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"

@KievsOutTheOven

Teaching ones

🤣

She will be gone for a while trying to furiously find out what unions called for school closures in Scotland 😂

Roughly when were they calling for school closures?

@KievsOutTheOven I've answered that already

The whole idea of "schools" in this country is rooted in Victorian times. We need to look at things analytically and figure out the best way to produce adults that are ready for the working world and the world in general of the 21st century. not the 19th century.

If there isn't enough teachers, pay them more. But they have to prepared to accept MAJOR reforms.

Okay, which Union(s?) demanded for schools to be closed for the period of 18 months which you mentioned several pages earlier? It certainly wasn’t mine; and mine accounts for 80% of teachers.

At times they suggested a blended learning model or short term closures/targeted closures in level 4 areas, but they didn’t call for long term blanket closures, as far as I can remember.

For about the millionth time, the whole point is that all the teachers ARE already quitting.

The lack of comprehension skills and critical thinking in these threads are in fact perfect proof of why teaching is difficult!

I support teachers, nurses and all striking groups.

@KievsOutTheOven

At no point have I suggested any union wanted schools closed for 18 months.

I suggest you re read

And again you appear to presuming that because it didn't happen to you, it didn't happen

I honestly cba (at this moment) goigling the exact quotes

But given that the whole op is based on govt ministers moaning about teaching unions wanting to avoid work then I'm guessing they thought the same.

Fucking sad day when you agree with a tory eh.

It would be far easier to prove (or follow) your point if you used the quote function rather than just tagging people.

Im not presuming anything. If the unions wanted the schools closed they’d have got it. They would have gone on strike. They didn’t even ballot us for strike action. I am privy to the Union bulletins; you are not. The unions IN SCOTLAND did not want school closures.

The government ministers were talking about the unions which operate in ENGLAND given that he was a WESTMINSTER minister and not a HOLYROOD minister. This is another example of your lack of understanding of the devolved education system (though last weeks “GCSE” comment still has me side eyeing everything you say)

Almoat all teachers in Scotland are in EIS and I can confirm that the Scottish teaching unions called for blended learning on a few occasions; and short-term closures in areas which were in complete lockdown (level 4) and immediately before and after the Christmas period.

I suggest you homeschool your children if you have this level of hatred towards teachers, it can’t be healthy.

Most teachers are not quitting.

Schools need massive root and branch reform.

Who said they couldn't? The government said they couldn't.

My other DD is a nurse. She had a mask throughout. A pretty inadequate blue mask, but it was something, and her patients had to wear them too.

But of course, working on an actual Covid ward, she sould absolutely have had a FFP2 at the very least, but that's a whole different complaint.

@KievsOutTheOven

I didn't say anything about Scotland. (how weird you remember 1 comment you've taken out of context.)

I was discussing the unions the mps were talking about.

Cause, ya know, that's the op.

Are you honestly suggesting the unions are so powerful they can alter govt policy?

Cause most teachers argue the exact opposite.

So the unions IN SCOTLAND did not want school closures. Except when they did?
(short-term closures in areas which were in complete lock down)

The quote function is annoying as fuck. Big repeated walls of text. It's perfectly easy to follow what I'm saying. Don't get the hump you didn't read correctly or are so determined to prove me wrong you're making shit up

I do not hate teachers. Nothing I've said would even come close to indicating that's the case so I can only presume you've run out of arguments.

For about the millionth time, the whole point is that all the teachers ARE already quitting.

All the teachers aren't quitting though are they, and they are certainly not quitting on mass because they can automatically earn double in the private sector, if that was the case the government would have already put a halt to the strikes, it really is that simple on a basic economic principle, the same as it is in nordic countries and further world wide.

The lack of comprehension skills and critical thinking in these threads are in fact perfect proof of why teaching is difficult!

Ignoring the unironic sentiment of your opening statement, no one is saying teaching is difficult, every single job has difficulties, we could cure the energy crisis via MN alone if we let teachers be teachers and openly state how they would exclude disruptive students and watch all those who have a sycophantic to any teacher posts.

The odd anecdote of a teacher earning double the wage is an outlier across the globe, teaching is hard, the government responds to public pressure so teachers rely on public pressure because they have to deal at the coal face, whilst teachers across the globe want more government funding the amount of rage thread it would produce on here if parents knew what teachers actually thought and want to introduce would be comical.

