To think it’s about time @MNHQ stepped up and did something about the teacher bashing.

[SachaStark]

This evening has been AWFUL here on the AIBU board.

@MNHQ, at what point do you actually plan to intervene and do something about the sheer number of teacher bashing threads, and individual posts? Should we expect any kind of moderation?

Or, is this in fact, “all in the spirit of Mumsnet”? Because at the moment, you’re making it look a darn sight like you agree by proxy.

smile SS were trying.
Before the kids came to us, schools were made aware - and as I say, we’ve had the kids before. Comms with school A has always been shit, but school B is usually great.

We were all trying just to get basic info from the schools. It’s not like I was expecting one to one sessions. I just needed to know stuff like what reading levels they are on. And I neeeded all school comms to come here and not the kids mum.
But they just ignored us repeatedly.
It’s been utterly woeful.

The Virtual Head will have all the information regarding attainment and targets set, if you can't get it from the school ( which you should be able to) speak to him/ her.

FATEdestiny
And many schools don't have all that. There's a range of different challenges.

Wouldn't it have been good if instead of throwing out half proposals leaked to the press, then doing press conferences and then releasing subsequent guidance after schools have already started working on plans, government consulted schools and unions to find what would work, what was needed etc.

If I think the school's I've worked in, some of them could easily partition rooms, but others have already partitioned rooms down to make way for additional classrooms that can only have small classes in. One lost lost one of their canteen spaces to partition down for additional classrooms. Another couple lost offices to make way for small intervention spaces.

What is so hard to read is all the teacher bashing and blaming teachers for being “lazy” and “reluctant” when wasn’t teachers who decided to close the schools in the first place and it’s not teachers responsible for the schools being closed now.

The government decided that schools would close on March 20th.

The government are responsible for schools being closed right now.

Schools are having to go above and beyond in some cases to find and deliver food to vulnerable students, go out and do welfare checks - work that I would have assumed would have been done by social services. Except they’ve been slashed to the bone by the government so schools have taken over.

Making sure schools have enough funds to put the necessary safety measures in place? The government

No matter how many teachers you think are lazy or reluctant, when the government says schools have to open, we will go back to work or we will lose our jobs. We’re not some magical princesses who can just say “nah not bothered tbh, not coming in.”

I mean, what the fuck.

Nicely played, government!

That sounds really difficult Hello

Do you have the information you need now?

spaniel SS have been backing us up all the way. I can’t fsult the key worker (not often I say that 😂).

In the end end we just sort of devised our own curriculum 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
Fortunately our older children have come home for lock down too so we can give the F.C. plenty of attention between us if nothing else.
My eldest has taught them how to train the dogs 😂😂😂

My eldest has taught them how to train the dogs

A useful life skill 😂😂

I phoned up my school, early on, to say that my daughter who is in year r was very unsettled and worried about her teacher, and could she speak to her class teacher for a minute or two? No, she could not as the teacher was not available to speak on the phone at any point.

How is that OK? Genuine question.

To be clear, the teacher was not off sick nor in any way unavailable to work.

My son who is in year 5, is having no work marked whatsoever by the teacher. Why is that? Why is that OK?

The head teacher is so aggressively unpleasant I would never dream of asking what we are entitled to in terms of actual teaching. I just assume it's nothing.

ShallallalAa

When you say "early on", do you mean before schools were 'closed' or afterwards?

Re. your Year 5 child, guidance says that teachers should not be marking work. Some schools are following this guidance.

Genuine question, as many who have moaned about the lack of whatever on here more than likely cannot give the dedication to their job that they usually can by virtue of having small children at home; does it ever cross your minds that teachers are human too, and many of them are also juggling a ridiculous amount of priorities, including having children at home? How many of you are struggling to juggle work and looking after them? Schools cannot just magic more teachers out of thin air, and along with everything else they are doing behind the scenes it's no wonder they can't do everything you want them to. I do agree that zero work or feedback isn't really acceptable, but the headteachers must be aware if someone isn't doing anything, ask them what the school is meant to be doing, and highlight concerns- if you find them too unpleasant too then just carry on moaning I suppose.

The teacher is likely following policy, same with the phone call.

sandy of course.
But I can’t see any circumstances in which I’d be too busy to at least acknowledge that a pupil of mine had been taken into care.

