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?

@MrsHamlet

And if he was already sitting at early level for reading? So is now a further year behind? Teaching reading as a skill is not something secondary teachers are trained for. We use learning support who are trained to do that.

So tough luck for those kids then?

They should have been more honest in their adverts.

Hello retired ,burnt out, incompetent, managed out, disillusioned - delete as appropriate - former teachers. As you know for the past thirty or so years successive governments have vilified and denigrated the teaching profession, blaming teachers for all life’s ills from teen anxiety , eating disorders and failure to speak a language other than English to county lines, at the same time we have turned your working lives upside down many times, introduced new policies at four o clock on a Friday afternoon to be implemented on Monday morning, we have tweaked your working conditions and allowed Academies to undermine your professionalism , your minimal qualifications and salaries. During the recent unpleasantness we lied about providing equipment for home learning, expected schools to provide PPE equipment from already depleted funds and refused vulnerable children access to meals. Since schools returned last September we have denied that schools are vectors for infection and have insisted that to maintain standards Ofsted inspectors will expect all children to have been learning and progressing at pre Covid closure levels.

But that is water under the bridge, we are all on a learning journey, and can move forward together.

For example , even we at the Department have recently learned that unaccountably, considering the care we have taken over recruitment and retention within the profession, that there is a shortage of teachers and even poorly paid supply teachers willing to stand in freezing cold classrooms and expose themselves to Covid from unvaccinated and untested children. It now appears likely that even factoring in putting all TAs, midday assistants and lollipop people in front of classes we will have a shortage of warm bodies come January. So, how about it? Why not come back into the profession you love, teach a curriculum you are unfamiliar with, learn how to do marking with green and purple pens, risk being vilified by an Ofsted inspection to breathe in the viral exhalations of anxious children . We will pay you a teeny tiny amount of money, completely unrelated to your experience and qualifications, and who knows, you might even be featured on national news as a Teacher Hero, wouldn’t that be something to mention to your grandchildren when they ask what you did in the Great Pandemic.

Formal applications not necessary, just turn up, please bring your own pritt sticks and pens.

So tough luck for those kids then?
That's not what I said and you know it.
If Bob missed Holes because he was off, that's not the end of anyone's world.
If Bob has a low reading age, then he's getting appropriate interventions from trained adults outside of my lessons.

@MrsHamlet

So tough luck for those kids then? That's not what I said and you know it. If Bob missed Holes because he was off, that's not the end of anyone's world. If Bob has a low reading age, then he's getting appropriate interventions from trained adults outside of my lessons.

He isn’t though. That’s why they need more teachers.

Your Bob might not be. Mine is. But not by teachers. By trained learning support staff.

I doubt if they'll persuade retired teachers in their 60s and over to go into an environment so riddled with covid all the younger teachers have gone off sick with it. Those who have left teaching for another career ... have other careers.

Besides which I was treated so badly at the end of my 30 year teaching career they would have to drag me kicking and screaming to get me into a classroom.

Outside of your lessons, or instead of your lessons?

And tbf MrsH it is a bit of an odd attitude.

@MrsHamlet

Your Bob might not be. Mine is. But not by teachers. By trained learning support staff.

That’s a bold statement! No teacher ever given your bob a wee hand in his education?

Students who need reading intervention in my school have that outside of English lessons. Not instead of; as well as.
Not by teachers but by learning support staff trained in reading intervention.
Perhaps we're unusual in that.

Formal applications not necessary, just turn up, please bring your own pritt sticks and pens

God yes - don't be expecting any glues that haven't dried up and died by the end of the first half term.

What they should be doing is what has been needed for years - having trained specialist literacy intevention going on in a meaningful way outside the classroom, addressing the lack of basic skills that the children with attainment gaps have and that can't be closed by just shoving them onwards with a full timetable and telling the classroom teachers who have 5 classes to teach that day to 'differentiate' for them. I've not yet worked out how to meaningfully differentiate GCSE History for a child with KS1 literacy skills - I can make them learn stuff and be interested but with 29 other students many of whom will have their own needs I can't teach him to read or write.

We need enough actual permanent staff in school for people to have more space on their timetables to do interventions - for people with the skill sets to actually do that to be allowed out of their specialist subject for a period or two a week to give to that kind of intervention.

We need social workers and counsellors IN SCHOOLs where they're actually needed and specialist workers who understand processing disorders or sensory issues.

We need meaningful behavioural issues intervention to target that child and improve their outcomes whilst simultaneously allowing teachers to make sure the other 20 kids aren't losing ground because of the time it takes away from teaching a lesson.

And these things need to be permanent not a 6 week fix because the problems in schools have briefly become visible to the public in a way that they can't 100% wilfully ignore.

But all of this requires money and paying people who are actually trained and qualified to do the jobs needed which means proper salaries. It means retaining quality teachers and listening to them about what resources they need. Successive governments pretend to care about education but no one actually seems to 'care' enough to properly invest in it and listen to the experts.

Teachers who are already complaining of being overworked? Those teachers are going to do the lunchtime and after school boosters if they are there?

We already are. Aren’t you? You think about the children, right?!

No you're not mrs h.
I am a year 6 teacher and my reading interventions are outside of lessons, in the afternoons. The child requiring intervention still stays in my English and maths lessons with appropriately modified work. The intervention teacher is a teacher employed for just that. The whole prevailing ethos now is that to remove the child from class teaching for core subjects just leads to them being further behind. Intervention is on top of, not in place of.

@viques

They should have been more honest in their adverts.

