Those who think teaching is easy should put their money where their mouth is

[noblegiraffe]

Teacher training applications which rose during the pandemic have now fallen to 15% below pre-pandemic levels when we already had a critical teacher shortage. The government's decision to slash bursaries is now looking completely idiotic.

www.tes.com/news/teacher-training-applications-drop-pre-covid-levels

The only thing that the government has put an appreciable amount of funding into recently related to schools is £24 million to ensure that they will all be Ofsteded within the next 5 years. With inspectors expected to massively reduce the number of outstanding schools, this is a punishing schedule rather than a supportive one.

This is causing Heads to quit, on top of how terribly they were treated during the pandemic (this continued with an email late Friday telling them that they once again have to take on the job of the NHS and set up covid testing centres for January, with orders needing to be in by Tuesday).

We already have a critical shortage of headteachers.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/nov/27/ofsted-inspections-headteachers-quit

I've noticed lots of posts on here from people who think that teaching is easy, that school funding is fine and there are no issues in schools, that you can leave at 3 and get lots of holidays.

So isn't it about time they put their money where their mouth is and trained as teachers? We are in dire need of them, and it's such a doss it should be a pleasure for them. A bit of a holiday even. And as it would be a public service, it would be guilt-free.

getintoteaching.education.gov.uk/

Oh god that sounds even worse than typing in their test scores. And also the data in it will be a load of nonsense.

I seem to remember that as an idea from years ago in primary - assessing pupil progress grids? And I was always thankful it never made it to secondary.

@noblegiraffe

Oh god that sounds even worse than typing in their test scores. And also the data in it will be a load of nonsense.

I seem to remember that as an idea from years ago in primary - assessing pupil progress grids? And I was always thankful it never made it to secondary.

It made it into our secondary and being (then) second in dept, I was in charge of it. Which was an utter ballache as we had 3 non specialists in the dept who didn’t have a clue about assessing English, let alone how to fill in all the evidence.

The problem is that the statements are often end of year expectations so for much of the year you can only select 'taught' or leave them blank.

@noblegiraffe

I think that the biggest impact could be made in education would be if the government didn't judge schools and teachers on the performance of their pupils. It leads to spoon-feeding, gaming the system, and a massive distortion of the balance of effort between teachers and students into each student's qualification.

You can lead a horse to water, you can't make him drink, but current thinking is you timetable the horse for intervention sessions, give them links to every possible website that they need, monitor the work that they are (not) doing, beg them to attend catch-up classes, attend endless equine-concern meetings, get bollocked by the parent for 'picking on the horse', bash your head into a brick wall and finally accept the blame for the non-drinking horse and lose your pay rise. All while the horse isn't thirsty.

Exactly this. I’ve been teaching over 20 years and it is exhausting. I love many aspects of the job and don’t really want to switch careers but am worn out

Why would the data be a load of nonsense?

I quite like it. It's quick and easy. You can use it to generate various reports for monitoring e.g. progress in pp boys.

Previous school was all teacher judgement on a single a4 grid. And if we ever needed to justify it, we'd use evidence in books/knowledge of the child. Very, very little data in that school and it still worked very well. (Outstanding 2018)

That was a single form entry though, so SLT knew every single child, and we were all trusted to know our children. I'm now in a 2 form entry and there's more data for consistency I guess. I dread to think what data looks like in bigger schools!

you timetable the horse for intervention sessions, give them links to every possible website that they need, monitor the work that they are (not) doing, beg them to attend catch-up classes, attend endless equine-concern meetings, get bollocked by the parent for 'picking on the horse', bash your head into a brick wall and finally accept the blame for the non-drinking horse and lose your pay rise. All while the horse isn't thirsty.

This is exactly the situation I am in with two y13 students. They are both full of "yes miss I'll get it done" promises and yet they never do.
If we have to TAG them, both will get U grades because I have diddly squat in the way of evidence because they never do the work. Last week alone I spent well over an hour chasing one student. One. That's ridiculous.

I dread to think what data looks like in bigger schools!
One English GCSE paper has 5 questions and 6 separate marks. Those cover 6 assessment objectives.
The other paper has 5 questions and 6 marks across 5 AOs.
Last year I had 54 year 11 students doing 2 GCSEs. I don't need to fill in a tracker to know which bits each kid needs to focus on because a) I marked the papers b) I have the papers c) it's in my mark book. But I still have to fill in a data entry so someone else can say MrsH has marked the papers.

I quite like it. It's quick and easy.

This is why the data in it will be a load of nonsense. If you take two minutes to assess whether individuals in an entire class are below, meeting, or above expectations in a topic, then the data is not going to be accurate in any way, shape or form.

It means that 'expectations' are so vaguely worded that gut instinct can be used to assess.

At least a test score on a question is a concrete piece of data. However, what it tells you about that kid is up for grabs. If they got an adding fractions question right, does that mean they really know how to add and subtract fractions, or was it a particularly easy question and they wouldn't be able to add or subtract mixed numbers? If they got it wrong, is it because they didn't know how to do it, or because they made a stupid mistake or the question was worded in a confusing way? So even the test score spreadsheets are balls.

