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?

No doubt this will get me labelled holier-than-thou again but the great unspoken truth here is that it is largely irrelevant whether former teachers wish to return to the classroom right now. Someone who left the classroom in 2016, say, whether because they could not cope, or were ready to retire, or wanted to try something else, simply will not cope in a 2022 classroom. Too much has changed. The behaviour has never been more challenging, the gaps in student knowledge have never been bigger, and the gulf between the students with most and least privilege has never been wider.

Amanda Spielman needs to announce the suspension of all Ofsted inspections until at least Easter, if not to the end of the academic year, and immediately redeploy all inspectors and HMIs into classroom teaching roles. They have QTS, current DBS, and (we are told) up-to-date knowledge of the curriculum. Ofsted’s website states that it has over 1800 staff and contracts over 2300 inspectors. Those Ofsted staff who are not qualified teachers can bring urgent capacity to support those school staff in admin and learning support roles whose numbers are also decimated.

I’m sure it would be very popular with the serving teacher workforce.

I am a teacher and love my job, despite how difficult the government often make it. I honestly can't think of a single reason why a retired teacher would go back.

Why on Earth would anyone want to go back?

Micromanaging
Toxic culture
Bullying of older staff
Destroying self esteem
No money
No time.
Destroying mental health
Crap money

Yep, there’s the kids. I miss that bit. But would l go back?

FUCK NO.

And this should become our sawnsong. Teachers have been treated like utter shit for so long by managers,parents on here, this government.

And now they are stuffed and the horse has bolted.

FICK NO

B

You see I don’t agree with that at all. I haven’t noticed any vast difference between now and 2016. What happened in 2016 that changed behaviour and everything else for the worse so dramatically?

Obviously fick and fuck are the same thing.
Not sure where the random B came from

I can honestly say OFSTED would not even feature in my list of things to worry about!

But it would feature on the list of the teachers and Headteachers of the schools that they would be going in to, considering the pasting Ofsted has already given schools this term, a situation that the NHS or vaccination programme has not had to consider.

@BarkminsterBlue

No doubt this will get me labelled holier-than-thou again but the great unspoken truth here is that it is largely irrelevant whether former teachers wish to return to the classroom right now. Someone who left the classroom in 2016, say, whether because they could not cope, or were ready to retire, or wanted to try something else, simply will not cope in a 2022 classroom. Too much has changed. The behaviour has never been more challenging, the gaps in student knowledge have never been bigger, and the gulf between the students with most and least privilege has never been wider.

Amanda Spielman needs to announce the suspension of all Ofsted inspections until at least Easter, if not to the end of the academic year, and immediately redeploy all inspectors and HMIs into classroom teaching roles. They have QTS, current DBS, and (we are told) up-to-date knowledge of the curriculum. Ofsted’s website states that it has over 1800 staff and contracts over 2300 inspectors. Those Ofsted staff who are not qualified teachers can bring urgent capacity to support those school staff in admin and learning support roles whose numbers are also decimated.

I’m sure it would be very popular with the serving teacher workforce.

This is a brilliant idea. I know a couple of Ofsted Inspectors who are ex SLT.

@manysummersago

I don’t really care if anyone volunteers or not. I’m just pointing out that when cries of teacher bashing go on, this is why.

People are free to say loudly they won’t volunteer but it doesn’t look good. That’s all.

Whatever we do as teachers "won't look good".

This isn't why teacher bashing goes on. Its because its led by the government, the media, social media and fuck wits such as us4them as something to do when they have nothing else to do or report on.

And I do actually believe that this might just have had a modicum of a possibility if the government el al hadn't spent the last 2 years going on about how safe schools were and not putting any mitigations in place then crying foul when teachers and unions said that this wasn't good enough.

@manysummersago

at being young.

Supply teachers have been treated like shit on a shoe for two decades and more. I don’t blame them for moving on.

Sorry, I thought you’d just had a baby. 🙂 As a supply teacher in her 60s, OFSTED doesn’t affect me, but the impact in schools already struggling through the second year of a pandemic is huge. Staff are frantic, snappy and tearful, or dictatorial and unrealistic, which makes supply harder.

For the record, in my forties, teaching for nineteen years.

But you haven’t fully been teaching this entire pandemic since it started. That makes a difference .

@manysummersago

No, I can’t see that, tbh. I’m not trying to be obtuse but if I was in my sixties and had gone back to my former school to help, I can honestly say OFSTED would not even feature in my list of things to worry about!

I actually don’t know a single older teacher who didn’t leave significantly affected by the system of inspection/observation/scrutinies in school. Several were threatened with capability before leaving. They were outstanding teachers, but expensive and had their own ideas, and the heads wanted cheap and malleable.

