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

regardless of age, the people studying don’t care what marking method is used on their work. All they need is solid feedback of their strengths and weaknesses
so they know where to focus on improving. That is ultimately the purpose of grading work, to help students learn from their mistakes.

it’s a concept that I’ve been noticing seems to have been forgotten recently. Dd doesn’t even get all of her work back anymore. She gets a grade, but she isn’t allowed to have the work back so she can study her mistakes and learn. After we complained the teachers said she could come in and look at the papers under supervision, but that doesn’t help if they don’t explain the patterns in her errors to her and if she doesn’t see them herself during that brief window.

im not trying to go off-topic here. My goal is to remind you that yes, you are working to earn a paycheck, but I assume you took this particular job because you want to help these students learn. So for now, just focus on that and making sure that essential things for their certifications or degrees happen. You already know your situation with this company is a train wreck. Just be the best teacher you can be given the circumstances and start ignoring management a bit.

I hope things have worked out by now but I doubt it. I also was a teacher in FE and it is a thankless task. I never went to bed before 1am but as you say didn't get paid for those hours. Too many managers who all contradicted each other. No one at top ever taking responsibility for the correct procedures being followed. Changes in procedures never being passed on to me. I finally had a nervous breakdown and was off work for 5months. The only way things got solved was by me quitting the job. The good wages weren't worth it as I ended up feeling totally useless when it wasn't even my fault. The wages were not even good if I actually counted all the hours I put in unpaid. I got out and have never looked back.

Oh OP I feel this - I taught Adult Ed, including qualifications, for 5 years during a hiatus from secondary. Loved the learners but my word the paperwork! And the managers had no clue that it was all so outdated and unnecessary and before I knew it I was constantly at loggerheads with them, despite being bloody good at the teaching bit. It was just galling how long I had to spend on all of it just so they would tick the box and put it in a dusty filing cabinet never to be seen again.

That lack of training needs flagging higher up the chain IMO. I hope you get it sorted.

It's so sad what's happened to this sector when it has such potential to change lives.

What happened yesterday OP?
Did you say anything about you thinking you’d understood what was expected from you but for some reason it’s not clicking and that you’d like someone to show you what you need to be doing. Literally with you so you can see and note what you need to do.
I hope you’ve found some resolution x

It’s not the WEA is it? I did a few courses a few years ago. Good pay per hour, but the paperwork was brutal. I couldn’t carry on. A real shame as I really believe in what they are doing.

Are you sure she is not doing it on purpose to send you away ?

If the system is so complicated you can’t understand it, even after so much explanation, it’s obviously shit. The whole system is rubbish. It’s not your fault.
By the way, your students sound like a good crew. Were I required to fill in two “long complicated” forms after every class, “bite me!” would be my response.

Ponderingwindow · Yesterday 23:16

Just be the best teacher you can be given the circumstances and start ignoring management a bit.

It just isn't feasible or possible to ignore the management, unfortunately, any more than it is possible in most jobs. It's the newer tutors I feel sorry for - the 'old guard' have lived with it for years and are able to have a laugh at the sheer incompetence of many of the management, none of whom have a clue what they are doing and all of whom contradict each other. The older ones have also learnt a few ways around things, but for newer tutors its a bloody nightmare coming into all of it.

The only way this will stop is when they find it impossible to recruit tutors or there is a similar crisis- already they're having to recruit tutors whose qualifications would not have been acceptable a few years back (not suggesting for one minute this applies to the OP, by the way). Students on workplace skills courses who don't achieve their qualification because of lack of joined-up thinking, not covering the syllabus adequately, etc. will complain, organisations sending students to be trained will complain and maybe something will be done. But for those on non-qualification cultural studies courses it's probably too late - this government does not value courses for enjoyment and mental/physical well-being, they are just collateral damage.

Ah, the wonderful Ofsted! The organisation that is so out of date in its' thinking and so inflexible in its practices, still quoting theories from the Dark Ages, whilst telling the rest of education that they need to keep up to date and be flexible. The organisation that happily collects bits of paper telling retirees of 75 and over that they must write down whether the course has improved their chances of gaining employment. Newsflash, Ofsted: many of these learners have retired from very demanding, highly-paid and worthwhile jobs - they could certainly teach Ofsted a thing or two.

You're right. The system IS shit. 😆

Hello, I am a lecturer (FE and HE) for 20+ years. I would say, this sounds like Bollocks, and I would not get yourself involved in taking any blame for any unfilled / 'incorrectly' filled forms. In fact, I would bounce it right back to your manager(s) – you obviously do a good job of teaching, and this additional paperwork has obviously not been clear from the outset, and is kind of a 'design by committee' approach when it comes to the outcomes different managers require. I would politely decline filling in any more forms, and consider working for a different manager, as this one clearly can't communicate issues clearly. Hope this helps.