Hello retired ,burnt out, incompetent, managed out, disillusioned - delete as appropriate - former teachers. As you know for the past thirty or so years successive governments have vilified and denigrated the teaching profession, blaming teachers for all life’s ills from teen anxiety , eating disorders and failure to speak a language other than English to county lines, at the same time we have turned your working lives upside down many times, introduced new policies at four o clock on a Friday afternoon to be implemented on Monday morning, we have tweaked your working conditions and allowed Academies to undermine your professionalism , your minimal qualifications and salaries. During the recent unpleasantness we lied about providing equipment for home learning, expected schools to provide PPE equipment from already depleted funds and refused vulnerable children access to meals. Since schools returned last September we have denied that schools are vectors for infection and have insisted that to maintain standards Ofsted inspectors will expect all children to have been learning and progressing at pre Covid closure levels.

But that is water under the bridge, we are all on a learning journey, and can move forward together.

For example , even we at the Department have recently learned that unaccountably, considering the care we have taken over recruitment and retention within the profession, that there is a shortage of teachers and even poorly paid supply teachers willing to stand in freezing cold classrooms and expose themselves to Covid from unvaccinated and untested children. It now appears likely that even factoring in putting all TAs, midday assistants and lollipop people in front of classes we will have a shortage of warm bodies come January. So, how about it? Why not come back into the profession you love, teach a curriculum you are unfamiliar with, learn how to do marking with green and purple pens, risk being vilified by an Ofsted inspection to breathe in the viral exhalations of anxious children . We will pay you a teeny tiny amount of money, completely unrelated to your experience and qualifications, and who knows, you might even be featured on national news as a Teacher Hero, wouldn’t that be something to mention to your grandchildren when they ask what you did in the Great Pandemic.

Formal applications not necessary, just turn up, please bring your own pritt sticks and pens.

Thank you for writing this!

@phlebasconsidered

No you're not mrs h. I am a year 6 teacher and my reading interventions are outside of lessons, in the afternoons. The child requiring intervention still stays in my English and maths lessons with appropriately modified work. The intervention teacher is a teacher employed for just that. The whole prevailing ethos now is that to remove the child from class teaching for core subjects just leads to them being further behind. Intervention is on top of, not in place of.

Thank God... I thought I was going mad there for a minute. Our EAL students do the same.

I should add that those interventions are targeted by the trust, not me, for impact using money to "catch up". All the other before school, lunch and after school sessions are just by me, unpaid because otherwise we wont meet my ridiculous targets. It amounts to 4 extra hours per week plus planning and marking time.

@ChloeDecker

Teachers who are already complaining of being overworked? Those teachers are going to do the lunchtime and after school boosters if they are there?

We already are. Aren’t you? You think about the children, right?!

I’m not sure ‘do more work!’ fits in with your argument of teachers already being overworked and under appreciated.

Did you always get your lunch break before covid? I’m struggling to see how you could have time for additional classes.

It means actually doing stuff rather than ticking a box with a bs faux solution like asking pensioners to join exploitative supply agencies who milk money out of schools in a way that should never have been sanctioned and catch covid and further overcrowd the ICU wards.

I’m not sure ‘do more work!’ fits in with your argument of teachers already being overworked and under appreciated.
My argument has always been to do more to keep existing teachers in the classroom and not sick with Covid. Responding to other posters including you who say teachers are not overworked or appreciated is a different matter entirely.

Did you always get your lunch break before covid? I’m struggling to see how you could have time for additional classes.

You’re definitely not a Secondary teacher Yes, Secondary teachers put on booster classes at lunch and after school on the days they don’t have meetings. Very normal practice even before Covid but they just need to be in school and not absent due to catching Covid or looking after their children with Covid. I’d respect your viewpoint more if you acknowledged you are not familiar with Secondary in England

@ChloeDecker

I’m not sure ‘do more work!’ fits in with your argument of teachers already being overworked and under appreciated. My argument has always been to do more to keep existing teachers in the classroom and not sick with Covid. Responding to other posters including you who say teachers are not overworked or appreciated is a different matter entirely.

Did you always get your lunch break before covid? I’m struggling to see how you could have time for additional classes.

You’re definitely not a Secondary teacher Yes, Secondary teachers put on booster classes at lunch and after school on the days they don’t have meetings. Very normal practice even before Covid but they just need to be in school and not absent due to catching Covid or looking after their children with Covid. I’d respect your viewpoint more if you acknowledged you are not familiar with Secondary in England

I’m not familiar with secondary in England, I’m in Scotland. I already said that.

If you didn’t get your lunchbreak before COVID, how did you have space to fit in covid catch-up lessons specifically for children who have gaps in their education? What have you dropped to make space for that?

And at no point have I said this: Responding to other posters including you who say teachers are not overworked or appreciated is a different matter entirely.

I’ve said it’s time to drop the idea that the general public need to show endless appreciation for us.

I've dropped all extra curricular.

If you didn’t get your lunchbreak before COVID, how did you have space to fit in covid catch-up lessons specifically for children who have gaps in their education? What have you dropped to make space for that?

I have dropped all extra curricular activities, this has not only pissed off parents but also the school.

But something has to give.

@MrsHamlet

I've dropped all extra curricular.

Me too. Well, all my colleagues have. We no longer lunchtime clubs we now do lunchtime duty, as well as break duty and before school duty.

And many have told you that that idea is entirely in your imagination Pumper.

@swallowedAfly

And many have told you that that idea is entirely in your imagination Pumper.

What idea?