Myths about school

[imhumantoo]

This is one for education staff in particular.
What have you read or seen that is often stated on MN but is untrue in your experience.

Mine is “nothing much happens at the end of term, they just watch films”.
I’m a primary school teacher who is still very much teaching a full curriculum. It is business as usual, just like every other term. I’ll adapt when it’s hot in class because pupils (and myself) will struggle with the heat, but we’ll still be learning. I’m writing end of year reports, prepping for transition as my pupils move to the next year, updating and finalising any educational plans for SEND pupils…there is still loads to do paperwork wise as well.

Before I worked in education, I too thought the above. I now know things are different (the huge curriculum for one!) and my own school experience as a child does not reflect what currently happens in school.

Well that wasn’t aimed at me but I’m in Leicestershire. It’s the last week of our term, and we call it high school/secondary school interchangeably. State school.

That's because of the traditional factory holidays where everything shut down for a fortnight in July, isn't it? I was in Leicester in the '80s and was caught out by it. The first two days were like bank holidays used to be - nothing was open.

Yes, we still have our ‘Leicester fortnight’. It’s great because it means we get cheaper holidays in the first 2 weeks before everyone else breaks up!

Anyone who thinks teachers doss by putting on movies for kids has never actually tried to turn on a movie for a class of kids.

They have no interest in them at all!!
Its 90 minutes of sitting between them trying to keep them quiet 🙄

All the old building schools near me had a grey ladies, either hanging round the staircases, in the attics or on the corridor to the toilets

Of course because England is the centre of the educational universe.

I’m in Scotland, kids have been out of school for the past week, and yes we call it high school or secondary school.

Friends with kids at the same stage in England are seeing their kids start to wind down ahead of end of year, so I doubt it’s a Scottish thing.

@Jellycatspyjamas You beat me to it. It's always been high school in NE Scotland. Locally we have schools called XX Grammar or YY Academy which don't mean anything - it's just a different name for a high school.

Ours finished on Thursday but we get 2 weeks "tattie" holidays in October.

Even within England there are varying term dates and terms used for the various educational stages, I’m surprised the OP isn’t aware of this!

According to some on MN all state comprehensives (especially out of London) are basically holding pens for gangs of violent teenagers while teachers work actively to destroy their mental health.

The reality... most want to learn. Most teachers care. Many children get good grades at normal every day schools.

I don’t think teachers are “dossing”, but neither are the kids actively learning. It doesn’t bother me because, as someone else said, they’re important memories for kids to have and my DS given the choice would rather go in because he enjoys the more relaxed atmosphere and spending time with friends. It’s torture for my routine driven DD, but I have no guilt about keeping her home

I guess we could add that to the list of ‘myths about schools’! That all schools in the U.K. have the same term dates, and all use the same terms to describe them.

I can see then why some posters might think this is what’s happening in all schools. We’re most definitely not doing that. Two weeks left for us down south and it’s formal sit at desk lessons.

To be fair, the only place I get that view from is from the secondary school teachers on MN! Go on any thread about secondary education and there are plenty of teachers saying how poor the behaviour is, how the kids don’t want to learn, how they have to have 20 min lunch breaks as the behaviour is too poor for them to be unsupervised any longer. Most parents say that their child’s secondary school is fine!

I don’t think it’s happening in all schools, I couldn’t possibly have that knowledge. It’s not a myth though, as it certainly happens in some schools.

@BirdLandedonmyHeadabsolutely spot on. I live in a very ordinary town, ordinary houses and schools and jobs. No private or grammar schools. Yet loads of kids do very well at the ordinary comp and get into top unis including Oxbridge.

I guess it would be helpful if posters, and I include myself in this, posted which area roughly they are in to prevent any misunderstanding.

So, I’m down south of England, two weeks to go and still doing formal lessons. We do have the national curriculum in England and still need to teach it.

England (Midlands). One child finishes on Tuesday, the other two on Friday. Very little formal work being done.

I’m another teacher who taught in every single lesson. When asked for a ‘fun’ lesson, I would say ‘All my lessons are fun’ (ironically). So we do exist. Honestly the kids prefer it - years ago one student told me she’d seen the first 45 mins of Elf in the three previous lessons.

