To think teaching has become so robotic

[Consciousuncouplings]

I've been doing various supply work, I don't know if this is mainly an Academy thing though. Teachers seem to have very little freedom in how they plan and deliver their lessons now, everything is so formulaic.
I was supporting in a lesson the other day, and it can't just be a regular starter anymore, it has to consist of 'last week, last month, last term, last year' so you have to faff about looking for 4 different things to do.
A lot of SLT expect lessons to be differentiated to the hilt, as if you've time to come up with 9 different versions of the lesson.
In the lesson I supported in, the teacher was almost speaking in a robotic manner, it was like a script. When a pupil was talking he said, "I will now issue you with your first correction." It's like something out of prison. Speaking in all sorts of mantras and just didn't seem natural at all.
Then there's the 'exit ticket" as if there wasn't enough to mess about with.
I just wonder if all this even helps the pupils to learn more or do better. I don't remember having it to this extreme when I was at school and we didn't suffer.

That's good! Glad it's not everywhere then

'last week, last month, last term, last year'
this is called a ‘retrieval task’. Research shows that it helps to ensure that students develop, build and remember key information.

Differentiation, especially post pandemic, is used to support children.

Having a clear statement for behaviour management, used across a school, is there is ensure consistency. Consistency helps children.

‘Exit tickets’ help a teacher ascertain quickly as to the knowledge picked up in lessons and what could / should be revisited in the next lesson.

Also, maybe appreciate how tough it is in schools right now instead of just complaining. We’re doing the best we can. If you only ever do cover, you don’t see the benefits of strategies like this.

It's spaced retrieval practice. You are encouraging students to recall prior knowledge that they will need in order to access the learning taking place in that lesson.

This is particularly important for children with difficulties with memory, those who have had gaps in their learning, those new to the school or the country, etc.

It is a tool to help all children be able to access the learning that lesson. It's not meant to be just any random things from previously.

Not in my school. Our push at the moment is removing PowerPoints and ensuring there’s something active, engaging and fun every lesson (like creating scaled models of the solar system, dissecting flowers etc in science). Due to covid and a large number of new teachers, SLT noticed things were getting a bit boring! I teach primary though. And we don’t buy into schemes of learning generally.

I work in education research, and while I don't study this issue, I have absolutely noticed it too.

My pet hypothesis is that it comes in part from the poor quality of teaching candidates in the UK. There are of course some who are fantastic, but shortages have required so many standards to be lowered to the point that teacher training (and all the bullshit requirements from SLT in schools) has to be extremely proscribed in order to keep mediocre teachers on roughly the right track (at least from the point of SLT).

When you have a group largely comprised of bright, talented people, you can set a few goals and generally trust them to make good choices and work in different styles.* But when you have a mix of good, ok, and some absolute potatoes, the fastest, cheapest way to ensure they all produce something decent (if totally lifeless) is to give them a million rules and requirements.

I'm sure that's not the whole issue, but it's something I've seen.

*some of those styles might be effective but deadly boring, which is very unfashionable now, so I'm not saying that was always necessarily better.

It's turning that way because the faff and admin with teaching is becoming unmanageable and multi academy trusts can ensure consistency and employ robots/ early career teachers to read a script . Unfortunately it ties in with turning schools into businesses with funded outcomes rather than seeing children as people.

We avoided the school near us on the scripted model.often goes with n[ excuses" / silent corridors/lots of detentions etc.

I totally agree. Every school I have worked in is the same. No wonder teachers leave in droves

Anyone can photocopy a Twinkl sheet.

It takes a professional to learn a mantra !

You seem very stressed and projecting it onto here so sorry to hear that, I am only observing what I've seen and stating how I find it :)
I haven't only ever done cover either :)

I agree, and noticed this when I was a school governor a few years ago.
I find kids these days don't have the general knowledge older generations acquired by teachers going off piste in lessons and discussing topics completely unrelated to the subject of the lesson.
Everything is geared around exam results, to the point that schools almost seem like factories with the kids part of the production line.
I think it's because schools are now held to account for what grades kids get in exams, rather than the children themselves being accountable.
We used to get complaints about little Jonny not getting his grades, when we knew little Jonny hadn't put the work in. Teachers would get the blame though.

nonsense, this is all box ticking, that gets in the way of the teacher actually checking childrens learning and planning responsively in real time,

Its is all about having the evidence that XYZ has been done, when in fact XYZ would have been done far more effectively without having to go through the motions of collecting the evidence for it

It will swing back the other way in a few years - it always does. That statement applies to anything and everything about teaching

It's turning that way because the faff and admin with teaching is becoming unmanageable and multi academy trusts can ensure consistency and employ robots/ early career teachers to read a script . Unfortunately it ties in with turning schools into businesses with funded outcomes rather than seeing children as people

Agree with this. It’s not all schools by any means, but certainly an increasing number, and I’ve noticed where I am in London that the academies and especially MATs are by far the worst offenders.