I remember the endless threads on here from people insisting that nothing mattered but keeping the schools open. That the schools could not close under any circumstances. The number of people who had to try to explain that schools cannot stay open if teachers are ill or decide to leave the profession as they don’t want to teach in a petri dish. And the weird lack of care about that from those same people?! It boggled my mind. It was as if they thought teachers could be conscripted so there’d never be a shortage.

You can’t argue with reality. It doesn’t bend to ideology. You can scream that the schools can’t close until you’re blue in the face, but if there’s no teachers, the school has to close.

You couldn’t pay me enough to be a teacher. I taught abroad in a culture that values teachers and education, and pays well, where the kids are brought up well and to be respectful and polite. The UK is the opposite and I’d never teach here.

@nobelgiraffe

It's not 'gut instinct' it's knowing each child inside and out. Not really possible in secondary, but in primary I absolutely know which children I have to remind on a daily basis to use full stops and which children I need to give out apparatus for maths because they need concrete manipulatives. And like wise, when they've written a whole piece without reminding about punctuation, or that the addition lesson they didn't use concrete apparatus. I've also marked all their individual assessments.

I don't need to go through each paper and individually record each question to know if they've met their objectives. I know. And I have evidence if anyone needs to check.

Not really possible in secondary, but in primary I absolutely know which children I have to remind on a daily basis to use full stops

Maths teachers tend to see data differently to other teachers.

So to pick your example of full stops - you know which kids are hopeless at remembering full stops. Fine. They get a 'below expectations' on the full stops tick box. You know the kids who always put in full stops. Fine, they get 'exceeding'.

Now what about the ones who sometimes remember full stops and sometimes miss them out? Where is the line between below and meeting? If I went through the books and counted the number of missing full stops, would it be the same tally for everyone you have marked as below or meeting? If an exceeding kid misses a few full stops in their latest piece of writing, do you bump them down from exceeding? What if a 'meeting' kid's latest piece of work has a full complement of full stops, do they get bumped up? What if their next piece has some missing again? What if the full complement piece was because a TA pointed them out in the lesson?

I suspect that the wording is so vague that you could mark the same middle-ish kid as either below or meeting, (same for meeting and exceeding) and argue both cases convincingly. And yet 'below' would trigger concern that 'meeting' wouldn't.

That sounds just like my brain applying the incredibly subjective criteria in my mostly essay based A-level subject .

This is what they found when they analysed exam marking, Phiney, two different examiners could give the same kid a different grade and both be applying the mark scheme correctly. Much less of an issue in maths, obviously!

And it's worse when you are marking your own students. Examiners don't give the benefit of the doubt to Bob because he's a nice kid but teachers tend to.

@noblegiraffe

This is what they found when they analysed exam marking, Phiney, two different examiners could give the same kid a different grade and both be applying the mark scheme correctly. Much less of an issue in maths, obviously!

I’m not sure what the solution to that would be though? How do you stop that bias?

Data also shows that teachers tend to mark down kids from disadvantaged backgrounds or ethnic minorities when doing this sort of subjective box ticking compared to hard assessment data.

Sorry, I should say certain ethnic minorities.

I’m not sure what the solution to that would be though? How do you stop that bias?

That’s a hugely complicated question - there have been a few threads about how to address inconsistencies in exam marking. Gove made it worse (of course) when he switched to 9-1 increasing the number of exam grades and the likelihood of a grade that could have gone either way.

So how would you assess punctuation then?

That is exactly why I like the statements, because teacher judgement is a consideration. A child who occasionally misses a full stop but writes fantastically imaginative and descriptive prose, drawing on a range of techniques, is clearly a much more able writer than a child who occasionally misses a full stop but writes very basic sentences with limited description.

So I can give the 1st child expected with a target to use full stops and the second child working towards with a target to use full stops.

It's looking at the bigger picture, not microanalysis of very little value.

That is exactly why I like the statements, because teacher judgement is a consideration

And that’s why it’s nonsense.

Your target tracker is exactly the microanalysis that you say is of very little value. Your targets came from looking at their work, not the spreadsheet.

@noblegiraffe

I’m not sure what the solution to that would be though? How do you stop that bias?

That’s a hugely complicated question - there have been a few threads about how to address inconsistencies in exam marking. Gove made it worse (of course) when he switched to 9-1 increasing the number of exam grades and the likelihood of a grade that could have gone either way.

I can’t think of a better solution though. Unless we start to introduce 3- or 4- way marking but that would obviously increase workload.

Well there’s the thing. If exam boards, with people paid to mark as accurately as possible, with moderation and training cannot generate accurate data, why the fuck are teachers slave to the absolute bollocks we are called upon to regularly churn out?

But hey, Noble, in the wise words of a poster somewhere or other this morning, that's the job and if we don't like it we should quit!

LOVED your horse analogy.

@noblegiraffe

Well there’s the thing. If exam boards, with people paid to mark as accurately as possible, with moderation and training cannot generate accurate data, why the fuck are teachers slave to the absolute bollocks we are called upon to regularly churn out?

But the teacher’s data is more likely to be accurate, because you actually know the abilities of the kids you teach, and what they’re capable of.

But the teacher’s data is more likely to be accurate, because you actually know the abilities of the kids you teach, and what they’re capable of.
I mark exams. Knowing the ability of the kids is totally irrelevant. I mark what is in front of me.
When I was asked to standardise my colleagues during the TAG process, the least accurate staff were the ones saying "ah but she's tried hard". That's not in the mark scheme.