Teachers!

[MsFannySqueers]

So retired/ex teachers are being asked to consider returning to the classroom because of possible staff shortages in the New Year. Is this something you would do?

Vaccination centers are spaced out well run places with ventilation and evry single person bar exempt wearing masks?
Classrooms and schools are not.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the suggestion that teachers are bashed because of threads like this!
As if the last 2 years (not to mention all the crap before that) hadn't happened.
The number of posters who leapt onto threads shouting things like, "It's about time teachers did their bit. If you don't like it, resign."
Oh, and here we are! Those who have resigned or retired, now being begged to return (as was predicted but the idea was scoffed at).

I guess I just understood what @ArseInTheCoOpWindow meant with Gove being responsible for the shitshow that is the Academies programme but totally get your point too @BarkminsterBlue

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

I was teaching 25 years. There is no significant change between 2016 and when l left in 2020.

It’s the rise of academies and their non recognition of unions that have caused teaching to become so shit.

And academies were Gove? In 2011?

THE CHILDREN HAVE CHANGED.

Two hundred plus posts of bickering and in-fighting before we get anyone pointing out that this suggestion wouldn’t be in the best interests of the children, who need expert, trauma-informed pedagogy right now.

+1 vote to the redeployment of Ofsted inspectors, though.

@CallmeHendricksGingleBells

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the suggestion that teachers are bashed because of threads like this! As if the last 2 years (not to mention all the crap before that) hadn't happened. The number of posters who leapt onto threads shouting things like, "It's about time teachers did their bit. If you don't like it, resign." Oh, and here we are! Those who have resigned or retired, now being begged to return (as was predicted but the idea was scoffed at).

Why would you do either? You have the choice here: go and help out, or don’t.

Not a cat in hell's chance.

I've only been retired for 3.5 years, but I'm already way out of touch with how things are done. And no, I don't want to be in a room with 30 unvaccinated virus spreaders at my age, thanks. It's bad enough that my DD and her partner have to suffer this.

@ChloeDecker 👍🏻

They may have changed after lockdown.

But the previous poster said children had changed since 2016.

I never saw any change before l left in 2020.

They may have changed since Covid, but l can’t comment on that.

@Imdreamingofapeacefulxmas

Vaccination centers are spaced out well run places with ventilation and evry single person bar exempt wearing masks? Classrooms and schools are not.

This with bells on.

It’s a very serious point that needs to be acknowledged by the DforE that they are asking retired teachers to enter unsafe environments for them and they haven’t responded to questions about that.

Michael Wilsher is going back 🤮mmmmmm

Oh my God this is exhausting.

2016 was an arbitrary choice of date. Change it to any you like. It was purely to posit that someone five years out of the classroom might still consider their skills and knowledge fairly relevant.

@ThanksItHasPockets has made it clearer than me. The children’s needs have changed since the first return to school after the 2020 lockdown, and then again after the 2021 closures. Forget about bloody 2016.

No no no. I took early retirement 3 years ago after 25 years teaching, so dodged a bullet by missing pandemic teaching. I did teach the current specifications and have resources on memory sticks as tutored A level for 2 further years but I have reached the magic 60 years now, so draw my Teachers Pension. Earning money would just push me into paying tax again. Pension payments keep me under £11,500 tax threshold.

Ok😊

Anyway, Wilsher is going back. Al problem solved.

@Pumperthepumper, "Why would you do either? You have the choice here: go and help out, or don’t."

Two different points being made. I am still working as a teacher (and not in the slightest bit offended by those who have left expressing horror at the idea of returning. I totally get it), so there is no such choice to be made.
My 'laugh or cry' was to do with the attempt to justify all the teacher-bashing there has been on MN and in the wider media (yes, Daily Mail, looking at you).

I noticed Nadhim Zahawi pleading for these teachers to sign up even if it was just for a day a week. That is literally a body in front of the class babysitting, we need supplies to commit for a week.

