Govt declares war on teachers again. Fucksake.

[noblegiraffe]

The Telegraph front page tomorrow is reporting that the DfE is preparing an 'army of supply teachers' to keep schools open in the event of a teacher strike.

Is that like the army of volunteers they failed to raise to keep schools open during the covid surge in January?

Changing the law to allow agency staff to cover for striking colleagues is a shitty move, an opportunity I can't imagine agency staff in general would be leaping at; but using it as some sort of trump card against teachers?

1. supply teachers would most likely be in a teaching union (they'd be mad if not)

2. WE CAN'T GET SUPPLY TEACHERS NOW BECAUSE THERE'S A CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS

If they've got an army of supply teachers, where are they fucking hiding them?

If the government think children have 'suffered enough' during the pandemic then:

1. fund schools properly

2. stop haemorrhaging teachers by e.g. not treating them like shit in the national press

3. improve working conditions and reduce workload by e.g. funding children's services like CAMHS, SEN services, social services so that schools aren't picking up ALL the slack.

That would improve the situation far more for children than shitty headlines in the Telegraph deliberately antagonising the few teachers the country has left.

twitter.com/samfr/status/1539717032043859968?s=21&t=uLvLET4xftQW31sTEKBaLg

Loads of jobs available in my subject, not one of them part time. I physically cannot work full time. Flexible working seems to have gone out the window, if schools want to retain staff then flexible working is a must! Current head teacher is really shitty about part time. I wangled part time in this temp contract as I have an illness and literally no one else applied 🤷🏻‍♀️

They advertise full time but may accept part time, have you asked? 0.6 of a teacher is better than no teacher.

Yes but I haven't applied to many tbh. With the amount of vacancies I figure I can be picky! I got my temp contract now which I'm happy with but will definitely be calling the shots if I'm back interviewing next year.

My dream situation is to not ever have another teaching contract. My main reason is being sick of kids talking to me like shit. After 18 years I'm done tbh!

Yes I read those numbers recently but I find it impossible to believe.
I don't know any teachers who are suddenly working less!

Nor do they have 4 years of student debt to repay.

But they are working many more hours than that.

They already do!

Yes I have been saying this for the last 20 years...
in many ways teachers are their own worst enemies and the unions are generally pretty useless at looking after members' interests.

Why are teachers doing this! You should not be subsidising the school. No-one will thank you for it.

Why are teachers doing this! You should not be subsidising the school. No-one will thank you for it

no thanks, I agree. But if there are no glue sticks to be had and her worksheets are not stuck in books, she will not pass a book scrutiny y and her professionalism will be brought into question. It will look like she’s done very little work.

We can't get TA's as since Covid there are more flexible jobs which pay more than the insulting salary a TA earns.

@DdraigGoch here's what has happened when your 'work to rule' suggestion was implemented in NI.

Teachers threatened with pay deductions for being in breach of contract:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61957916

Great, now NASUWT need to say "we'll see you in court", and the court can decide what is "reasonable". The schools are threatening "proportionate deductions" which will be difficult to justify a specific figure.

And back to the OP and the government's plans to get an army of supply teachers to cover striking teachers have been foiled by supply teachers.

Only 3% polled said that they would cross a picket line.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/plan-supply-teachers-cover-strikes-doesnt-add-zahawi-told

What now, Zahawi?

Great, now NASUWT need to say "we'll see you in court"

No, the NASUWT have now said that they will ballot for strike action. 👍

I have taught both and primary is wayyyyyyy harder.

Wouldn't it be nice though if Art, Music, Crafty subjects, DT, Drama and PE didn't HAVE to be exam subjects? It must be utterly soul destroying for pupils and teachers who just want to enjoy the subject to have to be constantly graded and compared instead of just doing it for the fun and joy of it?
Everyone should be able to understand and do without having yet another useless GCSE surely.

My experience is that it is mostly PE teachers who get promoted to dizzy heights because everyone else is too busy teaching.

And there you have it! Catch 22. It is a disgrace. Teachers shouldn't be wasting their time gluing in pupils work.
This is what the unions should have been fighting against for the past few years and once the work is done and marked no-body give a ff least of all the pupils.

Why not both?

I don't know what the NASUWT would take them to court about - I would expect the teachers are in breach of their contract.

I do it because I actually like and care about the children I teach and want them to enjoy school and be able to do creative and fun things. I also want them to take pride in their work and make sure it is presented and stored carefully. In addition, I cannot adequately support 30+ children with very different needs with the funding the government offers, which allows for little or no resources to support, enrich or extend learning.

The children do, generally, thank me.

As I said before. The contract states that teachers have to work reasonable extra hours. What does "reasonable" mean? No one can seriously claim that it means 70 hours.

Yes but teachers are not on average working that.

And that is why the schoold get away with.