to think Gavin Williamsons views on teachers have been found out and he is trying to back pedal

[cakeorwine]

Leaked WhatsApp messages about schools during Covid and re-opening.

www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/01/leaked-messages-boris-johnson-bemoaning-face-masks-u-turn

In October 2020, Williamson said publicly the following year’s exams would be postponed for a few weeks to make up teaching time. According to the leaked messages, Hancock then got in touch with his cabinet colleague to say “what a bunch of absolute arses the teaching unions are”.

Williamson replied: “I know they really really do just hate work.” Hancock then responded with a laughing emoji and a bullseye.

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said in response to the leak: “Why am I utterly unsurprised to now have it absolutely confirmed that Gavin Williamson was unfit to be secretary of state for education?”

According to Williamson, these comments were about "some unions" and he has the utmost respect for teachers who went above and beyond during the pandemic.

Yet it's the teachers who would be doing the work, not the Unions. So who was he saying who "really really just hate work"

You didn't say effective. You said they weren't given mitigations. Which they were

I said they were allowed to become covid soup, which they were.

😂oh bless your heart. The tape was there. A 2m box around my door. I’d have had to teach from the corridor to stay in it. My classroom barely fits enough desks in it at the best of times; there is NO room for me to have a magic two meter impenetrable box around myself.

How many classrooms were you in during covid?

@Botw1 better tell the families of my colleagues who died from infections caught in work that we didn't need to worry about students spreading it.

Your claims seem to be increasingly nonsensical. However, if teaching is so easy PLEASE come and join the profession. We seem to be a bit short on bodies.

I didn't even have any tape because it would have been obvious that there were pupil desks inside the tape.

So what should schools have done @Botw1? With large numbers of staff off sick, what should they have done?

Unfortunately having worked as a student teacher with mostly poor mentors and a couple of good ones, and then as s TA, I have to agree that there are a lot of poor teachers out there. Many got to be teachers mostly on the basis of having come from family wealth and connections rather than ability, or the desire to educate poorer classes, and many are bullies who want lower paid staff to do their work for them. There are a few good teachers left but they are very much in the minority now - it takes far too much work to be a good teacher now, as they have to do the tickbox make work and the real work. I don’t really know what the solution is now - I think in. The context of the corrupted hereditary politically-correct culture that the U.K. has become, there are no good solutions in sight.

@Botw1

Tape within two metres of the front of my classroom would have taken out the first two rows of desks.

Who told teachers they couldn't?

That would be the DFE and government plus various protest groups.

Many got to be teachers mostly on the basis of having come from family wealth

😂

Yeah my desks touched the line; I constantly had to move them back but then “bigger” children couldn’t physically fit in between the desks, so they had to come forward.

Also bearing in mind @Botw1 schools weren't given any extra funding, what were they meant to do?

Do you remember the comedy thread about schools renting massive tents?

You haven’t got a clue. Try when you’re one of the kids who have to go home to cook meals and care for siblings in an overcrowded home and not enough money for food and clothes.

Schools were allowed to become covid soup, until the point where it was realised that schools are not silos and the covid soup was spilling out into the more vulnerable community. The death rate was spiralling and the only way to put a sharp brake on it was to close schools.

Aren't you the poster who all through lockdown was against re-opening of schools because of deadly second/third wave stuff.

Schools were allowed to become covid soup, Such dramatics, it was a policy of introducing natural immunity after the initial sacre of the unknown in the build up to the first, you was a huge champion for the second lockdown despite it being leaked that it was against scientific knowledge.

12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Fnews%2F2023%2F03%2F02%2Fboris-johnson-covid-lockdown-wrong-data-hancock%2F

IMO and this post may get deleted but you was the stereotypical 'Teacher' that Hancock was referring to, you got yourself into a mess and couldn't uncouple your hate for who was in power with what was going on, despite the government doing things essentially to somewhat appease you, and a lot of your predications have been proven false since those rants about how you might have to go back to face to face.

We see those kids. Personally, I am feeding those kids from my own pocket.

My family wealth is clearly doing a great job... what a mad thing to say

@FrippEnos and just get a few extra portacabins in the playground!

I came from a very working class background; I’m the first and only person in my university to go to uni. My parents both work in the care sector.

I was a young carer.

Most of my colleagues are from similar backgrounds.

@FrippEnos

Youre teacher colleagues on this thread seem absolutely determined that schools closing was completely necessary.

Death and disaster otherwise.

Yet you're adamant that was not the party line from the unions?

They, in your opinion wanted schools open? Never wanted a closure?

Odd to be so out of step with members

@KievsOutTheOven

Im not. I used other examples too. I was correcting a false claim.

It's hard not to when the thread is full off we had no choice blah blah.

I get how defensive teachers are in the face of perceived little support but the attitudes being shown don't help.

Justanotherlurker

Aren't you the poster who all through lockdown was against re-opening of schools because of deadly second/third wave stuff.

Noble was never against the re-opening of schools, She, like the rest of us wanting the same or similar safety measures put in place. and like the rest of us got the same misinformation that you are spreading.

My child lost some time last year, lost 3 days last month, & will lose 4 days this month alone. That's it for teaching, as then it's Easter hols, then study leave, then GCSE (equiv, we're in Scotland) Finals.

She is ASD & SEN & can ill afford more disruption after the Covid years.

I think that a lot of people don't look beyond the inconvenience sadly. It's no surprise about Williamson's attitude. We know what the Tories think about teachers.

Teachers need to wake up and smell the coffee. If they want jobs, they need to turn up to work. If they don't want to teach, they should quit and go and do something else. Give them the choice, come to work and be paid, or don't come to work and be sacked on the spot with a total forfeiture of any pension.

Maybe you should stop trying to tell teachers what was happening in classrooms during covid and instead listen to the teachers telling you what was happening in classrooms during covid? Since they were, you know, the ones in the classrooms during covid. Just a suggestion.

My eldest was doing GCSEs. No online classes, no replies to email questions. Books posted home (for different GCSEs entirely). Exercise books & notes stuck in school locker not allowed home. Absolutely Nothing was offered / provided (& he was ASD & SEN & should have qualified for in school learning but school was 'full'.

So ban striking? Sounds like a great idea! Let’s do that! What could possibly go wrong?

Teachers are leaving. That’s the point.

Teacher bashing at its best 😩. Do a day in the classroom and those of you slagging off teachers would soon back track .