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?

I’m not wondering why teachers are moaning. I’m simply saying that I think the reaction is not reflecting brilliantly on us

Who cares? We are at the bottom of the pile. Get snagged off by the public, shafted by the government.

Maybe people will take notice of how shit the conditions are when there’s no teachers left.

Do they enjoy their jobs? Are they struggling every day to make themselves go in? Do their colleagues and seniors know the issues? Are they empowered to do anything about it?
I love my job.
But yes... I struggle with the relentlessness that comes from every direction. My colleagues and I have raised issues with the senior team and been dismissed. It won't get easier.

@Tillsforthrills

Why should they expose themselves to help out this inadequate government.

Because children desperately need some assistance here before their educational progress is damaged beyond repair.

SammyScrounge

Because children desperately need some assistance here before their educational progress is damaged beyond repair.

and the government, ofsted and the dfe should be sorting this out, not rolling it downhill and blaming the teachers.

Because children desperately need some assistance here before their educational progress is damaged beyond repair

And teachers have tried. So very hard, but it’s about money. It’s not the teachers it’s the shut government. They should be accountable not passing the ball to the teachers.

And when we try to raise issues, we're dismissed as whinging, leftie Unionists, workshy and goodness knows what else.
And here on MN in particular, we are told that if we don't like it, then we should resign.
But when it then becomes clear, as now, that the wheels are coming off, we are also castigated for not being prepared to come back to help out.

SammyScrounge I spent a career thinking of the children. I lost my health, lost time with my own family and nearly lost my mind because I was thinking of the children, and putting their needs first. I did that for 30 years.

I spent my own money buying resources so that they could have the things they needed. I propped up a broken system because I really cared about giving my students the education they deserved. I loved teaching - I was really good at it. What I didn't like was all of the pointless admin, constant scrutiny and, when I became too expensive the not so subtle managing me out of my job.

Please don't play the 'lets do this for the kids' card. I have been there and done that. And I say no more.

@MrsHamlet

What’s happened to all the new teachers who graduated this year? Quite a lot who start never complete. Quite a lot who complete don't start teaching. Quite a lot who start teaching go into the private sector.

I’m in one of those groups. Perhaps they should take the time limit off the qualification too, or extend it, or provide routes to look again later. Routes that don’t carry exorbitant fees, or require newbies to jump through hoops and meet standards that older teachers never had to. And put some kind of quality control on placements. They extended the probation period required post-qualification for primary recently, and are showing no sign of removing that extension.

The Early Career Framework is making someone (Teach First amongst others) a lot of money.
It's not making my NQTs anything other than angry and overworked and condescended to though.

Because children desperately need some assistance here before their educational progress is damaged beyond repair.

Such rhetoric.

There's a lot of arguments to be had about what constitutes "progress" in education, and now is not the time or place.

I'm also not sure how a babysitter (because that is what these volunteers will be) can provide much in the way of education. This isn't to deride supply staff. They work incredibly hard in crap circumstances, but because they don't know the students, the lessons aren't great. Often they are given holding work until the class teacher returns.

If I wasn’t good enough for 2/3 days and then business reasons weren’t doable after my last maternity leave, then what’s changed? Oh hang on, they’re desperate having pushed out too many experienced teachers…

Not a chance! It’s supply rate so after childcare I’d take home pennies.

Some of the people coming through the ECT scheme and others like it will simply never be teachers.

I have people with poor literacy and numeracy skills on our Functional skills maths and English courses who've been promised places on the PGCE course next year

Lots I've met who are already on programmes have chaotic homelives and already poor mental health. No way could they cope in classrooms

I've terminated teaching placements because the quality of planning and delivery has been so bad yet they've passed observations

Some have been brilliant but they are genuinely few and far between. From what I've experienced the teaching crisis is yet to hit its peak sadly.

There’s also a lot of questions to be asked about the purpose of education, in a country where it’s main purpose seems to push kids into a life of ever greater debt and lower wages. Teachers are relatively well looked after, but is that all education is good for? TAs have had a shittier time for years.

I've terminated teaching placements because the quality of planning and delivery has been so bad yet they've passed observations
Yep. I sacked one trainee after a week and have another needing additional support. Their unis are pressing on as though they're going to be eminently suitable. They're not. But they've paid ...

A family member has just left teaching. She qualified and has been teaching for the last 5 years. She would never go back.

@MrsHamlet

I've terminated teaching placements because the quality of planning and delivery has been so bad yet they've passed observations Yep. I sacked one trainee after a week and have another needing additional support. Their unis are pressing on as though they're going to be eminently suitable. They're not. But they've paid ...

I've not taken 1 for a couple of years because it's painful. The last one was on a £26k bursary and did fuck all. No prep, turned up late... I already had him on a written warning. His uni tutor turned up to see him. She watched, apologised to me and then passed his observation

No way was I putting my GCSE year classes through that so I got rid. He's not the first by a long shot.

The question of placements probably needs its own thread somewhere where it could be discussed properly, but it’s odd how many are called crap by one teacher who’s in a bad mood or doesn’t like them - because x? - and then go on to perform fine in another environment. Placements are weird things that do not work out for a variety of reasons, not least one-off events in the school. A lot depends on how the teacher gets on and works with the student socially - it shouldn’t be like that, but it is.

In the last two weeks before my school closed for Xmas we had children coming into school with symptoms. Children returning from isolating earlier than they should have done. Children getting positive results whilst they were in school and waiting for parents to come and collect them.
Abuse to staff for sending symptomatic children home , asking them to complete the full isolation period , keeping them apart from their friends when positive etc
Staff testing positive , then when we could get supply for their classes they were testing positive.
When we couldn’t get supply because they simply didn’t turn up TA’s we’re left to run the classes. So the only mitigations we had left of class bubbles became useless.
I caught covid from my class.
Who in their right mind would go back to that scenario on supply rates with no sick pay who are potentially vulnerable as well. It’s nonsense. But a good way to deflect from the governments responsibility towards safety in schools again.

We've had 5 this term.
One left.
One was terminated.
One will struggle to meet the standards.
One is struggling with workload already.
One will be okay.

@ParsleySageRosemary

The question of placements probably needs its own thread somewhere where it could be discussed properly, but it’s odd how many are called crap by one teacher who’s in a bad mood or doesn’t like them - because x? - and then go on to perform fine in another environment. Placements are weird things that do not work out for a variety of reasons, not least one-off events in the school. A lot depends on how the teacher gets on and works with the student socially - it shouldn’t be like that, but it is.

The ones I'm talking about would absolutely not do any better in another classroom. Poor numeracy and literacy and home lives which are already unstable aren't conducive to working in education regardless of the mentor.

One of mine had never worked - her mental health probably won't allow her to work consistently for quite some time yet she was still accepted because she could get the loan?

It's never one teacher who decides whether a trainee is making expected progress in my school. The subject mentor and the professional mentor observe together - and then we invite the university to triangulate the judgement.

Open secret that the cost of supply runs about £200 a day, of which the teacher gets about half. The schools could keep their own registers and offer a better rate, but such is the baffling indifference to taking control of the situation among school management that this almost never happens. And the government would like supply teachers to rally round and help agencies stay in business by catching Covid and not getting paid for their sick leave, while still being treated with little respect or gratitude ... No, you'd have to be hard up to take that, can't see the incentive.

Hell no

Instead of paying ex teachers, let's get Twats4Them fans in. I'm sure they'll have no issues with the risks and would gladly do it free, as they care soooo much about the children.

I wouldn’t want those toxic anti-science vile idiots round my kids.