Yet again, this is about the government trying to pass responsibility for their own failings onto the electorate. When schools inevitably start closing again because so many staff have covid, not enough retired teachers are willing to risk their health by coming back or those that do are only back for a week before they too catch covid the public will be told it was the fault of lazy, entitled former teachers who didn't step up and do their bit.

+1 vote to the redeployment of Ofsted inspectors, though.

Slight problem with this is that in the last two Ofsted inspections I have been through since 2015, none of the inspectors were ex teachers. They were a mixture of ex Ed Psychs, consultants and staff who used to work for the LEAs doing things like HR until Gove’s changes to academies and free schools meant they were suddenly out of jobs.

We have Wilshaw to thank for allowing during his time, the most non-teachers ever to join Ofsted as inspectors. But that’s okay, Wilshaw himself has volunteered which will hide this fact (but will be going back to his own school so knows it well etc. I did my PGCE when he was HT there)

@Imdreamingofapeacefulxmas

Vaccination centers are spaced out well run places with ventilation and evry single person bar exempt wearing masks? Classrooms and schools are not.

Exactly. I happily volunteer at my local vaccination centre, which is huge, well spaced ventilated, and everyone is masked. I'm not within 2m of anyone throughout.

No way would I go back to a small, often unventilated classroom full of unmasked, unvaccinated children.

Was he horrible?

@ChloeDecker, what was he like as a HT?

Surely exam classes will benefit more from being taught by their own Teacher online than by a retired teacher who hasn't set foot in a classroom for over a decade, doesn't know the curriculum and can only commit to one day a week?

@BarkminsterBlue

Oh my God this is exhausting.

2016 was an arbitrary choice of date. Change it to any you like. It was purely to posit that someone five years out of the classroom might still consider their skills and knowledge fairly relevant.

@ThanksItHasPockets has made it clearer than me. The children’s needs have changed since the first return to school after the 2020 lockdown, and then again after the 2021 closures. Forget about bloody 2016.

I got what you were saying! At the very least in Secondary, the exam syllabus for most subjects has changed. For my subject alone, the GCSE changed drastically in Sept 2020 again.

[quote CallmeHendricksGingleBells]@Pumperthepumper, "Why would you do either? You have the choice here: go and help out, or don’t."

Two different points being made. I am still working as a teacher (and not in the slightest bit offended by those who have left expressing horror at the idea of returning. I totally get it), so there is no such choice to be made.
My 'laugh or cry' was to do with the attempt to justify all the teacher-bashing there has been on MN and in the wider media (yes, Daily Mail, looking at you).[/quote]
The daily Mail bashed everyone though: they went after GPs, dentists, vets for a while - I can’t think of a single profession they don’t bash.

Teaching is unique in that we all need endless gratitude from the general public about doing our jobs. And the teacher-bashing from inside the profession means people outside of it feel justified in joining in.

We’ve all seen a massive drop in education over the pandemic, we’re now past the stage that we can catch up these kids by handing out Twinkl worksheets and setting spelling for homework. I don’t judge teachers who don’t want to come back but I think asking the question is justified.

@neverbeenskiing

Surely exam classes will benefit more from being taught by their own Teacher online than by a retired teacher who hasn't set foot in a classroom for over a decade, doesn't know the curriculum and can only commit to one day a week?

Well no, because what if they can’t get online access? What if they’ve nowhere to sit? What if they’re a family of four who all need online at the same time?

[quote CallmeHendricksGingleBells]@ChloeDecker, what was he like as a HT?[/quote]
He was my first experience in having weekly ‘learning walks’ before it was even a thing in most schools. He didn’t teach himself but did make sure staff were in at a certain time and didn’t leave too early. Daily briefings, very short lunch break etc. The school did get reasonably good results for the London borough it was in and behaviour was not as bad as my second placement but then, it was a church school and he did have a lot of say who was admitted before that was clamped down on!