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/

@noblegiraffe

If a post is deleted we can asssume it’s goady trolls looking for a fight

Well that's just bollocks isn't it?

realistic gauge of public opinion.

Where did I say it was a realistic gauge of public opinion. You're just making stuff up now.

So what purpose do you think the deleted threads serve?

So what purpose do you think the deleted threads serve?

Well, I was giving them as an example of the teacher bashing that some claim is not an issue on MN. And now people are scrabbling around to find reasons to discount them.

And they are far, far, far, from the only examples.

Anyway, how do you feel about the severe lack of teachers and the drop in recruitment levels? Fancy training to teach?

Teachers complaining that they have to work outside of school hours is one that always catches my attention as I don’t know a single professional who doesn’t work beyond their contractual hours so to present “taking work home” as some sort of horror unique to teachers always jars a bit.

The comments about taking work home are usually in response to the knocking off at 3 and lovely big holiday comments. .

[quote Pumperthepumper]@motherrunner support from whom? The NHS is widely known for being terrible in relation to workers’ mental health. So are the forces, so are pretty much any public service employer. I wouldn’t say teaching is unique in that regard.

I’d say it’s unique because everyone thinks they could do it, and they would be wrong.[/quote]
Support from the public. If I had written the post I had but had said I was any other profession bar a teacher, I would have had sympathetic replies. 2 years on that maybe not the case if I was writing as a GP as they seem to be the next hated profession.

@noblegiraffe

So what purpose do you think the deleted threads serve?

Well, I was giving them as an example of the teacher bashing that some claim is not an issue on MN. And now people are scrabbling around to find reasons to discount them.

And they are far, far, far, from the only examples.

Anyway, how do you feel about the severe lack of teachers and the drop in recruitment levels? Fancy training to teach?

So why are they deleted?

I am a teacher, I said upthread.

Why were they deleted? Because they were obviously teacher bashing. Which some claim isn't an issue. How many other deleted threads or posts have you not spotted?

I am a teacher

How's the situation in your school?

Support from the public. If I had written the post I had but had said I was any other profession bar a teacher, I would have had sympathetic replies. 2 years on that maybe not the case if I was writing as a GP as they seem to be the next hated profession.

I disagree. I think there are many other professions who are expected to get on with it - the police, lawyers, bankers, care home staff….there are loads. And sympathy from the general public wouldn’t have helped anyway, at least not as any kind of treatment.

@noblegiraffe

Why were they deleted? Because they were obviously teacher bashing. Which some claim isn't an issue. How many other deleted threads or posts have you not spotted?

I am a teacher

How's the situation in your school?

So teacher bashing isn’t accepted on mumsnet?

So teacher bashing isn’t accepted on mumsnet?

It's like suggesting that MN doesn't have a problem with Meghan Markle bashing because those threads get deleted...

How's the situation in your school?

@noblegiraffe

So teacher bashing isn’t accepted on mumsnet?

It's like suggesting that MN doesn't have a problem with Meghan Markle bashing because those threads get deleted...

How's the situation in your school?

So your issue is that mumsnet deletes the threads?

The situation in my school (Scotland) is so-so. We have an inflated SM team and very little classroom support, and I’d say inclusion isn’t particularly beneficial in our area. There is a lot of poverty in my school so we can’t rely on PTA funding to fill the gaps, so I spend a lot of my own money on resources.

But having said that, I have a relatively small class, I’m able to plan easily for them and I’m generally treated like an adult so I don’t have SM checking up on me. Ultimately, all reasons that make me think I made the right choice.

There have been very few threads on MN bashing professions in the same way that there have been on bashing teachers especially in the last few years. I am amazed there haven't been rafts of ones against dentists, as I am still yet to see one since this whole shitshow started.

But for teachers, it has been relentless. I am not a teacher, but have a role in schools. As soon as lockdown one hit, there were threads moaning about schools being closed, not getting any work sent home, getting too much work sent home, why no remote lessons, too many remote lessons, why were teachers phoning parents (for safeguarding reasons), why weren't teachers doing anything about safeguarding vulnerable pupils, why weren't teachers sorting out additional buildings, classrooms too cold, why haven't they mended/replaced windows if they don't open, why weren't teachers working through the holidays to help children catch up, why were summer schools being set up don't teachers realise children need a break in the summer, and the list goes on. I have not seen anything like that in respect of other professions.

In my role, I have seen teachers on their knees, yet again dipping into their pockets to pay for resources for their pupils as funding is so dire, doing everything they can to safeguard the vulnerable pupils. So many posters on here had never considered vulnerable pupils before lockdown, then they started complaining that teachers didn't care about them. So not true.

