Sorry to derail, but teaching in Scotland has changed drastically in the last 5-10 years. It might not be as bad as elsewhere, but it's getting worse.
- building the curriculum passed to individual schools and teachers. The curriculum is little more than a catalog of hopes for children. (Google it. There are 5 documents on building the curriculum for schools)
- responsibility for schooling passed to LA. No longer parents responsibility to facilitate education. It's the school's, so now we have to go to houses and collect school refusers.
- Presumption of inclusion: all children expected to attend mainstream until proven unable to cope. All meetings, referrals, action plans, child's view, wellbeing triangulation work done by class teacher. On average 6 children out of 30 will need a plan throughout school. (English friends say there is an SENCO who does this, or a SEN Payment if they do it)
-Widening of ASN definition. Now children whose parents are separating or pet dies are in need of support and need a plan. All children expected to need at some point. (A wellbeing profile to be created for each child).
- Devolved leadership - all teachers have an area of whole school responsibility. Eco school, rights respecting school, maths co-ordinator. (Again , this seems to attract TLR payments elsewhere)
- career progression brought to complete halt. Chartered teacher scheme abandoned, PT posts cut right back. Many schools have either a PT or a DHT.
- annex E removal.. no classroom assistants. No one to copy, laminate, do displays, administer lunch schemes.
-'profession enquiry' : requirement to engage critically with and carry out research into practice.
- ban on schemes of work. All lessons to focus on multiple experiences and outcomes, and be created using the 7 principles to lead to the 4 capacities, taking account of the school's vision and values without using the benchmarks. Don't forget to plan for achievement too (not attainment, which is academic achievement or added knowledge. Personal, transferable skills achievement)
-skills based curriculum not knowledge based. No longer teaching about Romans, instead we're teaching children to use sources, evaluate the bias, compare their lives to people in history. Asking children what context they'd like to do that within and hoping that they pick something you know something about.
- teachers need to create own assessments. Holistic assessment is preferred (in context, using multiple strands. But don't create a tick list. If you do, you're missing the point.)
- 1+2 languages. All children to learn 2 foreign languages by the end of primary school. One from p1-7, the other p5-7 (although L3, second foreign language is vague. Some schools have interpreted that to mean different things).
It's not the career I signed up to. More and more has been shoved onto my plate. £36k is a good salary, but people forget that isnt £3600 a month, we see £1950 of that net. ( Higher NI, difference in Scottish tax bands means we pay more tax, student loans (all teachers are graduates in Scotland. There's no other route in)). Plus we still pay GTCS fees and are accountable to the GTCS so required to log and evaluate all CPD.
Personally, no, parents aren't the worst part. They want the best for their kids. Trying and failing to meet the the emotional and mental health problems the 6 year olds in my class have, is the worst part, without any specialist input or even another adult in the room.