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?

Our departments all have marking codes. Each teacher is equipped with stamps and stickers that say the kinds of things that teachers write over and over again. ( PTA pay for those - but that relies on a supportive PTA I guess and one that can donate ).

We use INSET and staff meeting time for marking after big exams mindful of colleagues in departments like RE and History that have huge exams to mark.

We are currently looking at what we can do about homework and the marking that creates.

Importantly because our teachers are not doing other things they have more time for marking. I think it is important enough to take a significant proportion of my time

Not answering the question, Arisbottle. Marking done to SMT satisfaction would take 3 hours a day, every day. I have used stamps before and they don't speed things up, tbh, as well as making the marking less personal. We have marking codes. Significant amount of time, yes, 3 hours a day, every day, really?

I don't think three hours a day after the school day has finished is excessive- if you are not having to do lots of other things.

But then you have to plan your lessons too, surely?

Cardibach, is your three hours a day making a difference to the teaching and learning in your classroom?
If not, why not?
Can you come up with alternatives that would be better use of your time, reduce your worklaod, and then be proactive in suggesting them to SMT?

Not if each department has detailed, differentiated schemes of work with resources ready. That means teachers have to only tweak and not plan from scratch every night.

ANy suggestion to SMT tends to result in either a) a witch hunt to teach you for criticising; or b) a significant worsening of conditions for everyone. Honestly, it's impossible. You don't think 3 hours every day including weekends is too much Arisbottle? I thought you didn't work at weekends and thought it unnecessary? That would mean an extra hour every week day then, wouldn't it? Plus, as giraffe says, planning. I think good planning has a much larger effect on outcomes in my classroom than the kind of marking I do, I'm afraid. And even if it didn't, poor planning could not take account of what I discover while marking...

I misunderstood, I thought you were talking about week nights. I am so averse to working weekends that it didn't enter my head to consider them.

I agree planning is important which is why I don't think it should be done by isolated teachers in their home late in the evening - but during dedicated time by teams of teachers.

How does that work, though? How does it take less time done in a team? Genuine question. Still the same number of books and people - what changes?
I don't do 3 hours by the way. I just get criticised repeatedly in book monitoring about pointless stuff like not having completely remarked for spelling and grammar something that was peer marked for content then redrafted, and I marked the final draft for spelling and grammar.

I meant planning lessons, we have a partner secondary school and we meet with them to plan lessons or we might plan one scheme of work and they will plan another.

That does not mean that teachers do not have to tweak in light of marking or change an emphasis , but the majority of the work is done.

Although we mark exams in a team in some subjects as it can be quicker. Teachers marking different sections, although not all of our departments like that because they want to read all of their student's work.

I've done the exam marking thing - doesn't reduce the amount of marking, though I agree it can make it quicker as you get used to the demands of the question. There has to be a way to make it all easier as well as effective, but I've no idea what it is.
ANyway, this is not the point of the thread, and several people have said what I think on that very eloquently already.

We also use stickers for target setting for an assessed piece of work. You can almost predict when marking a piece of work the things a student will need to do to improve their work. So for each assessment there will be stickers with about five different suggested improvements on. Rather than writing out 30 times , this would be even better if you supported your claims with evidence- I simply put on a sticker.

Trying to figure this one. Three hours per day would take a 3.30 finish to 6.30. Then there are staff meetings. When does the teacher phone/email parents? Do they run after-school clubs/detentions/revision sessions?
God help us do they actually see a pupil after class?

The exam marking things is also a good moderation tool as it levels out the marking of the department .

Most staff would continue working at home. They might be running a club, meeting parents etc straight after school - but this would not be every night. I suspect most Teachwrs work at least an hour of not two hours at home every evening. if they don't have to work weekends or holidays this is not too bad.

I do most of my marking either before the school day or at home. Admittedly I have less marking than most.

I am at my desk for 7am, many staff are not far behind me. of course there are some that arrive at 8:30 and leave at 3:30

Aris, I really couldn't work effectively from a detailed scheme of work written by someone else. I sometimes teach parallel classes and even then I can't teach them the same lessons. I also find that I can't plan the next lesson effectively until I have taught the previous one, as I know where the class has got up to.
Sometimes I throw the lesson plan out of the window in the middle of a lesson when it is clear the class need more work. You'll find me in the lesson flicking through the textbook trying to find appropriate questions for what the class need right now.

My ideal scheme of work is one that says 'teach simultaneous equations. See chapter 16 & associated worksheets'
My nightmare scheme of work would be one that gave a lesson by lesson breakdown of simultaneous equations, complete with starters and suggested activities. I probably wouldn't follow them, and then worry about getting into trouble for not following them.

Even when I plan in advance for myself, knowing my classes, when it actually gets to the lesson day, I find myself binning the worksheets that I'd so carefully photocopied the week before and doing something else.

It just doesn't work for me.

We get round the exam marking drag by having teachers mark other teachers' pupils' work. You go much faster as you're not bogged down in thinking about the individual/worrying about how they're going to feel about their results. More objective.

REmember, though, that the 8.30 -3.30ers may be doing as many hours as you (or more). Just because they are at home does not mean they are on the sofa swigging gin! I hate presenteism.

If teachers are going to work fewer hours they may have to change the way they work. I know for us the schemes of work was a difficult change for quite a few teachers. But if you are not going to make a change your hours will not change. Fine if you are happy to carry on, I do not want to work the hours that most MN teachers do and I would feel unethical asking others to.

I think the expectations placed pn teachers with regard to marking in this country are simply insane. I grew up in Germany and the only thongs that were marked were tests and exams, no homework or classwork ever. It was simply expected that pupils took responsibility for checking their work when it was discussed on class.

I totally agree cardi, one day a week I don't get into school until 8:15 so we can have a family breakfast. Another day a week I leave before 4pm. It is something we encourage all our staff to do. If we had any member of staff who was in school from 7am until 6pm every day they would be flagged up by our workload reps. Of course teachers could just be continuing to work at home and there is little you can do about that.

cardibach I think we have established that just about every teacher in the UK is working more hours than me, I am certainly not holding myself up as the hardest working teacher that others should aspire to be. I want to work as few hours as possible without holding my pupils back.