AM I EXPECTING TOO MUCH FROM SECONDARY SCHOOL?

[cabbage67]

My eldest son is in year 8 at secondary school. The school seems to have an awful lot of supply teachers, who seem to just "babysit" rather than interact or teach. For instance his supply teacher for his French lesson didn't speak French. Is this the norm? He tells me that most supply teachers just tell the class to look through their books for the lesson.

Also his class was meant to have a science test today, but not enough pupils had revised so the teacher said he'd give them another week to revise. I don't agree with this and I would have made them take the test regardless. Is he soft or AIBU?

I'd love your comments as I don't have anything to compare it with or have much experience with secondary school

Thank you

But there needs to be more focus in schools. None of this "fidget spinners" or "phones out" business. No chatting and calling out. Kids are there to learn. They have 168hrs a week and only 30 of them are they asked to concentrate and work. It's preparation for the workplace more than anything else. Talking back and shouting out wouldn't fly when they get to work so why should it at school?

If only it were that easy, you are essentially talking about a complete paradigm shift. Not from schools or teachers but from children and parents.

You are ignoring inclusion and ECHPs, and you teachers are still having to fully differentiate on multiple levels across anything up to 30+ children.

Non of this is solved by taking the top 10 - 15% of the pupils.

I don't think there are many, if any schools that actively allow kids on their phones in lessons. A lot of schools have also banned fidget spinners.

No fidget spinners or phones is entirely mainstream.

Distractions like bottle flipping also not allowed in class.

I teach at a selective private school & have a desk drawer full of spinners, phones & random nonsense awaiting collection by parents every week.

Our kids obviously missed the memo about being more 'focused' than those pesky kids who failed the entrance exam & are 'working their way up' elsewhere.

I'm an experienced teacher with good discipline, so never allow fidget spinners, phones out, chatting, calling out or answering back BUT I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do in my first year of teaching. On my PGCE we were shown one video on how to control a class, which is woefully inadequate - it takes years to truly master good discipline

Ideally, a school would have mostly expensive experienced teachers and then there would be fewer discipline problems BUT schools cannot afford this, so they employ -all- mostly very inexperienced teachers, who cost almost half that of an experienced teacher, with the resulting poor discipline.

To make things worse, school are so strapped for cash, they are promoting very inexperienced teachers, because then they can pay their management less as well. So, this then means we have inexperienced staff managing schools who have never mastered the art of good discipline

(Caveat: I'm generalising, I know there are NQTs who are brilliant at discipline, and experienced teachers who aren't, but generally the above applies.)

Once again- massive generalizations about state schools. It's ridiculous.

just to clarify - cover supervisors are often HiLTAs, but equally often not but they are there to deliver work set by teachers, trained or otherwise.

It is worth baring in mind that within the academy chains, teachers DO NOT have to be qualified.

Argh! Grammar schools are NOT the solution!!!
I work in one. We also have issues recruiting! Not a single person applied for my mat cover, for example.
We also still have to confiscate fidget spinners.
We also have a large number of teachers taking early retirement. The reason people leave teaching is not behaviour. We still have behaviour issues in grammar - they are, after all, still children and passing a test doesn't actually mean you want to learn!
Rant over. The actual problems are what everyone else has said. We experience them too. We also have Cover Supervisors who aren't teachers.

Miaow - I used to get baggsied in secondary supply as well - and even now get phone calls asking me back especially now the agency finder's fee won't apply. But with 2 children to find childcare for its not worth it.

Am I naive to do MFL with my dd as a sort of competition on Duolingo (when she can be arsed).

I think you should totally do this! It would be useful and fun for both of you. With the best will in the world, schools are finding it hard to cover MFL these days.

Hope you can afford private tuition or the time to spend with your DS going through his schoolwork, because sadly sending your children to school is no guarantee they will get a decent education these days.

Most secondary schools set.

