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"

Like the NHS there needs to be a total overhaul of what functions the education system needs to provide. Having teachers provide a ‘Jack of all trades’ service isn’t working with the classes sizes and budgets schools have.

New teacher recruitment has been very poor over the past few years. Therefore with teachers leaving to join civil service etc or retiring even small independents are struggling to recruit.

Your kids are presumably in one or two schools? I have first-hand experience in maybe 14-15 schools; and I can assure you, there is NOT room for 2m social distancing

😂😂😂🙄

Social distancing? In a school with tiny classrooms, 1800 kids and 250 staff.

😂😂😂

But there was tape on the floor and nobody crossed it! She’s sure of it! Her kids told her!

Kids were supposed to all sit 2m apart. Classes in most schools average about 30 kids.

To fit 30 kids, you would need 4 rows of 6 kids. If kid 1 and 6 sat touching the wall; the room would need to be 10 metres wide and 8 metres deep. Plus you’d need clearance for people to actually get to their desks. And they’d need furniture, places to store resources, etc.

Not to mention that the clearance for access needs to be big enough to get wheelchairs and so on into the rooms.

Not to mention how can you actually help a kid with their work from 2m away?

you’d also need a 2m wide access corridor into and out of the room.

Yet shes 100% certain that at no point did teachers and children come within 2m of each other 😂

Shes also sure Scottish people need GCSE’s to become a teacher in Scotland though. And is continually quoting what happened in her kids school in Scotland on a post about schools in England; yet also claiming she isn’t talking about Scotland; she’s talking about England.

@KievsOutTheOven l know. I’m a teacher!

Corridors heaving at changeover.
Drama room with no window
35 kids in miniature class rooms.
Kids with masks on heads, under nose etc…

Nope, no tape and no social distancing.

These WhatsApps and discussions bring back the absolute mindfuck teachers were expected to endure, with people telling them to ignore the reality in front of them and to reconcile themselves to nonsensical batshittery.

Like the Simon Case WhatsApp about masks in corridors pointing out kids were wearing masks on buses. Remember being told we had to provide bins so they could get off the bus, safely remove their mask, then head into a school that was more crowded and less well ventilated than the bus, without their mask? As Boris said, the guidance specifically excluded schools “god knows why”.

Or when the workplace guidance came out about social distancing and we had to space out our school offices so every desk was 2m apart and limit occupancy then head to classrooms where it was sardines?

And Jenny Harries telling the nation that covid wouldn’t spread in schools because the kids would be facing forward?

And that teachers at the front would be fine because the kids were shorter than them?

And we had to try to explain this to the kids, who aren’t stupid?

It was genuinely Orwellian.

I mean, Gav and Matt were saying the unions were obstructive or whatever, but what they were forcing on teachers made zero sense from any sort of health and safety perspective.

Feel quite sorry for the unions trying to deal with Matt and Gav.

I guessed that. She’s a nurse who is all over every post about teachers for some reason, posting the same misconceptions over and over, not listening to anyone or answering any questions which would disprove her narrative.

Could you imagine we genuinely kept them 2m apart in the corridors? 10 classrooms, dismissed one by one, 2m apart - it would take half the lesson to get them to their next class 😂

The government never listened to the teaching unions during Covid anyway and did exactly what they wanted. I remember when some London (usually Labour) councils had to step in themselves and close schools.

Secondly, the journalist who has leaked this stuff - wasn’t she actually an ardent Brexiteer? And is it actually a coincidence that is is leaked just as teachers are striking? And the Northern Ireland protocol deal is going through?

@KievsOutTheOven

Youre being very weird. Either that you seem to be incapable of following context in a conversation or are so blinded by rage at being disagreed with you feel the need to make stuff up.

Im not sure why you're so clearly personally offended by me.

But let's try again

nobody crossed it! She’s sure of it! Her kids told her!

Yet shes 100% certain that at no point did teachers and children come within 2m of each other

Not what I said.

The context of that conversation was a pp saying teachers had no mitigations. It's a common theme. Teachers often seem to say they are the only ones having to do xyz. It's rarely true. There were mitigations in schools. How effective or even sensible they were is clearly a different matter but that was true for everywhere

I didn't say there was tape and no one crossed it. I said some teachers refused to go within 2 meters of a child. This happened. Believe it or not, not all teachers are good teachers who care about the kids.

I also didn't say that Scottish teachers needed gcses. I said teachers did. Which they do. I then clarified that I understood the entry requirements differ from country to country. you said teachers deserve to be paid more than nurses because nurses are less educated and less skilled.

Yet you talk about giving me the side eye? 😂

And yes, it is possible to discuss my experiences whilst also discussing my opinion of the op. It's really not difficult.

But anyway, your comments and several others insulting parents are probably a good indication of why teachers can be viewed negatively and probably don't get the support they feel they need.

There is often an unnecessary tone of superiority and defensiveness. Lots of teachers seem absolutely unable to cope with any amount of criticism or disagreement. It leads to absolute outrage and often insults towards parents and their parenting.

Lots of teachers seem to think parents should be falling over themselves with gratitude and are arse holes of they don't.

So whilst I used to have some sympathy for the lot of teachers and how difficult their role that is rapidly disappearing

The context of that conversation was a pp saying teachers had no mitigations.

Except (and I have already pointed this out to you), I didn’t say teachers had no mitigations, I said schools were allowed to become covid soup.

Now you’re trying to tell me what I said as well as trying to tell teachers what we experienced.

I’m not blinded by rage; I’m finding the whole thing quite funny to be honest.

RE the tape:
Don’t lie. I’ve screenshotted exactly where you said that kids or teachers weren’t allowed to cross the magical tape. At least keep your story straight.

