To have told my leturer that it is wrong that they're grooming us to say good things about university when OFSTED come??

[MrsRBrand]

I was in a professional studies lecture this morning (Primary school teaching degree).

The lesson was allocated to learning about assessment methods.

The lights were dimmed and a power point delivered for the duration of the lesson. Saying that the teaching course are due to get an ofsted visit imminently and in the event of ofsted wanting to talk to us (students) we are encouraged to only say positive things. And will be invited to a prior meeting to be told what to say.

When I said that I think it is wrong that we are being groomed to say positive things the lecturer said 'if you were working for a school you would be loyal to that school'. I said that as an employee of the school, of course I would but I am a paying customer at this university and I want to be free to tell the truth'

(As well as being an interesting course, uni has lost a lot of our work from the first year, they put us on placements in schools where some mentors are trained to mentor us and some are not, creating disparity between peoples placement grades.)

I said that 'you wouldn't prep children to behave well and then imply that they wont do as well in their grades if they do not'.

AIBU to have said something, (no-one else did) but lots came up to me afterwards to say they agreed with what I said?

I think perhaps some posters are missing the point- you will devalue your own degree and own institution if you say bad things on the NSS or OFSTED, it's the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Student satisfaction is fed into university rankings- so if you and a few others really complain, you risk pushing your own university/dep't down the rankings which are then used to judge your own degree.

So, being honest there doesn't benefit the students at all.

Complaining or just raising issues through institutional mechanisms is much better.

You are not a paying customer. They ALLOWED you in, they did not have to offer you a place on their degree course. I can almost guarantee you they are already regretting letting you on the course. Certainly you ought to be loyal to your department and university, after all you are satisfied there are you not? Otherwise presumably you would take your bits of cash somewhere else. So you are happy with your education so say so. Many students at university now are simply not bright enough to be there and lecturers and heads of department have had to lower their expectations and let in all sorts of dimwits who frankly ought to be on some manual work training course. It is desperate to work with students who think lecturers are working for them. Good luck when you ask for that reference down the line, presumably you will want them to say nice things about you, get it?

they put us on placements in schools where some mentors are trained to mentor us and some are not. Where have you got the idea that some teachers are specifically trained to be mentors, OP? I can assure you we're not! Usually, we're just told a few days before a trainee arrives. It is not your university's fault as so few schools offer placements now due to the fact teachers don't get 'extra frees', extra pay and the fear of handing over your classes to a trainee in a current climate that loses people's jobs on one observation, is just so prevalent at the moment. YABU if this is one of your complaints and a little naive to be honest.

Mumsy - are you saying students should cover up poor performance in order to personally benefit from a false high rating?

And monkeynuts - why should students be loyal unless it's merited?

I don't think we should be advocating these behaviours - they are what is wrong and corrupt about so many large organisations.

A primary teaching degree, eh????

Mwah-ha-ha!

My PGCE was rather shit TBH. If I could have dobbed the feckers into OFSTED, I would have done. Trouble is, my course had been rated "outstanding".

Welcome to the smoke-and-mirrors world of education!

Mumsy - are you saying students should cover up poor performance in order to personally benefit from a false high rating?- no, I'm saying there are really effective internal complaints procedures for poor performance which actually work in the timespan you are at the university, why not use those rather than shoot yourself in the foot complaining to an organization such as the NSS after you leave where no change is going to occur as a result and where your own degree is somewhat devalued if your university is dropped down the rankings?

I would never interfere anyway, nor put up a powerpoint, so this is immaterial. I always encourage my students to fill in the NSS but not what to say. But it's silly not to think about the consequences of your actions and in the case of external bodies, complaining through them has direct consequences that are not of benefit for students.

I agree the system is corrupt and should be changed, but that's not the current dilemma of the OP, is it?

Blissx, spot on. Plus the fact that some trainees have completely unrealistic expectations. Hand over my A2 class to you completely, I don't think so!

IME trainees are rated much more accurately by teachers still teaching. I've been in lessons given a 1 by the tutor where one child was on his phone and another two were off task throughout the lesson.

I am explaining the nature of the current system, not defending it.

"Where have you got the idea that some teachers are specifically trained to be mentors, OP?"

Our local University runs mentor training sessions prior to each new batch of students starting their placement. I went on one last year and it was invaluable.

Boney it is not emotional blackmail to point out that if a department closes (as has been explained only outstanding providers get allocations) people lose their jobs. Yes lecturers but also administrators, technicians and support staff. Alternative employment is hard to find in many of their fieldsat the moment. I pointed this out as frankly the OP sounds quite immature and uninformed. Perhaps knowing this she won't risk harming others like this the vast majority of whom have no responsibility at all for her quibbles.

Confused about the argument on here that university students aren't paying customers. Doesn't paying course fees make students paying customers?

I think that lecturers do deserve respect from their students.