Seven years ago, Ofsted stated:

"Of about 18,400 classroom observations conducted by Ofsted inspectors in
secondary schools last year (2008/09), roughly only four in ten
represented set lessons:... at secondary, this data suggests that around
53%, 70% and 60% of lessons are set for English, mathematics and science respectively"

Other lessons would be even less likely to be set. Now this may have changed, but we have no evidence that it has. My local school sets only for maths, even at GCSE. Objections to setting, even at secondary, have a long history in progressive educational thought, and there are still people with power in education who believe in mixed ability teaching, claiming it is better for the lower achieving end of the spectrum, while not damaging the higher end.

It is unfortunately how it is. When I was in secondary school I took French for a GCSE, we had a different supply teacher every week none of whom spoke French, needless to say my result was abysmal.
I also remember the maths teacher changing at least once every few weeks, so no continuity to how we were taught, subjects were often repeated and taught in a different way so completely confusing. I ended up getting a math tutor outside of school as I needed a decent grade to get into the course I wanted and it wasn't going to happen in school.
It was the same kind of story for everyone there, there seemed to be a lot of teacher turn over despite it being a well ranked, well thought of school.
If you feel your DS needs a bit more help then I highly recommend getting a private tutor, it really helped me

The reason people leave teaching is not behaviour.

Workload is undoubtedly the most important factor in teachers leaving.
But in the surveys I've seen, between a quarter and a third of teachers cite poor behaviour as well. And of course, poor behaviour often adds to workload, especially if SLT expct teachers to deal with it themselves.

We only set in Maths at my school. 'Behaviour' is a red herring. Behaviour hasn't got worse. The behaviour that makes people leave is not the dramatic headline grabbing behavioural issues. It's the every day low level stuff. And that certainly happened when I was in school myself.
What is destroying people's desires to stay is a variety of factors. Including the ridiculously underprepared and under resourced changes at GCSE and A Level and more local issues. We've run out of 'photocopying budget' already. In previous years we've been able to get ahead of next year's photocopying when term ends so the money has run out 10 weeks early. My secondary subject needs new text books in years 8 and 9. This can't happen as there's no money due to the changes at GCSE and A Level. Heck, we even ran out of loo roll in the staff loos last week!

We only set in Maths at my school.

But you work in a grammar school. I'm talking about an ordinary comprehensive, in a small market town with a mixed SES intake. They get away with it because they have a captive market, and because they've been cheating shamelessly on controlled assessments.

'Behaviour' is a red herring. Behaviour hasn't got worse. The behaviour that makes people leave is not the dramatic headline grabbing behavioural issues. It's the every day low level stuff.

Well, if teachers are saying it's a factor in their decision to leave, I personally would be inclined to take their word for it. I agree that it's often the low level stuff, although there are at least some schools where it is undoubtedly much worse than that.

And that certainly happened when I was in school myself.

I'm sure it did. But what we don't know is how widespread it was. Certainly, a lot of teachers are reporting that it is much more common for parents to back their children up in bad behaviour than it used to be, and also that SLT are less inclined to back up teachers, due to fearing the school will get a bad reputation, and wanting to placate parents. Making it much more difficult to permanently exclude the worst individuals has also probably had an effect.

But there needs to be more focus in schools. None of this "fidget spinners" or "phones out" business. No chatting and calling out. Kids are there to learn. They have 168hrs a week and only 30 of them are they asked to concentrate and work. It's preparation for the workplace more than anything else. Talking back and shouting out wouldn't fly when they get to work so why should it at school?

You've clearly never met a child with pathological demand avoidance have you? Or ODD. Or someone who's home life is so utterly chaotic social services are trying to put them into care. You can't just demand kids sit, listen and learn the minute the walk onto school grounds. Sure in a perfect world, but this world isn't. And what these kids need more then anything is consistency, security and stability which they aren't going to get when they don't know who is covering the next lesson because there is not enough teachers and no money in the budget to hire new ones. I work in a core subject and this summer we are loosing 4 teachers, 3 of which are well experienced teachers. They are being replaced by two - one nqt and one trainee. It's not good enough, we are failing the kids who need us most

I am a fully qualified MFL teacher with 20 years' experience. I currently work as a cover supervisor by choice because being an actual teacher at the moment is bloody awful. As a cover supervisor, I can waltz in, sit in front of a class, waltz out again. No marking, no planning, no accountability. It's no wonder loads of teachers are doing it.

