily my job, and part of being an educated person.

But you get PPA time.
It's just session prep time that you're talking about @noblegiraffe

@GlassBunion what on earth are you talking about? Do you know what PPA time is? Typically it is 10% on a teacher's timetable - time for planning and assessing lessons. For a 60 mins lesson this is typically 6 minutes which is laughable. I don't know why you think there is a separate 'session prep time' in addition to PPA! Hopefully this clears it up so you can see just how mad the situation actually is.

My child is a teacher, of a subject that should include practicals but says they rarely do them, as there's not enough time in the curriculum and it would mean missing out something else! I did all sciences and we did practicals every week for all of them - why have things been messed around and changed so much - I can't believe there is more to learn than we did?!

I am preparing myself for the fact that I am probably going to have to teach my DC my subject specialism in the evenings and school holidays. I might even end up quitting teaching just so I can homeschool them and tutor in the evenings and weekends when

Ffs mumsnet cut my post.
….. when DH is home.

It's not some stealth advertisement for Oak Academy is it. You've mentioned it a couple of times now 😀

It's only really a supplementary learning tool, in my opinion.

Daily there are posts on here from mothers who fail to see that the behaviour of their children is absolutely shocking, or parents who are genuinely unsure of how to parent at various stages and seem to be totally unaware of how to discipline a child correctly. The behaviour of children in schools is dreadful and when you read this forum, it’s really no wonder. As a teacher for over 20 years who recently left the profession, I can completely see why teachers are leaving in their droves and why no-one wants to go into it. The behaviour of children and the ridiculous amount of paper work and out of touch ofsted pressure, it all adds up.
I can completely see this is the way schools are going to go.

There are a few people on Edutwitter that keep going round in circles over this stuff with Oak too. Apparently making some resources which teachers can use if they want to is a Tory conspiracy to remove all autonomy from teachers 🤔

@surreygirl1987
At my school staff get a whole session away from clad... a morning or an afternoon for planning and preparation. Most schools here do.
A whole three hours out of the classroom... three teachers for each year group which equates to nine hours of planning for one week.

I stress that this is Primary.

I fully appreciate that one school entry schools and rural schools do not have this luxury.

Factor in Year Group Leader time, subject leader time , SLT time ( sometimes) there are some teachers who are almost part time in a classroom.

If course older kids can teach themselves, how do think the thousands of older HE kids manage?
They are more than capable, it teaches them self discipline and resourcefulness, instead of being spoon fed.
It's such blinkered thinking to think we can carry on with the education system as it is. It's not fit for purpose.
There's absolutely no need for older pupils to be stuck in a classroom being taught parrot fashion.
It's incredibly limited and the world has moved on.

I'm not sure kids are being taught in classrooms parrot fashion. This whole thread is in defence of teachers being able to teach and schools not being forced to adopt that sort of model.

*There's absolutely no need for older pupils to be stuck in a classroom being taught parrot fashion.

It's incredibly limited and the world has moved on.*
Online would be parrot fashion though. The very opposite of what I do in my classroom.

@Explodingdreams the difference being though that these students value education as a means to success or it's being paid for.

I can't tell you how different and difficult it is to maintain discipline and keep everyone in check. I agree that it would work if children were removed swiftly but where would they go? What happens when SLT don't support their removing? It is nigh on impossible now to permanently exclude a child.

Even in selective/ grammar schools behaviour is on the slide and at the other end? I don't even want to say. If I described my typical day people would say I was Lying or weak and I am neither.

And money wise it's not the wage thing that bothers me. It's the lack of help. The no photocopier/ printer so my lessons don't flow, the fact my head says kids are abusive to me as 'they hurt the ones they are closest too', the lack of ability to discipline in extreme circumstances, the Reams of school policies/ rosenshine principles, think of a ridiculous/ ineffective 'day ' and prepare a lesson for it. We have forgotten the basics and there is no money for them.

If I'm right, Oak Academy doesn't (yet?) contain A-level material. Quite apart from all of the other considerations that PP have pointed out, learning from a screen is awful preparation for the critical thinking required at higher levels.

I've been teaching for well over 20 years, and students are still asking me interesting questions which I've never encountered before. Hard to produce resources that could answer all of those. (It's also one of the reasons that I can't plan too far in advance, you never know when an interesting question will derail the discussion, or whether a particular class will "get" a topic as quickly as another.)

@GlassBunion I get one hour. Which is inevitably stolen for a meeting, or an observation.

My sons' school (he works in special Ed) staff get a PPA day and work from home.

It's not a level playing field.

I am 34 and I can genuinely, hand on my heart say, I only ever learnt one thing at secondary school and that was how to chop an onion. I really cannot think of anything else I learnt. I failed all my GCSE’s as I just didn’t engage with the content. For me, it was all just so mind numbingly boring.

I had learnt how to write well at primary school and I was numerate in a basic way which has served me well enough in adulthood. I am just about to complete my OU degree so I am not a total dunce thankfully 😂.

Personally I still value education for those who want to engage with it, but I fear this is just the start. Too many parents just don’t care enough.

Some people who can't see the magnitude of the problem are failing to see the bigger picture. This method of delivering education, I.e. all students in a hall on ipads/doing OA/connecting to another classroom via zoom etc, are all reliant on there being sufficient staffing to manage it. No ones dream job is to stand in a hall for 6 hours writing up trouble makers; we have to reflect on the difficulty we face in getting supply teachers and exam invigilators. The liklihood is that even more teachers will leave if the best bits of teaching are omitted and are required to manage entire halls of students who really don't want to sit in silence for an hour and listen to someone read Mcbeth aloud and not engage at all with them as individuals.

What will ultimately happen is slowly but surely, just like during covid, schools won't have enough staff to open. Governments won't see the benefit in keeping schools open to be managed by non-specialists and be a place just used for their WiFi. The burden of ensuring a child is accessing their daily dose of OA will not come from schools, but from parents. I'm already seeing an increase in teachers leaving to teach home educated students. So those that have, will thrive with additional support from tutors and access to textbooks, and those from low income households will be left to understand the information on their own, with no one to ask for help, or struggle and not get the grades.

I'm really worried but most of my friends with same age kids are not. I spend time on here and time talking to teachers, they don't.
Schools generally protect parents from the worst of things, it's only if I ask my kids - did you have you own teacher or a substitute today that I find out anything.
My DC are both at secondary and I feel I have enough knowledge to help them muddle through if things get worse. I would be really worried if my kids were toddlers now though, maybe I'd be trying to call in some family favours and get them privately educated.

@TheNefariousOrange , an excellent post except I feel if what you are envisaging comes to fruition, no family will be at liberty to choose their own resources but will have to log on for their govt approved and delivered lessons.

Do you think no one uses history, geography or PE in the real world or do you just mean it was a waste of time for you?
Children are usually quite open to learning new things. My DC hates art, can't draw, etc but I can still see that he has gained an appreciation of art from learning about artists and how they work. He can't wait to drop drama but I can see he has learnt lots about how plays are formed and it's helped him with his English expression. He does happen to love geography, science and PE - and none of these subjects would work well in a hall of 60 kids in front of screens.
I love the broad curriculum, you just never know when something will spark and child's interest and lead them to wanting to learn something else.