DD has recently started Reception and when choosing schools for her we avoided the Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ academy up the road which is exactly as described above - extremely prescriptive, robotic teaching style, no teachers older than around 30, silent corridors etc. Instead we went for a ‘Good’ CofE school which feels much more nurturing, gives both teachers and pupils a modicum more autonomy and freedom, and engages with the local community rather than forever looking inwards and obsessing over data and results (the academy seems to have a lot of extra insets called ‘Data Days’ where they scrutinise the assessments carried out during the previous week’s ‘Assessment Week’ and set future targets for the children).

I saw the way things were headed a few years ago, and this was actually one of the main reasons I ended up leaving teaching myself. The last primary school I taught in full-time bought wholesale into Ruth Miskin’s Read, Write, Inc phonics programme, scrapping all other literacy teaching up to Year 3 (no longer allowed to read stories to your class etc). Teachers were forced to deliver a series of identikit, scripted lessons that the children found desperately dull, and I ended up feeling completely deskilled. Plenty of my colleagues loved it though as it meant less planning on their part!

Certainly happens in secondary school for GCSEs. I remember at a parents' evening the teaching saying how difficult it was if students asked too many questions as answering them ate into the time to get through the curriculum. The problem with A levels and GCSEs is the students learn exactly what they need to do to answer exam questions, sometimes without fully understanding what they're churning out. This then can become a problem when they go to university, where they're not being taught, but studying, doing a lot of the work themselves and not sticking to a rigid curriculum with 4, 8 and 12 point questions.

The one thing I’ve recently noticed that does surprise me is the curriculum having not changed in three years. My year 2 child is doing the exact same learning that my year 5 did. Same books, same RE, same history. Everything’s exactly the same. I don’t think I realised that happened! I assumed it would be the case for Maths but it must get extremely tedious for the teachers.

I refuse to teach that way, fortunately my school don't expect it either.
We do, however, have far less autonomy over what we teach these days.

We don't teach like that at my school. We work on training our staff to understand the curriculum and how best to teach it. We achieve a lot of consistency but nothing is "robotic". My kids didn't go to schools like that either (4 schools between them).

It is more linked to academies, but not all academies are like this. I've had a couple of colleagues who had come from schools like this - sounded awful. One worked at our school as a TA, then trained to teach at an academy trust, but returned to us on qualifying.

I agree with @Nimbostratus100 about evidence collection. I teach in an independent school so am mostly left to do what I like and am very likely to go rambling off piste, but in one subject on my timetable, PSHE, I have to make sure every lesson shows written evidence that we have discussed what's on the scheme of work and related it to core values. Given that I only have an hour a fortnight, it's somewhat irritating and definitely takes time away from what would be useful discussion

The thing is the government is encouraging it with wanting all schools to be academies and then this being the way for MATs. I saw a job recently for a teacher to be "content creator" for their subject. Basically they plan the activities, PowerPoint for the whole trust and then the teachers (or hltas or low paid staff) can "deliver" it.

It is truly shocking and as much as I resist conspiracy theories the thought that this is intentional worries me (like the killing off of the nhs ) Kids seen as units processed to get results by low paid people delivering centralised resources. When you adopt that model you accept collateral damage of those who don't fit. Of course it will be different for private kids...

You’ve nailed it - exactly why I left and so have many of the best, most experienced colleagues. Incidentally, they were the ones who got the best results. Will it swing back? I don’t know. I’m not sure it will be possible as the skill set to teach without pre-prepared PowerPoints won’t be there in management any more.

It is truly shocking and as much as I resist conspiracy theories the thought that this is intentional worries me (like the killing off of the nhs)

This has crossed my mind as well, and I’m no conspiracy theorist either. Making teaching a largely lower-skilled role, delivering prepackaged lessons, would certainly go some way towards tackling the recruitment and retention crisis.

And then there’s the accountability issue - taking all schools out of LEA control and allowing them to be controlled by a nebulous structure of trustees, board members and executive heads. The academy I mentioned upthread makes a merit of the fact that it has no PTA and parents don’t really involve themselves in school life at all - the model is that you drop your kids off and pick them up and the school does everything for you. Many time poor parents love this, as it takes away much of the guilt for those who can’t engage as much as they feel they should, but it does seem to me that it also suits the school to keep them at arm’s length as much as possible.

All of the MATs I’m aware of locally are also heavily involved with the big education publishing companies and buy in schemes of work wholesale from them, so as with everything else at the moment I’m sure it’s probably a case of ‘Follow the Money.

Spaced retrieval sounds like an excellent thing though. And I think there is a strong argument for having a set curriculum and stuff like textbooks, rather than teachers wasting time reinventing the wheel for each lesson. Robotic teaching is never good though.

Since the imposition of NC, increasingly it has been teach by numbers.

The earnest explanations about what retrieval practice is just shows how a good idea gets turned into an onerous imposition. As if without that set of rules teachers would never ask about anything they’ve previously taught.