Schools and teachers are facing funding cuts plus a lack of support, parents not backing up poor behaviour and challenging deconstruct made by teaching staff. The problem is exacerbated by the lack of a willingness for parents to accept school rules and a willingness to explain away bad beviour

You can't just demand kids sit, listen and learn the minute the walk onto school grounds.

But SLT could run induction sessions - perhaps as long as a week -
for children entering secondary school, to explain to them why good learning behaviour is important for their futures and for the futures of the other children in the class, and to model and let them practise the expected behavior. SLT could set up a centralised system to enforce discipline, taking responsibility for it themselves, so that teachers don't have that piled on top of everything else they have to do. And for children with serious problems, SLT could provide a nurture unit, which many schools do, to help them gradually integrate into the school and its routines, and provide a refuge when things get difficult. This is the model they use in Finland, for example. Some schools already do these things.

And what these kids need more then anything is consistency, security and stability which they aren't going to get when they don't know who is covering the next lesson because there is not enough teachers and no money in the budget to hire new ones

But it's already been pointed out that it's not just a question of money. It's starting to be, but the recruitment crisis has been going on for a while. One of the reasons for the recruitment crisis is disruptive behaviour, and the teacher-bashing belief by some SLT that 'if you make the lesson engaging enough, the children will behave' that pushes teachers into edutainment and dumbed-down expectations. Another is the expectation that teachers can achieve miracles for children's learning in circumstances where large amounts of learning time are lost to low level disruption. Disruption inevitably has adverse effects on learning, which contributes to the demand by SLT that teachers work harder to compensate.

Complaining about parents who argue that children should be expected to concentrate and work seems to me to be a very strange approach to solving the recruitment crisis.

And while having the same teacher undoubtedly is important for stability and security for children with problems, so is a classroom that isn't chaotic and constantly disrupted by poor behaviour.

With MFL (and Science and Maths too) you could be offering £100,000 salary and you wouldn't be able to recruit an appropriately qualified or competent teacher in some places. MFL teaching has always been a bit dodgy in the UK but it has slumped in the last couple of decades. It is seen as difficult (well, it is and more importantly cannot be taught in 'units") and there is always lots of groaning about having to take one. At dd's school where an MFL is compulsory at GCSE there are loads of parents storming the citadel complaining that their dc doesn't want to take it. Consequently we have a smaller pool of language takers and an even smaller one of people actually able to teach. And those can pick and choose a "nice" school rather than a rough one in (sorry!) Grimsby.

Excellent post, kesstrel.

I thoroughly agree about the "edutainment". How can everything be fun, fun, fun?! To achieve in many subjects (eg French as I detailed above) it's a question of slog, just like learning a musical instrument.

Good idea about SLT having induction weeks. But I suppose the problem is peer numbers. One disruptive kid can be hoiked out of a class, but if you've half the class slumped over their desks, chatting, eye-rolling etc it's very hard to deal with.

Lady I think schools that have tried central behaviour management systems find that all but a handful of children quickly realise that having to attend detentions isn't fun. The key is consistent enforcement, which will be perceived as fairer too,. This is one reason why the centralised element is important, because teachers have too much else to do to chase up kids not turning up for detentions, and some will be inclined to let disruptive behaviour slip due to sheer pressure of work.

'if you make the lesson engaging enough, the children will behave'

Indeed. This is an incorrect and damaging statement. Firstly, not all lessons can or even should be entertainment. Secondly, there are plenty of kids who wouldn't behave even for the most entertaining lessons.

Kids need to be able to behave regardless of the level of entertainment in the lesson. I will have 'taught', or rather babysat, about 12hrs of cover lessons by the end of this week, most or all of them in subjects I can't teach. Cover work has to be 'sit there and get on with it' stuff, which is not going to be entertaining. Does that mean it's ok for the kids to behave badly? No.

Grimsby.

Have you ever been to Grimsby? I must admit I was fairly pleasantly surprised although the name didn't lead to me having high expectations. I suspect there are places that would be worse to teach tbh and some of them in the south.