The Department of Education think we are fucking idiots

[noblegiraffe]

In a week where we have seen the release of a report by the Commission on Teacher Retention making 10 recommendations that need to be taken to improve the retention of teachers because the profession is in crisis https://www.educationsupport.org.uk/media/bn2bk5a3/1970s-working-conditions-in-the-2020s.pdf

Where the EEF released research from 55 countries based around improving teacher retention in England because it's at crisis point https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/bonuses-would-help-tough-schools-attract-teachers-eef

And where the Public Accounts Committee criticised the DfE saying "We are not fully convinced the Department appreciates the pressure schools are under..." in its report into post-pandemic education recovery where it says a decade of progress has been wiped out from reducing the gap for disadvantaged children https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/40220/documents/196416/default/

When we know that the government is projected miss its target for recruitment of trainee secondary teachers this September by over 50% and teacher vacancies are almost double what they were pre-pandemic.

This is what they post on their twitter account. With shitty emojis like they've got something to be proud of. https://twitter.com/educationgovuk/status/1666732172034596864?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Record number of teachers - teacher numbers have increased by 6% since 2010. Pupil number have increased by 11%. Maybe the DfE need some of Rishi's maths to 18 to be able to accurately interpret data.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/record-rate-of-teacher-departures-as-40000-leave-sector-last-year/

In other news, all 4 teaching unions are currently balloting for strike action in the Autumn - if you're a member, PLEASE use your vote.

So fucking fed up of this shower.

You have admire their bloody minded determination to be fucking useless though.

I saw that tweet and just laughed! 😂 idiots

Absolute fucking idiots, the DfE that is.

How can they get this so wrong?

The audacity of the gaslighting makes me want to scratch my eyes out.

I think I'm in too bad a mood to laugh this shit off anymore.

They're refusing to say whether they'll accept the independent pay review committee recommendation of a 6.5% pay rise for next September and instead have told headteachers to plan different budgets based on a wide range of scenarios.

They don't give a shit about workload or teacher retention.

It’s such a shame.
It’s now becoming normal to have 2 classes sat in a sports hall, not learning anything, being supervised by office staff because there is no teacher for their subject.
What I want to know is why MPs always agree with the independent bodies who recommend their own pay rises, but refuse when it’s any other profession.

I’m sorry for your bad mood @noblegiraffe, the whole situation isn’t really a laughing matter. I think it was the ridiculousness of it that made me snort.

You’re right, they really don’t care. And headteachers really don’t need to devise multiple different budgets. Unless I’ve missed it they haven’t even commented on the recommended pay increase.

If I treated my students with the contempt with which the government treats education, I would be disciplined. It's absolutely outrageous.

I wonder how they are calculating those figures, ie is it full time equivalent to full time equivalent. Because five supply teachers working 1 day a week isn't the same as 1 full time teacher.

They are a total shower of gaslighting shite-honestly, the sooner they are gone, the better.

its absolutely disgusting. Where even is Gillian keegan????? I work in what is considered to be a good school and I left work today feeling broken!

But headteachers need to be working on their budgets for September now, and they don't know what the pay rise will be, so (I believe) they've been told to plan for a variety of scenarios.

This is because last year headteachers were planning on the basis of a 3% pay rise for teachers in September, which is what the government had suggested, then it was announced on 19th July that it would be 5% and the budgets were totally screwed.

Here is Gillian Keegan, agreeing with the shit maths.

She should instead be worrying that the government is going to miss its teacher recruitment targets by a huge amount and getting off her arse to negotiate with the teaching unions.

Slightly off topic, but have the government actually looked into why teachers are leaving, and addressed the fucking massive elephant in the room, or have they just employed more quangos to sit around scratching their arses whilst pontificating about what to do?
Not a teacher myself, but several friends have left teaching all sighting the same three reasons 1) behaviour 2)too much form filling not enough teaching 3)too much stress caused by behaviour, red tape, lack of autonomy, poor leadership and aggressive parents.
There is absolutely no point in recruiting more teachers if they can't retain the ones they have got. The government did a tremendous disservice to the teaching profession over covid. Teachers were treated appallingly, and it was clear the lack of respect for the profession comes from on high and trickles down.
It's extraordinary when you stop and think about it...an undereducated population is a poor population...a poor population = higher crime rates, higher health costs, less revenue from tax. Why can't any government understand if you want to build a strong economy you have to start at grassroots.

I know this isn't the point but parents who are home educating their children are being relentlessly harassed by many authorities around the country to put their children in school.

Not all children learn well in the same environment, and large classes with little facilities for adjustments just doesn't suit some children. My two both have SEN, DS has quite significant needs and was in a special school. DD sort of falls down the gap in the middle - can't manage mainstream because she can't keep up with the language - but she's "too bright" (their words) for special school. There's no provision for her.

I was a school governor for many years and my two attended school until Y5. Since then they've been home educated, with the full agreement of an educational psychologist. The local authority here is incredibly supportive and has been really complimentary about the education my two now receive at home, and the progress they're making. We're part of a large home ed community in our area and it's been wonderful.

I'm not a crazy conspiracist, and I do believe school is excellent for many children - but there are valid, alternative options such as home ed. There has been legislation going through parliament to make it much harder for home educators. Certain local authorities are absolute arseholes to any parent who's home educating and take quite shocking measures to try and find them incompetent to home educate. I wouldn't have believed all of this myself prior to home educating - there's a couple of really prominent home ed campaigners who have been appearing in front of parliament to try and get the government to back down.

Anyway, my point is - if the government got their way and the majority of home ed families returned their children to schools, the system would bloody collapse. It's barely struggling on at the moment. We get zero financial support for home educating our children - which is fine with me. But if we sent our kids back to schools, the added financial burden of supplying thousands of kids with books, equipment etc, plus the school places and teachers.....there's no way the system would cope.

They don't care about our education system though because their access the one they pay privately for.

I'm a teacher and have voted to strike again.

The school I was a governor at already made several budgets, so we had budgets as in a worse case to best case. But this doesn't magic extra funding out of thin air and suddenly find extra to cover the cost the government has suddenly deciding what schools should pay for.

And as parent I fully support teachers in striking to get better conditions and pay. I'm so grateful all the hard work and commitment for all the children at their that their teachers and support staff put in. and the extra unpaid time teachers do in clubs and at the moment all the GCSE revision sessions, both after school and weekends.

Hah, a tweet saying that a senior government official said that last year some MAT budgets weren't worth the paper they were written on due to the late pay announcement and that action should be taken to avoid that this year.

I.e. tell us what the bloody pay rise will be, Gillian.

https://twitter.com/matilda__martin/status/1666838402031919104?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Good. I am a bit worried that momentum has been lost since all the teaching unions rejected the 4.5% offer, and that teachers are either knackered, because it's summer term, or are thinking that we'll be getting 6.5% (not agreed) and that it will be funded (Treasury will say no).

We need to be able to take action in the Autumn in response to whatever shit the government throw at us in the coming weeks.

Taking action in Feb/March meant it became more about next year than the Sept 2022 pay rise that it was supposed to be about.

@noblegiraffe Gillian's so pleased she's even tweeted herself!

Nick Gibb too. Has some edict gone out that they have to retweet this shit?

They KNOW there's a critical shortage of teachers.

Christ on a bike that’s tone deaf. 😱

The tweets I mean, not op!

DfE statements on the end of articles and in tweets have become utterly surreal they’re so flagrantly at odds with reality.

They are perfect examples of ‘newspeak’ and never engage with the facts.

Noble yes I think it must be an edict.
Like when they all used to say what a great chap Boris was.....