To be really worried about proposed teacher strikes.

[katedan]

In England not Scotland for context. My twin daughters are year 11 and I am terrified about the impact of teacher strikes on their GCSEs. They have not yet covered the curriculum and every day counts to get them exam ready so strike days will be disastrous for year 11 and 13 pupils ( and lots of other children especially those who are vulnerable) these kids have had their education impacted by covid and now strikes. This will make the divide between state and private schools even bigger. Do you think they will go ahead or if a safety net will be put around exam years if it does.

I don’t have any experience of working in a secondary school but it does seem to me (as the parent of 3 teens) that it is a much harder job. Certainly in terms of staying late and marking etc.

I don’t think that pitting primary against secondary is terribly helpful.

Well, for starters in the 00s when I was at school I had permanent teachers with degrees in the subjects they were teaching for all my classes...

Last year, my previous school couldn't even give all the Y11 classes proper science and maths teachers. Or teachers at all. One of my Y11 classes had supply all the way through the year for 50% of their science lessons.

You can't possibly think that's acceptable, but it is increasingly normal.

It’s not that easy working in ASDA my SIL is regularly abused by members of the public when she’s on self scan duty. Especially when she has to ID people for alcohol etc. Her job is grim to be honest. That awful generic uniform and people looking down their nose at you. God I would rather be a teacher even with all of their shit.

… check the GTC website.

Terrified . Really . 😏

Yes, there is.

Which means workers have more power than they've had in perhaps a generation.

Is that what's scaring you?

That's not the same at all. Working 40 hours per week, 46 weeks a year, can be relentless. Having those 13 weeks can be a real recharge. Most teachers are not doing 60 hours a week, some do, but it's not as common as they want everyone to believe.

I'm not suggesting for a moment working in a supermarket is easy but again, why is there a national shortage of teachers right now?

Apparently the conditions aren't bad, the pay is fine, other jobs are more stressful...

But loads of teachers are leaving and not coming back AND we can't recruit new entrants even with the massive bursaries.

So what's the solution?

Why would that scare me lol

Stats on your claim that most teachers don’t work 60 hours a week, please.

I taught in secondary for 20 years and finished as Deputy Head. I left for a job in the LA which is still senior, but a lower salary than DHT was and not term-time only.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat. My contract is 37 hours, but I probably work 45 in an average week and I can’t tell you how much of a difference that makes. It was a 60 hour week every week in teaching, easily. Never a free evening or weekend. There is honestly no comparison to my life now. Not feeling so knackered all the time means I don’t miss the holidays half as much as I thought I would.

And I was a good teacher. I had good crowd control, great relationships with the kids, my subject knowledge was strong enough that I could run with new content quickly and only needed to do minimal planning. It’s ten times worse for inexperienced teachers or those who struggle with behaviour management.

Don’t diss teachers until you’ve tried it. There aren’t many teachers who leave the profession who then return to it. I wonder why that is.

Nobody is saying working in Asda is easy, but to use a bad uniform as one of your arguments to say how bad the job is isn’t doing you any favours at all.

Dunno about golden era of teaching but even a few years ago it was far less shit than it is now for recruitment and next year is looking utterly horrendous. When I started teaching my school had tonnes of applicants and in my first three years no one left my department at all. Now turnover is really high and we can't recruit.

YABU. If their learning is so fragile that a few strike days impedes progress
in all honesty you can study & revise with them
talk to your kids about the strike and why professional trained teachers fees this is the last option they have.

Can you give an example of an appalling teacher?

I can, my DSs primary 2 teacher was utterly appalling. He has known additional support needs but manages well in mainstream school - cooperative, well behaved and polite. She picked on him (witnessed by other kids in the class and later observed by the HT) to the point he was self harming in front of the HT while talking about her treatment of him. She regularly screamed and shouted at him, singled him out in front of the class, called him a stupid boy and when he showed anxious behaviours (stimming and nervous hand movements) told him he’d better sit still or find another teacher who would tolerate him. He was 7 years old and self harming. No previous issues in nursery class or in any class since.

There are appalling people in every profession - defensiveness on the part of teachers doesn’t help their cause. Happily the rest of the teaching staff at the school are fantastic and my kids are mostly happy there, but appalling does exist.

You're right @Roseberry1
I don't do 60 hour weeks. I will be exercising my right to withdraw my labour though. Because I am sick of education being given the dregs in the bottom of the government purse.

Do you think teachers don’t receive verbal and physical abuse from pupils? The difference is, an abusive member of the public will be removed from Asda. Whereas an abusive pupil will remain in the class and the teacher will be told they have a right to an education and can’t be removed, and the abuse will continue. I was physically attacked by a teenage boy who made rape and knife threats, and I was told he couldn’t be excluded from school.

How do you know? Have you balloted every teacher to ask how many hours they work? What is the average hours worked by a teacher than?

Still wondering if Roseberry has kids in school or is posting shite about something that has no impact on her as some sort of weird hobby.

@reluctantbrit "Because this is how my DD's school works. Always extra work, she did work each day during the Christmas holiday and also during the Summer holidays. They proposed sitting mocks during October half term."
"It's all pre-reading, they expect them to have worked through topics themselves before a new term starts."

The last strikes for teachers were in 2016, presumably before your dd was at secondary, so how do you know this?

I genuinely think the education I got in the 00s was superior to the education kids are getting now, in terms of class sizes, consistent qualified teaching staff, not having long periods being solely taught by supply as posts couldn't be filled, schools being able to recruit maternity cover, provision of TAs, experienced HoDs and school leaders, teachers who definitely worked hard but weren't being completely driven into the ground...

And there were more services available like youth workers, MH support, libraries, we could use the local leisure centre for a heavily subsidised price...

I'm not saying things were perfect, but in a lot of ways they were better.

I actually feel really sad about it.

That's nice, but not really an example, so to speak. Many kids have nice stories of their school years, but many kids in the 70s/80s/90s and 00s were failed by the system. There really wasn't ever a golden era that people imagine.

Well it seems like you can't bear the idea of a profession or individuals improving things by withdrawing their labour, that's all?

But if there's a labour shortage, as you say, then it'll happen more and more...

I'd love to say but it's outing so would rather not.

Must be unique then. Are you Amanda Spielman?

On second thoughts, she’d at least know something about education and teachers’ workload and pay. Probably.

The intensity of a teaching week is something non teachers don't understand.

I used to work on the corporate sector (financial services) and even though I did long hours, I was never as zombified as I am after teaching.

Teachers in front of a class make more decisions per minute than surgeons, according to researchers. The need to be on top of the work of 30 people, manage their behaviour and deliver coherent teaching takes a LOT of energy and brain cells. Deal with the poor behaviour both in your class and down the corridors if you're secondary. Pick up bad behaviour, log it, sort the consequences.

Add into that the lack of free time/pee breaks because you're on duty/doing detention/madly trying to sort issues/calling parents/catching up on emails & the day is mad.

Until you've done it, you have no idea!