Surely the default position is that everyone you interact with deserves respect, until they have given you some reason not to respect them?

But maybe this is where I've been going wrong all my life.

I'm in a different field, but we're going through an external audit at the moment, and I am answering honestly the questions asked, but only those asked. So they know that for one area, we don't keep records long enough, but there's another area they haven't yet asked about, and that will be a fail if they do. So I'd go along with not volunteering anything, but just answering on what is asked.

Hmm, Ofsted. The DS' school was inspected just before half term and the report came in on Friday. The write up has a lot of 'pupil voice' in it. I wonder if the guidelines have changed to focus on this more.

I think that the danger with students being paying customers, (which of course they technically are), is that it can foster a feeling of entitlement, whereby some can sit back with a kind of "entertain me" attitude. In some instances they can lose sight of their own responsibility to learn and look to the university to do it all for them. Which is just not how further education should work.

100% agree, clam. With regards to your mentor training, I am jealous! It is, however, not the norm and I don't feel that the OP has a justified complaint on this issue. After all, it is not the university's fault. If they did put on training and had the extra funding to do so, not every school would release their staff for it. Therefore, if that was the OP's only other complaint to lost work, then I don't see why OFSTED would want to know about it. If there was an issue of lost work, then I would hope that the OP and her other trainees would have gone rough the proper channels and by now, would be sorted anyway. Mountain out of a molehill springs to mind...

Actually, I think lack of mentor training is a valid complaint and although not only the responsibility of the university, don't the university and schools refer to themselves as a 'training partnership' i.e. for the purposes of training, the school is seen as an extension of the university it terms of responsibilities etc.

When academics supervise postgrads, they are usually expected to have done some training before they are allowed to the principal supervisors of MRes or PhD students. This usually involves completing the relevant PGCHE modules and having been a second supervisor for a student who successfully completes before you can take on a student as the first supervisor. I think it is not unreasonable to expect similar systems to be in place for trainee teachers.

I work for one of the places offering PCGEs, but I am not directly involved with teaching (but with the OFSTED-mania) Our mentors are (mostly) trained - we expect them to complete an in-house (certified) PPD training course. And wewe still have schools withdrawing long-standing trainee placements all the time too. There is just too much pressure in the system as a whole.

MagratGarlik, no, it is not a valid complaint to single out this university for something that is has no control over and the majority of other institutions don't offer. It is all political. Gove does not want any university to offer Initial Teacher Training; only schools to. Therefore, universities have had their funding slashed and schools have pulled out of offering placements due to the extra stress Gove and Wilshaw have placed on them. My point is, that OFSTED is not the place to complain about such a thing, especially as the university is not specifically at fault.

"don't the university and schools refer to themselves as a 'training partnership' i.e. for the purposes of training, the school is seen as an extension of the university it terms of responsibilities etc."

In an ideal world, yes. But the reality is that some schools are reluctant to take on students, and the allocated teacher-mentors might feel they have one "foisted" on them. I've heard of students feeling very unwelcome and unsupported in school, which is a huge shame for them. Equally, schools have had bad experiences.

I should have been clearer, I didn't necessarily mean complaining to Ofsted about it, but I mean it is a valid complaint about the course in general. Complaints about school mentors being inadequately trained have been around for as long as teacher training has been around and I don't see why this should still be the case.

Ah, of course, MagratGarlik, but then this thread was about complaining to OFSTED, hence my post. To be honest, I could complain about a million and one things about education as it currently stands!

The problem with complaining only to OFSTED is that the OP won't get the change she needs to make her course better while she's studying on it. That's also the problem with students complaining via the NSS. It's an exit survey, and so if there's something going wrong, it doesn't get fixed for those students.

So saving up your complaints to try to punish the university - which is what the OP is doing - is shooting yourself in the foot. Far better to try to get the problems dealt with at the time they occur

The question is...if the uni is crap and they are not doing the right thing then why have you waited until the OFSTED to raise the issue. This is one thing when teaching that you would get your hands slapped for. You would not wait until parents evening to tell a parent there was a problem with their child's learning you would approach them as soon as it became apparent. You would not wait until you appraisal to say that all year the person who you are senior to is not doing their job etc. Likewise, why wait until OFSTED is here. If you are not happy with the uni then do something now. If you think there is no basis to complain now then there isn't anything to whinge to OFSTED about when they come in.

LogonMounstuart

So saying to someone that if they complain you will lose your job.
In fact everyone will lose their jobs and that your partner and kids will lose their security, their home and its all because that person complained. Saying that its their fault for complaining isn't emotional blackmail?

If you where in a relationship with someone like that that it would be domestic abuse.

I think the OP made it fairly clear that the main thing she was annoyed about was the university's attempts to coerce its students in what to say to Ofsted.

She has some niggles about the course but I don't get the feeling these are a big issue for her. She's just annoyed at what she feels is the university's attempt to cover up anything negative.