To think that teaching is one of the most undervalued jobs in our society?

[toptramp]

I know you will all tell me off for starting a thread about a thread but tough.

Most people have something negative to say about teachers; the holidays are too long and paid and then we have training days but honestly; most people when I tell them that I am a teacher say; "Oh I couldn't do that with all those teenagers" . Well stop bloody moaning then!

And also I have never once heard anyone say "thank you so much for educating and looking after our kids and providing them with a future." Rant over. Lack of parental support is one reason why the education system in this country needs help.

I actually do not want to be a member if the profession who is the most likely to die or the most likely to be conned into working too many hours for too little pay.

A link re my earlier post

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8860761/Schools-acting-as-surrogate-parents-says-Ofsted-chief.html

I think teachers would be more highly valued if they shared more often the positive aspecs of their professions. At a school event last term the Head told us all again how her staff do extra curricular things in their spare time above and beyond the job, she then complained about funding and the requirements of Ofsted.

I would feel more positive if she had said "my staff are dedicated and fantastic and we are all here to support your children. We have many challenges at present and we are doing our best to step up to them by doing x, y and z."

The problem I find is that all I hear is complaint and carping and this make me feel negative about the environment my child may be in. (Adds transferred child to independent sector in September because of lack of behaviour management and feeling that the staff were not being supported by the management team whose ethos in relation to excellence and a moral code was out of step with mine).

On many occasions I have written a card to a teacher who has particularly helped one of our children. I have also written a letter of complaint where I think it is required and have been disappointed always that the response is too often defensive rather than reflective.

Many schools I feel need to improve communication and step back and realise how they are perceived due to the messages they convey. Often these messages make me feel the teachers think they are doing me a favour and that they resent it deeply. I would never contemplate complaining to my stakeholders about my working conditions or the lack of appreciation from them because it would be unprofessional. At the same time, I think many teachers do not appreciate that many parents work full-time, often 50 hours or more a week doing deeply unpleasant jobs (traffic wardens, a&e nurses, sewerage, cleaning, etc) in deeply unpleasant conditions for much less generous terms and conditions of employment and the constant complaining begins to stick in people's craw; especially when schools may be jogging along at satisfactory.

Perhaps they'd be more likely to do this if they weren't constantly having to defend themselves?

"I think teachers would be more highly valued if they shared more often the positive aspecs of their professions."

agree with marriedinwhite

I love my job, it's the hardest, more tiring thing I've ever done (I started at 38 so plenty of other experience!) but it's also the most rewarding and absorbing - i'm NEVER bored -looks down at 55 year 9 assessments waiting to be marked after faffing around on mn and reconsidered- but I do think I know the basis for the 'undervalued' feeling, which is, I feel, endemic in teaching..

... it stems from government/slg it/themselves! As a teacher I am regularly thanked by students, parents and my own HOD and head. The ONLY contact we get from 'on high', however, is speeches/bills etc telling us what a bad job we're doing. Usually from a NEW education secretary trying to make a name for themselves by changing EVERYTHING and deriding all that has come before him/her. Why they can't just take a look and accept that actually students are taught a million times better than they were even 15 years ago and that the reason the DM etc. get themselves into a delicious apoplexy over the new so-easy-a-mouse-could-pass-them exam results each year is because of BETTER TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT is beyond me.

But it's the way it is so I've taken a professional decision to ignore the lot of 'em (easy to do - have you HEARD Gove's voice?!) and just do the very best that I can do for my students. It's a a brilliant job, I love it... i'm about to give up 4 evenings and my weekend (unpaid) to visit the graves of WW1 soliders in France and Belgium and I know that the experience will be so much richer for the 60 or so 13 year olds whose company I will have than if I were to go on my own. Just as I give up every week night and weekend of term time in exchange for the lovely holidays (without which I couldn't do my job).

For anyone who's interested in teaching I say do it! You'll love it! :)

Marriedinwhite I completely agree with everything you say...

EXCEPT for 'jogging along at satisfactory'. This idea of 'satisfactory' is a HUGE topic and very, very complicated especially now that ofsted have changed their criteria so much. But you should know that I work in a school that attains 89% A*-C but is STILL 'satisfactory' and will be for a long time because of the imo somewhat inflated levels that students come to us with in year 7... and it certainly means that we are NOT 'jogging along' - in fact the pressure is ENORMOUS as, if you stop to think about it, I'm sure you can imagine, because to be 'satisfactory' (in other words doing a good job!) is to be 'bad' in this 'industry' (and thus we've neatly returned to my original argument about our 'lack of worth' feelings coming from 'on high' inside the system rather than from parents or the general public!)

Knitknack - I take your point and believe it is high time that the Ofsted categories were changed. I have recently moved a child from an "outstanding" school (it was NOT outstanding in my opinion). Satisfactory, ie, grade 3 is I believe a very misleading term. How would you feel if the grades were more like:

1 Outstanding (A*)
2 Excellent (A)
3 Very Good (B)
4 Good (C)
5 Fair (D)
6 Poor (E)
7 Unsatisfactory (U) Special Measures

Professionally I find Grade 3 difficult when applied to teaching observations because you cannot start capability when someone's performance in the classroom is not good enough and not in line with the norm for the school but is at the same time deemed to be "satisfactory". The categories at present are far too broad and do not appropriately acknowledge the efforts of teachers at the top of gr 2 and gr 3 observations.

.... AND you don't really understand what it is that is expected of you to GET an outstanding...

I love your grading ideas!

... it never ceases to amaze me that as a teacher i do EVERYTHING I can to ensure success for my students - I model answers/behaviour, I scaffold skill sets, I use AFL constantly, I provide success criteria, I encourage peer and self-assessment.... and NONE of this is applied to myself as a teacher in order to help me get better!

If I told you that at my last ofsted observation I got a 'good with outstanding features' but when I said 'great, how can I make sure that next time I teach it this lesson is outstanding' I was told that she didn't know - how does that make you feel? How would I be judged professionally if I told one of my A Level students that I didn't know how to make one of their essays better?

Who ofsted's ofsted?! (this is getting silly, this is exactly why I don't allow myself to get wound up by it all, I'm going to make a cup of tea!!)

Hear, hear OP!

knit knack do you not have peer observations and teaching and learning coaching sessions in your in-set days. If not, you need to speak to the HT about introducing them. You sound like a lovely teacher. All inspectors should be providing constructive feedback.

I value teachers. I've already thanked DS1's teacher and he's only just started school. But generally I think people only think about how important they are when their DC start school. And even then, lots don't. YANBU.

I had a friend who regularly used to bemoan her newly qualified teacher husband's abysmal salary. In the end, I asked how much he did earn. It turned out it was it was about the same in his first year as my dh earned after 20 years with the same firm working in a managerial post that required a degree and involved dangerous machinery. When we compared the hours those weren't really any longer for her dh either.

My friend had just got so used to being around teachers and hearing them bemoan the abysmal conditions that it didn't occur to her to ask what conditions might be like in other jobs.

I very much appreciate the work done by dcs' excellent teachers, but I've been around enough teachers (half my family being teachers) to know that their pay and hours are not that bad. Not wonderful, but not worse than for lots of other people with a similar level of responsibility.

I'm a teacher and I feel valued by the parents of my students. They thank me at parent's evening, and often on the playground after school. They thank me at the end of the year. They just bought me a lovely orchid for my birthday.

I'm very lucky.

Mind you, I have had the odd parents' evening swearer too. Its swings and roundabouts ime....