Schools to be judged on their extra-curricular activities. Get in the bin, Bridget.

[noblegiraffe]

"The Department for Education will publish a new set of enrichment benchmarks for schools across five categories: civic engagement, arts and culture, nature, outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activities and developing wider life skills.
Ofsted will consider whether schools are meeting the expectations as part of its inspections, with information made available to parents through new school profiles, the Department for Education added."

This is nothing to do with the curriculum review that has just come out.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/another-expectation-schools-to-be-judged-on-enrichment-benchmarks/

Fuck off. Extra-curricular activities are put on by teachers for free and in our own time. They cannot be an expectation when they are voluntary and unpaid. Should we publish a league table of how MPs meet benchmarks of volunteering and charity work on a weekend and in their holidays?

And if you are cutting school funding (schools are going to be told they have to fund future teacher pay rises out of their budgets by making 'efficiency savings' like there are any possible savings left to be made after the Tories cut everything), then you cannot demand that we do more.

Phillipson is apparently also unhappy that some schools are closing before 3:30pm. Yes, because they can't afford to keep the lights on that long.

You want extra stuff, you have to pay for it.

Our local state schools basically do maths and english in the morning (including reading snd spelling), so 9:15 to 12:30. Them an hour lunch break, so its 13:30. 30 minutes teacher time at the end, leaves a maximum of 5 hours for PE, history, geography, music, drama, science…. not exactly loads! 1 hour is for PE, leaves 4 hours for everything else.

I know that I was a teacher for over 20 years. Never left until 6pm.

If she really saw the value of these why wouldn't she ensure they were part of the curriculum especially at primary. Children should be learning through play a lot more whether that's sport, the arts or just having time and space to develop interests.

When I taught in primary, a few years back now, Friday afternoon was free time, lots of arts, crafts, board games, outdoor play, messy play - this included all years, the children loved and benefitted so much from it.

If she really saw the value of these why wouldn't she ensure they were part of the curriculum especially at primary. Children should be learning through play a lot more whether that's sport, the arts or just having time and space to develop interests.

When I taught in primary, a few years back now, Friday afternoon was free time, lots of arts, crafts, board games, outdoor play, messy play - this included all years, the children loved and benefitted so much from it.

Your husband is either fake or a terrible head

Oh MrsH you know the answer to that one.

True. Maybe I should set up creative writing club so she can improve the fairy tale.

Funnily enough I did an after school club today. People thinking that teachers are lazy workshy shirkers should acknowledge that a lot of teachers are doing this stuff, and other extras, because they want to. And we can stop if if we want to, because it's not actually our job.

Good points. Really messes things up worst for the remaining schools maintained by local authorities, I guess. Because of the directed time thing, they won’t have as much power to compell teachers to put on extra clubs on top of planning lesons, doing marking, etc. And academies can bring in untrained staff (scab labour?) and pay them less, whereas maintained schools still have to follow the old rules and hire only qualified teachers. They’ll fall further behind academies again and be made to look bad. Privatisation by stealth sounds about right…

Well I wouldn't be teaching at any school where I was expected to clean and do admin.

In previous years schools relied very heavily on teachers' goodwill for clubs and fundraising events. In my experience that goodwill went out the window when we started having stuff thrown at us and sworn at but told we still had to teach the children assigned to us. Then there's interference from abusive parents.

Should have known that this thread would bring all the fucking lunatics to the yard.

Sigh.

Do the kids now have to do the 13 plus as well? So 11 plus (KS2 SATS) and then English and Maths test in Year 8 and then GCSEs as well? At first glance I thought the curriculum review looked quite tame, but yet another bloody test? Most of mine had a blast in years 7, 8 and half way into Year 9 because there were not as many tests and that is where the curriculum as actually more “creative” as a result. Even if a lot of it was Sixth Form delivered enrichment clubs, still better than nothing.

Also whilst I agree with the fact that all kids should be offered triple science if they have the aptitude, it is bloody hard work for kids to learn that much content so how exactly is this maths and further maths and all science base creative? It is like full on programming of our kids for the tech generation with a bit of enrichment thrown in to cover up.
Who is going to be questioning the status quo with no humanities being valued properly?
And no modern languages or ancient ones. Is that just so they are all stuck here as good little workers for the future?

And is English language going to be write an email or a blog? Because DS (Year 7) already had to do similar for the 11 plus last year. No more stories. It was all write a convincing political letter or a blog to sell something.

Teacher Tapp today was asking 'do you run any lunchtime/after school clubs?' 'Do you get any payment for this?'.

Can't imagine what they're asking that for!

What did I do at lunch today?

Listened to a vulnerable child who needed someone to talk to about an upcoming test. She's not in my class.
Sat with a kid whilst he ate lunch because he needs supervising at all times. I don't teach him either.
Went to get my laptop fixed.
Went to the loo.
Ate a sandwich whilst working through the emails I got in the two lessons I'd been teaching since break.
Listened to a vulnerable child who needed to talk about her morning. I don't teach her.

No time for clubs.

Bridget Phillipson can get to fu*k!! 😡

🤦‍♀️

This sounds very familiar from Covid and lockdown days.

@echt,best to ignore that poster. They’re a wind-up merchant.