Foreign teachers are being offered an extra £10,000 to come and work in Britain in bid to fill classroom vacancies

[SerendipityJane]

Apparently we aren't getting enough immigrants.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12131699/Foreign-teachers-offered-extra-10-000-come-work-Britain.html

oh, and it seems we need to import fishermen too

https://www.ft.com/content/5a438a26-4046-4df6-b4e1-b49af82cfbe0

Equally, a quiet life.

Those teachers in my last place kicking up the most fuss about behaviour (mostly foreign teachers with high standards, "surprinsingly") were the first to be targeted. Nothing to do with not knowing the system; they'd been teaching here a while, but they weren't prepared to put up with crap. This included an Israeli and a German lady. Their classrooms were mostly calm and purposeful, but SLT were only interested in the number of removals.

The actual poor behaviour managers mostly swept what was going on under the carpet by simply tolerating it in their classrooms and not often removing students. It was Ofsted that picked up on the shite going on in their classrooms in the end.

Why do you think the SLT won’t back you up?

Incompetence
Not wanting to have to deal with the problem.
Not having enough time to deal with it.

Ultimately, if there is a big problem-it is very difficult and expensive for schools to exclude.

Reading views of teachers on Mumsnet it feels to me like schools are incredibly toxic work environments. Where the teachers are angry on all levels with Gov, Ofsted, school leaders, parents and pupils. It’s hard to see how anyone could remain working in such a hostile culture and it’s hard to see how this level of teacher unhappiness does not rub off on everyone in the school community.

I loved being a teacher for 30 years until a change of management changed everything. There are hardly any of the same staff there now and a revolving door of newly qualified teachers.

It isn't SLT. It is the command chain ending with the DfE.

Excluding a child means SLT are answerable to the Director for Children’s Services, who are in turn held to account by the DfE for exclusion data. None of it goes unnoticed and huge pressures applied to keep children in school.

It's stupid and counterproductive. Just exclude them at the earliest possible opportunity, turn them over to their parents and let them deal with the consequences.

Please tell me you are not now and will never be in charge of influencing our children’s futures - sure solve one problem whilst simultaneously creating a much bigger one. That’s the problem with popularism - one dimensional thinking. What do you think will happen to the excluded kids, their parents won’t be the only ones dealing with the consequences- we all will!

We are the ones dealing with the consequences now! And the disruptive kids are ruining the education of many others. There would be far fewer disruptive kids once the message got through that there were actual real life-altering consequences for kids who misbehave at school. And education for all the non-disruptive kids would dramatically improve. Teachers would be far less likely to leave the profession. It really is a win-win scenario.

If you're not in education many people won't realise is that classroom teachers have directed time. So over the course of the academic year teachers can be directed to teach, be on duty, attend meetings etc for 1265 hours over 195 days. On top of this they have to manage the rest of their workload to ensure they deliver everything required but they can do this at times that suit them. So you can take marking home if necessary or plan lessons.

Promotion to leadership removes the directed time restrictions. Consequently senior staff can be expected to work in school totally unreasonable hours. We have members of SLT arriving before 6am. This pretty much sets the tone for life as SLT. Meetings after school can go on until 7-8pm. Duty in the morning starts at 7.30am. All staff on the leadership scale do both before school, break and lunch duty. They will be expected to staff after school revision classes or support detentions. They're expected to attend and support extracurricular events. The leadership pay starts at £44k and most will still have a significant timetable of classes to teach. So promotion to earn more is really unattractive. The culture in schools and workload is toxic.

Omg you are in education- truly frightening attitude!

I am not in education. I meant that society is dealing with the consequences of disruptives kids in schools ruining the education of others and making teachers leave the profession.

As has been explained multiple times, this is impossible. It cannot be done. Even if a child violently attacks another, and that is caught in CCTV, permanent exclusion is hugely difficult to make stick.
There is no way we can permanently exclude children for persistent disruption. None.

That is a relief!😅

I see what you are saying, it’s hugely unfair on the other children, I agree. But if disruptive children are booted out for every minor problem then what do you think will happen to them?
Can’t get into another school, parents who can’t or won’t home educate. So you have children who you are writing off. What do you think these uneducated children will do?

Totally agree with Octavia Poole above - that’s why I’ve avoided ever applying for that kind of role again following a similar unpleasant experience. I think it’s a shame as I have been told I am experienced, good with behaviour management, excellent organisation skills and a good teacher -
( there are many like me who also won’t do it) why am I not applying for those kind of roles? Because of everything the above poster said and I still like my job teaching. If I went to SLT I can guarantee I’d end up hating my job.

There are already enough qualified teachers in the UK. They just don’t want to teach because the workload is too heavy and the pay is too low. In fact it’s not even the pay really, it’s mostly the workload that’s the problem. The imported teachers will soon realise this and quit, same as UK teachers. Why should they put up with shit that Brits don’t want to put up with?

Absolutely.

Yet, rather than looking at ways to stop more teachers leaving and trying to investigate how some of these experienced and trained teachers could be persuaded back, the government is trying to throw money at teachers from abroad and are talking about removing the need for a degree.

It’s all about how things can be done as cheaply as possible for this government. The quality appears to be immaterial. It’s all just sticking plasters.

I'm not convinced trying to persuade people who have been annoyed and disillusioned enough to leave a profession to come back is a great approach. They'd be very hard to manage potentially disruptive and I expect the sticking rate wouldn't be great.

They'd be very hard to manage potentially disruptive

I don’t think any of the lovely teachers I know who have left would ever be described as hard to manage!

Let them get on and teach, pay them properly, and they would be the same reliable, conscientious employees that they always were.

I think, perhaps, the older experienced teachers wouldn't put up with the 'new' ideas and edubabble put forward by SLT with half their experience (possibly half their age). That might be considered disruptive and might be what that poster was implying. I can remember INSET days like that when we groaned at the crap being presented to us to 'improve' our teaching performance.

The great thing about edubollocks, @CaptainMyCaptain, is that you can make a bingo board and really liven up inset.

Not surprised by this at all. Good luck, and I mean that sincerely, to them.
I left teaching in a school 3 years ago.
IMO teaching full time now is not sustainable for most human beings.

I dont that would be the case for lots of teachers who have left. I’m planning on leaving but I really don’t think I’m difficult to manage…the opposite in fact because I just do everything I’m asked to the point of exhaustion because I’m a people pleaser who wants to do a good job. But therein lies the problem; if I continue to do this I would probably become difficult to manage because I’d be burnout and most likely signed off. My blood pressure is already almost at that point and I can feel myself heading for a breakdown if I don’t remove myself from the situation. Until I do leave though, and if I ever came back of the state of the profession changes, I wouldn’t be purposefully difficult to manage; I’d most likely continue to be a people pleaser which would be much easier with less ridiculous expectations.

Where psychology meets education,
A terrible bullshit is born.

(Whole poem here)

MrsR87
In my experience, this is the problem.
The vast majority of (primary) teachers I worked with were people pleasers (myself included) and rarely said No, that is increasing my workload to a ridiculous amount.
Maybe if they did, things would change.