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Angry Year 2 teacher

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Year2teacher · 30/05/2023 18:00

I am a long time contributor to these boards, particularly the Education and staffroom boards. However, I have name changed as this post would be outing.

I am posting to highlight the absolutely ridiculous situation Year 2 teachers across the country find themselves in each year.

I am currently preparing for Moderation during the first week after half term. During that time I will have a moderator come into my school and look at my judgements in writing, reading and writing by selecting a random group of children.

These judgements are drawn from not only doing the SAT papers but from my entire year of teaching. Every single lesson I teach this year.

I need to have evidence that each child in my class has achieved every single objective in writing, reading and maths. Not from the National Curriculum however, but the assessment framework, which is different...

I have to assess to see if they are Working towards, Expected or Greater depth to check they have evidence in their work for every single objective. The objectives for each level are different so I need to make sure I have provided enough opportunities for children to achieve greater depth, make sure those working at working towards have evidence for those objectives etc.

If a child was away or achieved an objective through adult support, it is not good enough. I need to provide opportunities for them to do that work independently.

If I marked their work and made changes it cannot be classed as independent and can't be used as evidence.

Finding evidence, planning for and teaching gaps in evidence and worrying at it all has taken hours and hours of my time.

The moderator will arrive and choose children randomly. They may choose a child who was off for three months. They may agree with my judgements (been teaching Year 2 for 15 years) or they may not.

I won't know until the morning so need to provide all evidence for all children.

I need to provide my results before they arrive so that can check I don't change them after they've been. In case I try and cheat...

This is on top of my normal crazy job in a term in which I'm also writing reports.

And why? I could grade every child in my class without needing to provide all of this evidence because I'm experienced and know my children.

Why do they government insist on proving they don't trust Year 2 teachers and making us jump through these ridiculous hoops?

I'm increasingly annoyed about this complete waste of time that takes me away from my class doing meaningless and pointless admin.

If you know year 2 teacher who is being moderated. Buy them chocolate.

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Thanks

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JussathoB · 30/05/2023 18:35

Sending sympathy- as a secondary teacher for many years I understand something of what you are going through ( although didn’t do the specific tasks you describe for year 2) - for us the teaching, assessment and moderation of coursework was a similar problem although at the moment it’s been replaced by exams. The ridiculous over complication is the same.
The workload is a nightmare and the rules and ‘prove it ‘ bureacracy even worse.
Hang on in there, you’ve done all the hard work so just try to get through the last steps. I’m sure you have done a very good job. Make sure you get to sit out in the sunshine tomorrow after school and relax.

Thanks