It’s not the WEA is it? I did a few courses a few years ago. Good pay per hour, but the paperwork was brutal. I couldn’t carry on. A real shame as I really believe in what they are doing.

I don't know about the OP, but it's the WEA I'm most familiar with. The paperwork has got worse in the last few years. And in my experience, the WEA's left hand has never known what its right hand is doing.

The local branch programmes, which provide the cultural and leisure courses, are organised by volunteers (mostly retired people), and more and more branches are folding because of the increasing admin burden. When a longstanding committee member retires, no-one wants to take it on. Not because people don't have the skills - as pp said, many of them are highly qualified in their own fields - but because of the admin and lack of autonomy.

But for those on non-qualification cultural studies courses it's probably too late - this government does not value courses for enjoyment and mental/physical well-being, they are just collateral damage.

It's not this government. This has been going on for years. It was in Gordon Brown's time that it was decided to shift funding from non-accredited courses to Basic Skills etc, because people who just wanted to learn for pleasure could use the internet. Thereby dismissing the value of the social contact, and the tutor who is an expert in the field. We started encouraging students to tick the box to say that attending the class had improved their health and wellbeing.

I left adult education because of the paperwork. I was told by manager that the paperwork was more valuable than the learning!

Some years ago I re-trained as an adult literacy teacher. It was 1 year of 1 day training in local adult education premises, l year of 1 day training at a college some distance away, and 1 year training at the Institute of Education in Central London, whilst at the same time assisting a qualified tutor on other days in an adult literacy class.

The students were lovely - so eager to learn - and I enjoyed the work. BUT there were so much admin and preparation work - term teaching schedules, preparation and material for lessons, individual learning plans for each student, lesson plans for each class and individual feedback for each student for each class session. It was so much work and I worked out that, with all this preparation and form-filling, plus travelling time to two different locations in the morning and afternoon, I was being paid about £4 an hour! And sometimes I would be asked to take a particular class and then the numbers enrolling were insufficient and the class would be cancelled. So I never knew how much money I would get each month. I finally had to concede defeat and return to my original occupation as a legal secretary where I earned about three times as much as a teacher.

I quite understand your confusion and exhaustion with the whole thing and have great sympathy for you. You sound like a conscientious teacher. I found that some teachers were much less conscientious when preparing for the material for the actual class sessions but were adept at doing all the admin stuff in a very perfunctory manner. If your students are happy with your teaching and they come regularly to class, you are doing a good job. I wouldn't worry too much about fulfilling all the bureaucratic stuff. Teachers are in short supply these days and there are unlikely to be repercussions. (In any event, your manager sounds pretty useless).

Maybe you should put in writing that the instructions you have been given are unclear and that the constant badgering and fault-finding is affecting your health and ability to sleep.

What utter nonsense. Sounds like paper work for the sake of paper work & nobody really knows how to do it right. Have you thought of private tutoring? A lot of teachers I know are doing. Also, look at the civil service vacancies, I’m sure there’d be something there for you with less hassle! There’s a useful fb page called Life after teaching-exit the classroom & thrive.

I've nothing to add you're doing an amazing job but place marking as curious of how it turned out. Good luck 👍

Hi all, didn't mean to abandon ship here just had a busy weekend.

I had a meeting with work today. I feel so burnt out with it all still! They said they accept some blame and that my manager is 'on it' now trying to sort it all out so that hopefully the students can still pass
But that I was meant to start teaching a different course for the same company next month and they don't think that's a good idea now as I'll need to have some more time to train in these forms and other things that may have been missed.

To be fair, I agree and also, I don't want to work for them any more! So that's fine-I am just having a read through all the posts I've missed now.

There's a good thread at the moment something such as 'if you earn roughly £50K and WFH what do you do' but I've been lurking on it and can't cite anything that I'd be feasibly able to do without a lot of retraining.

Well I am a qualified therapist and have an M.A in a different subject and a teaching qualification albeit not QTS level. And I cannot AT ALL decide what I should do.

I earn well in terms of my daily rate but with all the work I have to do, I am not earning a lot at all and I can't work fulltime because of all the extra work I have to do for the days I do work I couldn't teach every day because of this.

@AnitaDeepali I have never even thought about that. 'One of those companies' is this a common thing, then?

Yes, I do so much work for them. No nothing was mentioned about the hours of work I'd have to put in although I'd not have had to pull the all nighters had I not got so stressed with having this situation dumped on me
The work the students have to do, and I have a lot of them, some of them just aren't doing it and I can't force it upon them-that's another thing I find so stressful.

