to ask WHY in the name of Gove are teachers striking again?

[loftyclopflop]

DD's school is closing on 1st October because they have chosen to strike. Is it over pay, pensions and conditions? Did they achieve anything by striking a couple of years ago other than massively inconveniencing a lot of parents?

I know Gove is a twat but do they really expect to change anything by taking the day off?

I'm a Special School Governor and I support the strike action. DD1's HT is in school if I phone at 7.30am to say she's too ill to come in. She's still in school when the Governing body meeting finishes at 9pm. She's in school long after school finishes most nights. At DD1's school, break times and lunchtimes are all part of the Standard Teaching Time Week. Every minute is 'contact time' because the children need support in how to play, how to eat, how to 'be'. The teachers get 30 minutes to wolf down their lunch and during that time they fill in the home-school books for parents.

At DD2's school, a mainstream primary, the Head Teacher runs 1 after school club and 2 lunch time clubs per week, as does the Deputy and many other members of staff. The teaching assistants are so over burdened with work that they can't help other teaching assistants who need support.

I went on a school trip last week and was in awe of the teachers who give their very best at all times.

The new pay policy is just undermining teachers. Teachers feel devalued and depressed with the focus that is being put on numbers to the detriment of the children behind them.

No, she said she wished she were a teacher because hosting a 2 hour party was so super fun. Teachers just get to do that every day and for longer, right?

Feenie, it might not be about why teachers are striking but it does help explain why some people don't support the strikes. Because teaching kids is just playing all day, so why are they complaining?

Secondary teachers don't tend to get the same sort of comments, btw, people tend to go pale and say they couldn't do it

It does inasmuch as teachers are, for the main part, working in very stressful environments, trying to keep up with increasing unnecessary and impossible demands, and now being told that their pay can be cut if the head decides it should be. Or if the children get lower marks than last year's children. Or if the LEA slashes a school's budget. And that the pension they bought into no longer exists.

It's just a bit of context.

Starlight, you've often appeared to be suspicious and dismissive of MS education and teachers in particular over your years of posting , so I can't take your wish to be a teacher as serious unless you intend to set up your own free school.
It's like trying to believe that the head of Liberty wants to join UKIP, or that Ephraim Mirvis is converting to Islam.

Marking cafes??? Once a week? That would be fun! Also about 30 hours long.... I can just imagine explaining to little Fred's mum that I only marked his work once a week!! I'm expected to find his coat everyday. We do allow the pupils to self/peer mark obviously but that has to be checked over too. I come from an admin based background with a high level of paperwork but that was when I wasn't teaching 30 kids a day as well as doing it.

Teacherandguideleader I really don't think that PRP is going to be based on A*- C rates . As I said up thread we are putting together our new pay policy and although it is linked to results - it is not exclusively so. If PRP is out into place sensitively and with common sense - I have no real issue with it.

I was also criticized by OFSTED for providing too much help to my low ability set, too be honest I thought they were right and did not assume she must be wrong because she is from OFSTED. In our school the children least likely to hit their targets are those on the SEN register at a SA+ level, perhaps that is because we do too much for them so that when they finally need to work independently in the exam - they can't do it.

I love my job BUT not the fact that I see my own children for 2 hours a day during term time.

Sadly that I the reality for many working parents . As you say that is only for term time, we have all the holidays for our children, most working parents would dream of that. I became a teacher to spend less time at work and more time with my children and an ability to work flexibly - that is what I got

I hope you asked the Ofsted inspector for tips on how to successfully get SEN children working independently, Aris, because I would love to know.

No she did fail there , but that does not mean that her original criticism was not right - even if she didn't have a clue how to do any better.

We have a marking party roughly once a week at my school! We are so rock and roll.

Sometimes it is in school and we stay late and order takeout and wine or we host at each others houses. My husband dreads the sight of a load of teachers at the door with their M and S bags for life crammed with bags.

Obviously thobbly we don't mark everything and at a secondary level it is quite acceptable to mark once a week or fortnight.

"teachers moan about it because they have had no training or experience of admin completion in a competitive environment."

No experience of admin??? Teachers start their "other" job of pure unadulterated admin, the one that the so-called "real world" have all day to complete, at 3.30 when the kids go home. We have plenty of experience of it, thank you very much.

I think if you have only had one job for your whole life it must be very difficult to make a realistic comparison with the demands of other jobs. Lots of teachers have only been teachers, although having said that lots of people in a profession have only been part of that profession.

You're right Arisbottle.
I think the problem with teaching is because nearly everyone has been thought the eduction process as a pupil they think they know what it is like to be a teacher when, of course, it is a completely different thing.

Whereas "everyone" knows what it's like to be a teacher because they all went to school once upon a time.

Oops. x post!

I think we all do know a little bit about teaching as a career, although my pupils know much more about my career than the parents because teaching has changed so much.

At the end of the day there must be more positives than negatives to teaching because we keep turning up for work ( although I have seen a statistic on here about 1/2 leaving in the first few years - which always seems quite high to me) . I just would not keep doing a job that made me miserable , knackered and permanently stressed.

But equally a lot of teachers assume that they have a harder lot than other jobs when in fact it's pretty much the same everywhere.
They just don't realise that they are not unique.

I agree outtolunch, I would not be a teacher if it was significant, harder than other professions . I am fundamentally quite lazy and driven by a desire to work as little as possible - I would not last very long of teaching was the toughest job in the world.

My job now is incredibly busy and stressful and it's payment by results.
I earn a bit over half of what I earned when I left teaching
Currently that's just a bit less than an NQT earns.
Would I go back? Not the way teaching
is now.

And to clarify that's not because teaching is hard work but because so many teachers are treated with contempt and because of the public perception that teachers are lazy, and anyone can teach.

Sooty, I remember you on TES in days of yore and yiu always came across as a dedicated, hardworking teacher. I think it's a sad reflection on the way the profession is treated that you wouldn't want to go back now.

Parker Thank you so much. That's made my day.
I still use my teaching skills in my varied role nowadays and I love my job. As a HOD of a core subject in a large secondary school I'd earn a lot more than I do now, have a nominally shorter day (ha ha) and less travelling and more holidays.
No way would any of that tempt me back

I like being valued (and told I am) , treated like an adult and waking up feeling happy to be going to work every day.

No problem Sooty, it's the truth. I remember how helpful you ElaineC and LilyofTheField were to me under another name.

Slightly off thread but I think another reason parents resent teachers striking is because in many schools there are mediocre or bad teachers (I guess, just like any other profession)

I work with some adequate teachers, some outstanding and unfortunately two who do a job that is just about passable. Those who do a passable job are being supported by SMT to achieve these levels which to me, begs the question of whether they should be teaching but they don't fit the criteria for capability because they are doing the job, but without the passion and commitment.

outtolunchagain please point me to the post/thread where a teacher has ever assumed their job is harder than other people's. What I have seen, and consistently in 35 years of teaching is teachers defending themselves against accusations of being 9-3.30./12 weeks holidays/gold-plated pensioner/ snow day shystering whingers.

aris we all don't know about teaching as a career. Only teachers know about it.

Thumbs up to ilovesooty who I remember well from the TES too, though I posted under a different name.