The days of the academy have changed things a lot. Every lesson is prescribed and everyone is doing the same. And the curriculum is so stuffed there’s no flex. Primary is a different thing I think.

Ha ha. True. Even when we’ve done live links with NASA or ESA for science, the children switch off quite quickly. They’re used to dopamine hits off screens when gaming and you’re not getting that on an educational live link.
PTA have done film nights afterschool as an easy fundraiser. Turns out it’s not that easy so they don’t do it anymore.

You should become a teacher. It sounds so much easier and you'll be paid more. Good luck!

As an early years TA I’m not for a second saying it’s not a tough job but you come across very dismissive of the role of the teacher!

Teacher in the West Country, 11-18 state secondary. Teaching 30 years.

1. I can take my child on holiday and they can ‘catch up’ after. No they can’t and no I won’t make them some extra work to take with them. If they miss the lessons, they will always have missed that learning - it’s REALLY hard for a child to catch up when the class has moved on.
2. Teachers ‘pick on’ specific children. Unlikely - when a teacher is seeing well over one hundred children a day, the only time they’ll be thinking about a specific child is when they are in front of them. Once a child has moved on to the next lesson, the teacher is thinking about 30 more children. When a teacher is marking, they’ll be thinking about that child’s understanding, but they’ll be doing this in the evening in their own time and with 29 other books to mark too. We really don’t have time to obsess!
3. Teachers were lazy when schools shut in the heatwave. Nope, my classroom is 70 years old and has had minimal maintenance in the last 25 years. I only have 6 opening windows and they only open 20 cm for health and safety. I’m on the third floor and under a flat roof. It was 33 degrees in my room before any children came into it in the morning. We really couldn’t keep the children safe. We’re now beginning to see the real consequences of two decades of chronic underfunding.
4. its a great job for working mums. No: zero flexibility. I missed all sports days, assemblies etc. My parents stepped up every single time.
5. Teenagers are rude and scary. No they’re not. The odd one can be but in the main they are friendly, funny, generous with their ideas and their hearts and, as long as you are a strong leader of the pack, they want to succeed and have you praise them. I wouldn’t swap my ‘school babies’.
6. Teaching unions don’t have the children’s best interests front and centre - they really really do. The unions want schools to be well equipped and maintained with excellent teachers in front of our country’s future. This means that pay and conditions need to attract top graduates who want to stay in teaching, not leave before they’ve had time to learn their craft. Working somewhere where you can’t go to the loo and, when you work out your actual hourly pay, you earn less than the cleaner you’ve had to employ because you simply have no time to look after yourself or your home after your 60+ hour week, just isn’t a sustainable model. Children deserve motivated, highly qualified teachers and well equipped, fit for purpose classrooms. That’s is what the unions campaign for. No one wants to strike, but when you haven’t been listened to for years, it’s the only option left.
7. Smart phones don’t do children any harm. Where to begin with that one…
8. Teachers take sickies. No way! If I’m off sick, I have to get up at 5am, replan all the lessons I’ve already planned (in my own time at home) but for an unknown non-specialist to teach and upload them on to the school system by 7am. I can’t tell you how hideous that is when you feel like death. I was signed off with a chest infection in the spring. Doctor’s note said a week; I actually took 2 days because I just couldn’t keep replanning lessons when I didn’t know what had actually been done the day before. Being off sick is simply too difficult if you can possibly drag yourself in.

I’ve really enjoyed the vast majority of my career in the 5 different schools I’ve taught in but, had I had to get into significant debt in order to qualify and then work in the current climate, I don’t think I’d be using my two degrees from Russell group universities to be a teacher. And that makes me really, really sad.

My kids loved it when we moved from Leicestershire to South Yorkshire, 2 weeks extra holiday at the start and then effectively 2 weeks at the end.

I guess another myth is that TAs like and respect teachers, understand that they did a lot of training and that, if it looks easy, it’s probably because they’re highly skilled. Oh and understand that teacher burn out is actually a thing.

I need a job at that school...

The biggest myth coming through on this thread is that learning has to be done at a desk with a pencil in your hand. That really isn't true, no matter what the age of the pupil.