Yes, not all teachers are perfect, but no other profession is perfect either. So not sure why teachers warrant so many threads questioning their ability, especially as you can see from the list above many of the complaints are contradictory.

Even if a goady thread or nasty post is deleted, it still has hit its mark for anyone who had the misfortune to have to read it and be upset by it.

@Dollywilde

I don’t understand people who bash teachers. Honestly, you couldn’t pay me double their salary to have to deal with the bureaucracy, the pressure and the hours my friends tell me about - let alone actually having to stand in front of kids every day and attempt to have them learn something!

Very well out. I have the utmost respect for teachers.

Last term I tested the waters with a return to teaching. I did a bit of secondary supply and a bit of adult ed for a college. I found that I loved being in the classroom with the students/learners.
The academies seem obsessed with consistency and endless compulsory PowerPoints rather than subject rigour or engagement. No thanks, I love my subject and want to teach it the way I choose.
In post-16 the paperwork is just ridiculous, again an attempt to demonstrate consistency and to manage weak practioners. You spend more time writing and reviewing targets than learning.

I’m just too old and idealistic for all of that. I can’t see me going back in to schools even as MPS.

@CallmeHendricks

Even if a goady thread or nasty post is deleted, it still has hit its mark for anyone who had the misfortune to have to read it and be upset by it.

Completely agree with this. Even if a thread is deleted, the creation of it shows how someone feels.

@Sherrystrull I dont think it does show how somebody feels, it shows that somebody can post something to get people’s backs up and that mumsnet don’t allow it.

But @Pumperthepumper when someone posts a thread like that you get other posters agreeing with them, before it gets deleted.

It took quite a hard campaign from teachers on here to get these sort of threads deleted when they became common place in the last couple of years.

I see both sides on this.

I think some people do think that misery and stress in term time is compensated by ‘amazing’ holidays. They aren’t.

On the other hand, I do think that any post that is critical of teachers is labelled teacher bashing and a lot of the time it isn’t. And it can be pretty disruptive.

That may be true. But it still has the power to upset as someone has created it to either share their feelings or with the purpose of upsetting others.

By this week last year, we had had 38 applications for our ITT PGCE. This year, we have had five, two of whom withdrew before interview.

@Phineyj

I think there are enough of the right kind of teachers but we need to stop losing them. My friend and I are the second type mentioned by mother and we're both looking for a path out after 10 years. It's not because we don't enjoy teaching!

I think if you go into any school you will find a predominance of young teachers, a few in their thirties and early forties and almost none in their late forties, fifties and early sixties. And the sad truth is that many of the younger teachers will have left the profession within three or four years. The recruitment and retention perfect storm that has been brewing for an number of years, but has up to now been thwarted by overseas recruitment , fast track training and creative use of TAs is about to hit head on.

I taught a year six class one year, when it came to us planning their leaving celebrations they were really sad. There was not a single teacher left in the school who had taught that class from R to Y5. And it wasn’t that they were an awful class who had driven their teachers out of the profession, it was simply that the turnover of staff (including three head teachers) meant there was no one left to tell little stories about them when they were younger in the leavers assembly, to write personal memories in their autograph books, to share photos , to remind them of trips and events. And the class were pained by it in a way that I don’t think anyone had realised.

I am glad the OP has included the Guardian link about how some OFSTED inspectors are treating schools. The stories are shocking, and clearly this is a culture that is being encouraged from the top, shame and blame should be apportioned to Whitehall.

I'm not a teacher but I work in a large high school. I have a degree but I wouldn't become a teacher if they doubled the pay. Between classroom hours, curriculum and lesson planning, parents' evenings, marking and feedback, data and reporting, duties and pastoral care, not to mention countless emails from parents demanding immediate responses, it's a crushing workload. Teachers are unappreciated, poorly rewarded and hugely undervalued.

I work in a private sector employer that for complicated reasons gets quite a few ex secondary teachers joining.

They don't know what's hit them. Lots assume that 9-5 working hours with 25 days annual leave means never having to work late in a busy patch or check emails on a weekend, and have assumed teachers are the only people working long hours.

They are usually horrified by what they are offered pay wise, especially with the pension estimates.

Lots return to teaching. The ones who stay are the ones who weren't expecting massively greener grass, but wanted flexibility over working hours/wfh etc which often simply aren't possible in the classroom.

In my first career I worked in retail management. 60 hour weeks with no overtime in those days. Hard physical work and sometimes deeply unpleasant members of the public to deal with. It was still easier than getting a roomful of typical teenagers through exams. Performance related pay now in a lot of schools as well, so your pay is tied to how many of them pass.