@saraclara

Some teachers definitely wore masks. But hey, according to Kiev what the unions said went, so if the unions wanted teachers to wear masks why didn't they make it happen?

Pts do not wear masks routinely. Most of them can't.

And staff in hospitals weren't given appropriate ppe for weeks

Maybe your dd was lucky

Lucky? She caught Covid within ten days of her ward becoming a Covid ward. Of course.
And no she didn't have appropriate ppe. She just had some. A blue mask, a plastic apron and gloves. Same mask as every other staff member in the hospital, other than those in ICU.

But whatever fortunate teachers you know whose SLT were brave enough to go against the rules they'd been given by the DFE, the vast majority of teachers could not wear masks.

I can't believe that we're still having the same arguments that were happening every day on here during Covid times. You're telling a teacher, (and parent of another two teachers) what the rules weren't. Just as people were back then. It's beyond irritating and frankly, stupid. People are just making things up as they go along, to disagree with the people who were actually doing the job. Madness.

Teaching is hard. Lots of teachers want to leave.

Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson are arseholes.

The teaching unions were obstructive, pig headed arseholes during covid.

Unfortunately that did the reputation of teaching quite a bit of harm. A lot of my friends are teachers. I’d say 50% of them
enjoyed covid as a break from work by their own admission. They certainly didn’t want schools open before September 2020 and resented going in on a rota for ‘keyworker kids.’ One friend used to talk quite disdainfully about having to go anywhere near those kids ‘in case she caught something.’

my dd was y6 and she really suffered from lack of school. It was galling to hear some friends crowing about not working at the time.

So as much as Williamson is an arsehole, I do agree with him.

@saraclara

No I'm not.

I said I know of teachers who wore masks. I asked who said they couldn't.

And unless you're a nurse you're also commenting on what happened in a job you don't know based on what your dd did.

Im not sure how that's different to parents of kids in schools

The teaching unions were obstructive, pig headed arseholes during covid.

How much of that impression came from the media?

I remember during lockdown being on the phone to my dad and he was listing off things he’d heard the ‘teaching unions’ weren’t ‘letting’ teachers do, like live lessons or phoning students or whatever and he was genuinely surprised to hear that I was doing all the things the ‘unions were refusing to let teachers do’.

I also remember reading stuff in the Mail and Telegraph about what teachers unions were supposedly doing and it was all news to me, a union member.

So much bullshit was spread by the press in that time.

@noblegiraffe bit like all the photos of schools in the media which gave a very wrong impression of what was actually happening in schools

@herewegoroundthebastardbush

I think, the reason you struggle to understand why some parents do not support teachers’ striking is the fact, which you stated a multiple times on this thread, that you earn a decent wage(well above teachers’, to be precise). And no, it is not because it simply causes “temporary disruption to their childcare”. I’m sure, you are aware that teachers’ salaries start from 28k in England. And yet, most parents/carers in our school in Northern England earn in range 19-22k, which is around minimum wage. I must add, many parents I know are also university educated. And yet, absolutely none of these parents would get 12% salary increase. Moreover, many fear, in order to accommodate NEU salary demand, inevitably, will lead to tax increase.

I agree with your first part, but you have never expanded on the second.

So what are the reforms that you would like to see?

There was massive disparity between schools approach to covid learning.
Some were proactive and did surveys of who had tech etc and some didn't bother.
Then used that excuse to not teach.

Whilst others did survey, plugged tech gaps, found ways around issues and taught. Some /many schools actually ended up ahead of the curriculum.

Some schools didn't miss a beat and taught the normal time table! Where there is a will there is a way.
I couldn't understand why my school was so obstinate and obstructed. Then when it came out about unions advice, it all made sense!

The other massive problem however that still makes my blood pressure explode is seeing those old clips of gavin at the podium with jenny harries next to him

Gavin forcing schools to open with no help for ventilation whilst " jenny would then say to the rest of the population"

You shouldn't go near people you don't know well without a mask,"...

This caused lots of problems and was an absolute disgrace.
.

Meh. Tories have a special level of hate for all public sector workers, they always have.

The elephant in the room is that not all subjects have shortages and not all areas do.

Anyone an Art teacher in the north west?

Physics in Surrey now, you’ll be lucky.

Statistics show a national shortage and yet some teachers in some areas will struggle to obtain teaching posts. I think that was the original idea behind Teach First - to tempt young graduates into teaching for a couple of years to fill these gaps.

So perhaps we do need to offer more money to the Physics grads, but it won’t go down well!