Is anyone awake? Bad work situation :(

[badworksituation]

I work freelance teaching adult learners.

Half way through the course I am currently teaching, I was told I had been doing everything wrong, by a manager. I should have been making students fill in two sets of forms every session. I had no idea.

They are long, complicated forms too one after every session.

Basically one form logs things then the other references this first form and that's what I mark off(I know it sounds stupid to me, too).

I didn't understand so had a meeting with my manager (this was a few weeks ago). She explained, I thought I understood-but I had to put it to the students, as we were now very behind in all of our work.

I wrote them some instructions, ran it by the manager-she okayed them, I put them on the portal. I addressed it in class too and they all seemed okay with it although they did say they thought we should have been doing it from the beginning (I know but I had no idea these forms existed)!

Then she told me a few days later after all students had heeded them that they were wrong.

After more emails/chats back and forth with her and my other manager, I was confident I understood. Students began uploading these forms. I marked them. I was so agitated with the amount of work (I have a lot of learners, It's TONNES) I did not sleep a wink last night worrying about it all-I've always been an organised person, I make sure I understand everything before I do anything, I don't get into situations like this! Nothing like this has ever happened before-I mean seriously I had no sleep at all and I had a class to teach today too (well, yesterday now I suppose) and tomorrow I teach the students in question.

Tonight I spent all night marking these forms off until I finally had done it all. Then I did my normal work prep for tomorrow.

I didn't check my emails until now and I have had an email off my manager saying I have yet again done it all wrong. I've marked forms right that are wrong. I've not updated something I should have updated that I didn't know how to or that I had to update it.

I am about to send my manager an email saying I have had no sleep, it is after midnight, I am clearly not the right man for the job and this is a constant cycle of her telling me what to do, me doing it and then It's wrong. I am clearly not the person to rectify this situation so I recommend they get someone else in to do it.

But I know that's a bad idea.

I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. Ever. I am clearly not the right person to rectify this situation.

Manager's email is all bright and breezy don't get me wrong but I have no clue what she wants me to do or how she expects me to fix this-the course ends in a few weeks!

I am meant to be teaching the concerned students tomorrow.

What on earth do I do

@badworksituation I'm assuming you get paid by the job and not by the hour, meaning that the extra hours you've had to put in trying to fix this issue were unpaid. You need to figure out the number of hours you've actually spent on this and how much you've been paid per hour. If it works out at less than minimum wage I would point that out to your manager.

Is there anyone you can meet in person?

I think WFH can be great but I think everyone should have some in person days to go through everything.

It will be nice if someone can sit with you and go through the forms.
These back and forward emails aren’t helping.

Unfortunately, your work load has doubled because you’re getting it wrong, whereas as soon as you’ve got it right you should find it much easier.

Can you ask for a zoom meeting to go through the forms properly?

It may take a while but it’s better to do it once and get it right from now on, then carry on having to redo it.

Adult students are not 12 year olds, but nobody's told Ofsted yet and if the OP's organisation are taking government money, these are the hoops they are now making adults - yes, adults - jump through

Yep. Experienced, long standing tutors are leaving in droves, and taking their students (or 'learners', to use the current jargon) with them, because of the ever increasing admin burdens. Many groups are now meeting independently in cafes or wherever they can find an affordable space.

These are students who are learning for pleasure, or to keep their brains active in retirement; unfortunately it doesn't work for students like op's, who are working towards a qualification.

Keep records of everything, OP. I know this is simply adding to your paperwork nightmare, but cover your own back. It's wrong on so many levels, - for you and for your students, - but as I said earlier, welcome to education, 2023 style. It's appalling and won't alter anytime soon. It's all about control freakery - and the ones doing the controlling are the ones that should actually be being watched themselves, that's the supreme irony of it all.

Thank you all-I dont even have to add up the hours I've spent on this to know it is SO below minimum wage! Not to mention all the stress. As I've said, I want out of F.E and if I could earn enough money pulling pints or washing dishes (anything that is less stress) I'd bloody do it at this point. It's ridiculous. (I definitely do not mean any malice toward anyone who does those perfectly valuable jobs by the way-I am currently envious of you)!

@HonoriaLucastaDelagardie agreed-it is really quite sad when you think about it.

So, so true.

If you're getting paid less than minimum wage then you literally could earn more pulling pints or washing dishes and you might want to consider doing exactly that for your own sanity.

I also teach for another company who are just as bad but in different ways.

E.G. I'll email them something and they'll insist they've not got it, they'll provide conflicting information to both me and students, they'll respond to a question by answering a different one-that's not even a small fraction of it but I am still of the addled brain.

The students are all getting extremely annoyed (with them thankfully, not with me as they know It's not my fault-I am essentially in the same boat just different role) and I feel so sorry for them all.

They're very vague if me or the students email them about anything, and (I realise this may be me nitpicking) their course content is full of outdated terms and grammatical errors.

They gave me little to no guidance about their marking procedure at the beginning for example despite my asking repeatedly-all companies do it differently. I sent them examples which I were told were fine, and now (again course almost over!) they've emailed me this week saying the marking isn't correct as it needs to be done from a different protocol.

Well I am sorry Edna but I have no more work to mark, It's all been done and I'm not paid anywhere near enough to go back over it all and do it all again nor is that fair on any of my (busy, ADULT) students learners.

I am ranting now I realise. But this is the state of Further Education as others have said. It is shambolic.