Marking will depend on the work set, but the guidance for school closures said that the curriculum had been suspended and schools signposting to education resources was enough so marking isn't essential (I'm not saying I necessarily agree as I'm not a huge fan of our government).

The government failed to establish a standard for education provision during the partial closures. As a result some have taken the approach of suspend curriculum, promote learning and fill the gaps later, but others have had everything on zoom.

It's union bashing though - many teachers have been working all through and its the unions that are being bloody awful.

We all have to do our bit.

There are no “teacher bashing” threads that I can see. But there are lots of threads with parents rightly concerned about the current state of education, which is fair enough imo and should not be censored.

I phoned up my school, early on, to say that my daughter who is in year r was very unsettled and worried about her teacher, and could she speak to her class teacher for a minute or two?

I’m sorry she was upset but - and I say this gently and as a mum is an 8 year old- I think the school did the right thing. What your girl needed was you to reassure her (which I’m sure you did) - otherwise there’s a precedent of her needing to talk to her teacher every time she’s worried. It’s really hard when they’re little though, isn’t it.

For those who have Secondary kids and apparently no/minimal work set - have you checked all platforms and that there’s not somewhere else work is set?

Before lockdown ds1’s class used ClassCharts for timetabling and homework. For the first 3 weeks of lockdown he was doing the work on ClassCharts and there was very little of it. I was setting random essays and research projects for him to do. I was pissed off the provision was so poor.

3.5 weeks in I went right through his desk for a good sort out and found a folded up print out with a list of Google Classroom codes. I’d never even heard of GC pre-lockdown 🤦🏻‍♀️

On questioning he said ‘oh yeah the last week they were saying something about this being set up in case, I forgot though’. We set up GC and joined the lesson rooms and there was loads being set regularly.

I was cross that there hadn’t been a parent cascade but it was just as much our fault for not checking...I just thought it was all on ClassCharts as usual as there was still regular work being uploaded, just not enough.

Anyway, worth double checking with the school in case info about a new platform was missed.

Why don't they do something about the threads complaining about teacher bashing.

Teachers are worried about the current state of education, too! We wish it was all back to normal.

Parents with concerns about, or wanting to discuss something about, their child's specific school - fine.

People asking why we're not working right now or saying we're not working hard enough or asking us to justify our wage right now? Making assumptions and generalisations that aren't needed in a debate about education.

@HelloMissus That's very distressing to hear - our primary school were accused of the opposite - they prioritised looked after kids, I expect it's a fine balance.
I get that some teachers have small kids to look after but I am not kidding about the need to do you job - if you cannot then just pretending you are doing enough is not good enough - you need to spread the work around with your colleagues rather than just not doing enough...SLT need to step up and facilitate these discussions - how crap are schools at figuring shit out - limited resources? Share it around! It's not that hard - but it really feels like in a situation that should be "where there's a will there's a way" with many schools - there is no will!

Trying to shame and silence anyone who posts anything short of "all teachers are amazing" does the profession no favours.

If hearing people discuss your profession in general terms or discuss their particular difficult experiences or concerns causes you such overwhelming distress, that is an issue within yourself that you need to learn to manage yourself - instead of trying to make it everyone else's responsibility to settle your emotions.

For those who have Secondary kids and apparently no/minimal work set - have you checked all platforms and that there’s not somewhere else work is set? Yeah we have "show my homework" - work is set, vaguely, and not marked - even the results from mocks taken 4 weeks ago have not been given out - meanwhile some teachers said they would not be setting work while they were marking...certainly not what I'd expect from a full time teacher.

@user1635482648
I couldn’t agree more. I’m genuinely worried about the state of the teaching profession and the people in it. People are being driven to breakdowns by the pressure of the profession and I genuinely believe this is why teachers are responding to what’s being asked of them very differently to pretty much all other groups-they were on the brink anyway, and this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

I wish teachers who are so miserable and stressed would leave and do something else, because as far as I can see the only thing that might force the government to do something about the whole problem is having no teachers left. And selfishly no, I don’t want my kids being taught by people who are displaying the kinds of behaviours shown on Mumsnet recently. Better to quit than to be driven to a breakdown.