@jrc1071 definitely don't want to stay. I want out of freelance F.E for definite although I would do it on an employed basis.

@maryanne3 do you think? I do feel quite guilty about it all really-especially as my manager is such a nice person, very personable and lovely to talk to generally. I can't feel any malice toward him-I dont know the one who actually pointed this situation out to me very well, not the same person.

@LeefsPrings that sounds about right

@Hugosauras they basically have to fill in forms to detail how they've hit criteria. in a lot of detail and then they have to fill in a sort of 'reference form' to point to where on the first form they've done this. They also have to detail more than one place they've hit criteria on different parts of the course, I am not explaining this very well! But they're long, involved forms. Prior to my learning about this situation, I had one form per student for the whole course (these ones I DID know about) and I'd fill in where students had hit criteria-that made sense to me, it was my job so I might put something like;

'Joe demonstrated in our class discussion that he fully understands about the implications of XYZ' or 'Sarah was observed in practice today showing XYZ which fits criteria 7.6'

That made sense-I'm their tutor, I put in where on the course the student had met what was required.

Had no idea about the rest of it.

Yes @HonoriaLucastaDelagardie -wish I'd have read your post before typing the above! Basically your first sentence is what they're to do.

I so want out of this 'career path'!

@Ponderingwindow yes, I do love actual teaching itself! But they can't pass their course until these forms are done correctly :(

@Grandmanetty yes it really is a thankless task! I think I'll head toward a nervous breakdown too if this sort of thing continues-I am so sorry that happened to you, but I am not the least bit surprised.

What do you do now please(obviously don't answer that if you're uncomfortable!)?

I do feel useless-that's the worst thing about it, despite being as conscientious as I could be.

@IHeartKingThistle thank you-and others, It's so good to hear from those who've been there.
My students all did a survey recently and not one of them had anything but nice things to say about me! So that's nice-but also makes me feel more guilty for them not knowing all of this at the beginning.

@Kurokurosuke no It's not them! Not too dissimilar.

@Tryingmybestadhd well if so, It's bloody worked!

@YDBear honestly-I am not an unintelligent person but I am struggling to get my head around it!

My students are fantastic.

@DriftingDora that all sounds so familiar-I had no idea when I came to freelance teaching just how bad it actually was!

@JaneMac1 sorry the 'this sounds like bollocks' did make me smile. I do feel so much like doing that! I was hoping to get into HE-is that any better?

Thanks @ellyeth for detailing your experience too-that sounds like a nightmare!

I am not even bothered if my manager shouts at me at this stage. I just dont' have anything left in me where this course is concerned.

I am looking for jobs tonight. I haven't touched any of this paperwork. It may sound daft but I just can't face it today.

I was lucky enough to be able to take early retirement. I know not everyone can do this but you need to think of some way you can change your employer before they bring you down.

I am definitely going to do that. I still haven't looked at any of it. I simply cannot be bothered. And that is not like me at all. maybe tomorrow I'll get back to it-I keep seeing the faces of the students and feeling like such a.. I don't know, like I've misled them or something.

This is definitely not an industry I want to continue to be part of.

OP, I feel strongly about this, so I'm going shout my comment...IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! Please, please don't think this is your fault or that you are letting your students down. It honestly isn't you, it is the crappy, not fit for purpose system that's at fault, where form-filling takes precedence over actual learning and those in charge have about as much idea as a bunch of chimpanzees. Of course they want to pass the blame for anything that goes wrong on to tutors, that way they try to mask their own incompetence. They are managers for Gawd's sake, heaven forbid they should sort the mess out - no, they just sit on their hands.

You sound like a really conscientious, caring and approachable tutor - a real professional. Easy for someone else to say I know, but you mustn't allow this to knock your confidence. You sound thoroughly competent. You have been treated badly - and that reflects on your manager(s), not on you.

This is exactly why good conscientious folk like yourself op are leaving in droves!
It is paper work for paper work's sake! Obviously gives the middle managers something to do! And because it's public sector the tech is never up to the amount of form filling required.

Plus all common sense has gone out of safe-guarding and anti-terrorist training! Don't get me wrong, I am supportive of both of those things, but honestly, when a group of elderly ladies learning about lichens and mosses in their local village hall have to fill in forms asking them if they have been indoctrinated by potential terrorists, they are justified in thinking that the world has gone a bit bonkers!

Thank you so much again.

I have a meeting tomorrow evening with my manager and I teach the students the following day. He's going to come in to my classroom on Friday to help me help them sort it all out. I am nervous, and cannot wait for Friday to be over already-and I am looking HARD for another job! I just don't know where to begin but I want out of this altogether now. Onwards and upwards as they say-the course finishes in a few weeks. Cannot wait!