I gave up teaching because I was getting paid for X amount of hours but then I spent loads of other hours still working and stressing about work.

When your job takes over your life, then it’s just not worth it.
(Especially if you earn under £40k.)

I would seriously consider getting a job that you don’t need to work extra hours for and retrain in a different career.

Rant away @badworksituation – I hope this has helped you feel better.

@Nowherenew this is my 'new' career too. I teach the subject I qualified in, which is also a career move away from what I studied at university. I earn a lot less than that-and I am post grad qualified. I am feeling so jaded currently.

What do you do now @Nowherenew if you don't mind me asking? I need inspiration!

I went into teaching SEND students and loved it but the money was rubbish (double the work for half of the money).

Then I went into working with teens with SEND who are in care.
Its a great job but not really a career and not the best pay.

I’m thinking about what career I can do that I can stay in and work my way up but I don’t know what yet!

I look on here for inspiration.
There was a thread a while ago about how stressful your job is and how many hours you work/get paid, which I thought was really good (I can’t remember the name of it though!).

You sound like you have great qualifications and so a good career will be easy for you to achieve.
Its just deciding which career path to choose 😁

I'm only paid for the hours I work (10-1630 one day per week). I guess the nature of the beast with teaching means a lot of unpaid work though

I don't like this. Also re everyone there is freelance. Are they really? Or is this one of those companies that tells the staff (who are legally employees) that they're self employed as a way of shirking their legal requirements as an employer?

You're paid for 6hrs a week and you've done and entire all nighter and half another? Fuck that.

Either bill for the hours you've done, drastically raise your hourly rate (like quadruple it) to cover the fact there's all these additional unpaid hours, or refuse to do any work outside of your contracted paid hours.

They can't agree one thing with you then change the contract on a whim. They agreed to pay you, supposedly a freelance worker, for eg 6hrs on a Monday. There was no agreement for additional unpaid work outside of these hours.

It's salaried staff who may be expected to work additional unpaid overtime occasionally in their job, the salary and benefits package should reflect this.

You're freelance, paid by the hour with no additional benefits, not even basics like 28 days holiday pay and class2 NI contributions (which counts towards your state pension, unlike the class1 NI contribution you pay as a self employed person). One of the main benefits of being self employed is no unpaid working.

How did things go today then @badworksituation ?

I think adult education provision is doomed. Adult learners - even on workplace skills courses - are completely fed-up and demoralised by the amount of paperwork, so this increases the burden on the tutors, as they have to be extra vigilant in ensuring learners have completed their paperwork correctly. Eventually, organisations won't be able to recruit tutors at all because, as has been said, nobody will work for less than minimum wage and all the form-filling crap that goes with the job. I'd advise the OP to look for an 'escape route' out as soon as she feels able, but in the meantime to document everything, dates, times, who said what, the outcome, etc. If she's in a Union, get some help from them asap or ring ACAS for advice on the amount of unpaid form-filling being done in her own time/contradictory instructions, and the impact this is having on her own health. Surely the employer has a duty of care.

Adult learners - even on workplace skills courses - are completely fed-up and demoralised by the amount of paperwork

And it's not even actual paper any more. It's all done online now, which is really off putting for older students, some of whom don't even have e-mail or an internet connection. 'They don't want us' is the message they are hearing. So much for inclusion.

Exactly. It's only "inclusive" if learners are prepared to complete the endless online and hard copy paperwork that comes in a never-ending avalanche. Learning for pleasure, cultural enrichment, enjoyment, to keep your brain active, to interact with other people and thus help your mental and physical health - pah! Rats to all that - that's not valid in this Brave New World. They truly know the cost of everything but the value of nothing.

The Powers That Be preach the gospel of lifelong learning, but in the small print it should say..... 'welcome - but only if you don't suffer from writers' cramp and are prepared to be turned into an automaton'. Sorry for ranting, everyone and especially the OP - I feel so strongly about what's going on.

Sounds like a manager problem, you more than likely will never be able to change the way they want to do things, so you may want to reconsider whether or not you want to stay… Or ask for a new manager. Clearly is not a communication issue.

Having managed quite a few teams in my working life, and assuming you are giving the whole picture, it sounds very much to me as though you have been poorly trained and managed on this one, and absolutely not your fault. Negotiate bite sized chunks of work to rectify the situation, and bear in mind that if this were to ever go to a grievance procedure, your manager would have more to answer for than you.

@badworksituation so sorry you’re facing this - does sound like standard FE nonsense. There is life outside of FE!

A good few years ago now, DH was booked as a tutor for some adult learning evening course, and even then he said that the paperwork was an awful nightmare. He never did it again.

Am curious, but what is the purpose of all this form filling? What is it that the students and you have to do with all these forms?

It's intended 'to evidence' that they are achieving the learning outcomes for the class or course.

The ones I'm familiar with, they're supposed to state on a scale of 1-5 how much they knew at the start of the course and how much at the end. Funding is on the basis of the number of students achieving the learning outcomes.

Then there are the questionnaires asking retired people studying Eng Lit or Art History for pleasure whether the course has helped them to find employment, because they have to fill in the same forms as people doing ESOL or Basic Skills (or whatever it's called these days).

The info is collated by the tutor, who then fills in another form based on the results, then it has to be kept for Ofsted. I was told that when Ofsted come, they can ask for the paperwork for any class from the last ?? years - forgotten how many years back they can go.