Going back into a school where pressures like Ofsted are a risk, I know exactly why they would refuse. Some still talk about how being observed gave them stress, sleepless nights etc-they would never put themselves back in that situation.

For you to say that if wouldn’t bother you is great, but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t bother them.

If they had called for ex teachers to come back and said they’d pay them £200 take home a day and Ofsted was paused (because all the inspectors would be ‘stepping up’ to volunteer in classrooms as well) then it might have been a slightly different story. Who knows.

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?

@manysummersago

You see I don’t agree with that at all. I haven’t noticed any vast difference between now and 2016. What happened in 2016 that changed behaviour and everything else for the worse so dramatically?

An arbitrary date because it was five years ago, which some might feel isn’t very long and would make a return easier.

You must teach in a very different context to me if you see no difference between the skills, knowledge, and emotional maturity of a typical year 9 child in 2016 and a year 9 in 2021.

@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?

Academies were New Labour, 2003. You’re thinking of free schools.

With respect I think if you had returned to the classroom in September 2020 and then again in March 2021 you would have noticed a significant change in the students’ needs post school closures.

l know exactly why they would refuse. Some still talk about how being observed gave them stress, sleepless nights etc-they would never put themselves back in that situation

Yep, teaching broke my mental health. I got ill health retirement 7 months ago. Never looked back. So glad to be out.

All the people defending teaching on here must be in their 20’s or 30’s.

The 40 and 50 year olds are too expensive and disposable.

*I actually don’t know a single older teacher who didn’t leave significantly affected by the system of inspection/observation/scrutinies in school. Several were threatened with capability before leaving. They were outstanding teachers, but expensive and had their own ideas, and the heads wanted cheap and malleable.

Going back into a school where pressures like Ofsted are a risk, I know exactly why they would refuse. Some still talk about how being observed gave them stress, sleepless nights etc-they would never put themselves back in that situation.*

Me. It’s why I went on supply ten years ago after 30 years ft.
Now if I don’t like a situation, I smile and leave. I love teaching and children though.
There’s been a huge change, mostly deterioration in the majority of primary children’s academic, emotional, social and physical abilities since March 2020. IMO.

@BarkminsterBlue It was Gove who in one of his earliest moves included announcing plans to allow schools rated as Outstanding by Ofsted to become academies and force schools rated as RI (he got rid of Satisfactory to make this happen) to be forced to become academies and cutting the previous government's school-building programme.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

l know exactly why they would refuse. Some still talk about how being observed gave them stress, sleepless nights etc-they would never put themselves back in that situation

Yep, teaching broke my mental health. I got ill health retirement 7 months ago. Never looked back. So glad to be out.

All the people defending teaching on here must be in their 20’s or 30’s.

The 40 and 50 year olds are too expensive and disposable.

Or part-time. Or not teaching in England.

Academies were introduced by Blair, but were forced through by Gove and Co, making it hard for schools to have enough money if they didn’t switch.

The majority of academies have happened under the Tories and these poisonous MATs have definitely appeared since then.

And it was the Tories who said they don’t have to recognise unions.

@manysummersago

The vaccination centres are stuffed with volunteers, doctors and nurses went to the hospitals …

we aren’t making ourselves look good with the ‘fuck no’ responses.

Not flaming you but who cares about ‘looking good’ ? Whatever we do is never enough so why should people put themselves at risk to please society?

@Obbydoo
If teachers really do care about children, they should stop helping this disgrace of a government hide the problems in education. If there aren’t teachers this next term, the government and parents will be forced to act. Nothing else has had an impact and the unions have been toothless, despite how they are viewed by the Daily Mail.

I was part time. Made no difference🤷🏼‍♀️

Exactly, @ArseInTheCoOpWindow

If something like lesson observations was used as a tool to get rid of you (far from being an isolated event) then going back to volunteer in a school, would be very triggering for you. Someone else saying it ‘wouldn’t bother them’ if Ofsted pitched up, really minimises that trauma.

[quote ChloeDecker]@BarkminsterBlue It was Gove who in one of his earliest moves included announcing plans to allow schools rated as Outstanding by Ofsted to become academies and force schools rated as RI (he got rid of Satisfactory to make this happen) to be forced to become academies and cutting the previous government's school-building programme.[/quote]
I’m aware. I was there. I was teaching in a school which lost its BSF funding a week before they were due to break ground.

It's a ridiculous idea!. If teachers are off ill because they are not working in a safe environment, why on earth should older retired teachers have to unpaid, go back into that unsafe environment and take risks?

Absolutely no measures have been put in place to make classrooms as safe as can be.

Don’t do it! You’ll be off with covid anyway within a week if my school’s anything to go by