Re the GCSE’s
I had said that you need 5 highers to get into a teaching course in Scotland compared to 3 to get into a nursing course in Scotland. You told me you could get into a teaching course with 3 GCSE’s. Given that the context was Scotland; your point isn’t relevant. And no, I said you can’t compare the pay campaign that nurses are on to the one teachers are on because they are completely different jobs requiring different levels of qualification; and that you’d need to compare teaching to some of the higher qualified nursing positions like a health visitor because they require a similar level of education and training. And actually; they do earn broadly the same as those roles.

You seem to pick and choose whether you are talking about the issues faced by your kids; or those faced by the majority of teachers working in a completely different system, which is why the teachers in Scotland qualify their statements with that - the Scottish system has as little to do with the English system as it does the Japanese, American or South African system.

Please show me where I’ve insulted parents. It’s never happened - I’m a parent myself. I’ve never insulted anyone; actually.

And nobody cares if we have your sympathy. Literally nobody. But don’t come here and tell us what was happening in classrooms when you were not in a classroom at the time.

@KievsOutTheOven

Yes.

They. As in the teacher I was talking about who refused to go within 2 meters of the kids. Not all teachers. Do keep up

You absolutely did argue for pages that nurses were less educated and less skilled than teachers, several people commented on it but it's utterly bizarre to have brought it up a week later more than once.

I didn't say you insulted parents. I said your comments along with others which had insulted parents was contributing to my poor view of teachers

For some one who doesn't care what I think you seem pretty pissed off. Remembering comments from last week, screen shotting

Im baffled as to why saying I think the unions acted like arse holes would provoke this reaction but like I said it's seems a common theme in teachers

@noblegiraffe

My apologies.

You didn't say no mitigations.

You just implied it.

*yet hospitals and supermarkets were given mitigation measures to protect their staff to help them stay open.

Schools were allowed to become covid soup, until the point where it was realised that*

Thanks for agreeing that I didn’t say it and it was what you thought I said, not what I actually said that set you off on a little rant about teachers.

I don’t need you to tell me what the situation was in schools because I was there. And I didn’t have any tape.

Please show me the bit where you were actually talking about one single teacher rather than schools in general? Because it’s not there. And here is a screenshot that shows you were, in fact, talking about wider schools rather than one singular teacher.

Schools = more than one school, yes? So this single teacher worked in multiple schools during covid? Was this in Scotland? - that question is highly relevant.

It is factually correct that in Scotland to become a teacher you require a higher level of educational attainment than to become a nurse. And it’s highly relevant that if the recruitment crisis in England is to continue; they will likely reduce this; and less skilled/qualified people will be teaching kids. And if teacher pay continues to fall by 24% in real terms in scotland we will have to employ less skilled/qualified teachers as the “best candidates” will simply choose to not apply to become teachers, and the issues being faced in England will prevail here, too.

You are not qualified to say the unions acted like arseholes because you have no idea what actually happened in any classroom (except perhaps one?) or what information was passed between unions, teachers, and the government. You got all your information from the media. Well, that and presumably your primary aged child (since they only had one teacher I presume they are of primary age? Or were they at secondary school, seeing 12+ teachers per week, and only one of them stayed in “the box”?)

But one teacher had tape and didn’t leave the box! That can be extrapolated to all the 54,000 teachers in Scotland. And then since we can jump from Scotland to England interchangeably; all 968k teachers in England too. And why leave Wales and NI out too? There are another 23.5k in Wales and 18.5k in NI.

All of them had the impermeable tape, because one did.

@KievsOutTheOven

I thought neither you nor anyone else cared what I thought?

It doesn't matter what I've actually said given that you just make up weird wee scenarios any way so crack on. Keep screen shotting 😂😂

@noblegiraffe

There's that weird territorial thing again.

Only teachers can discuss what happened. Parents can fuck off. Their experience is neither relevant or welcome.

Yet you are OK to discuss what measures were put in place in workplaces you didn't work in?

Figures

Anyway, good luck with your strikes and retention crisis.

Im sure lots of parents and potential teachers will read threads like these and think, wow. Teaching seems great!

I really feel for those in Scotland. Really tough on parents and dc

@Botw1 teachers (and any parents who were allowed into classrooms) are the ones who know what the environment was, yes.

Have you been in a primary classroom, ever? Have you seen the distance between children? Have you noticed that those teachers do not get to stand at the front and teach? They teach by walking among the children so that they can see what they're doing, and what they're producing, whether their holding their pencil correctly, whether they've understood what they're doing. It's not like some secondary lessons where teachers only get to see the finished work. Primary children have to be watched as they work.

It's absolutely laughable to think that any distance can be maintained at all, never mind 2m and the teacher behind tape all day.

See, I do see some of your point. SNP HAVE fucked up Scottish education. I used to be so proud to work as a teacher in Scotland, and that’s why historically we were paid more - because we were sector leading. And we aren’t now.

The actual quality of teaching hasn’t deteriorated though, but the kids learning experience has. And the workload has increased; because they have become so inventive in how they compare us to each other; we spend so much time tracking everything we do, reporting on this, reporting on that, and so on. And all these things DO help, it’s undeniable. But it takes so much time; there is no time left for the bits we are actually passionate about - planning lessons, differentiating, learning, and so on.

I can only speak for my own school but we have 33 in many classes as very little support - the support workers are all absolutely amazing and invaluable, but there aren’t enough of them. I was so sad they were strong armed into accepting 5% - most I spoke to didn’t accept.

Education reform is the massive red herring here. What CfE did was remove the need to have national resources, instead everything is at the discretion of the pupils and the school; so we have to make everything up from scratch based on arbitrary statements - have you read through the E’s and O’s/benchmarks? There is ABSOLUTELY NO CLARITY as to what they are expecting. For example, they have statements like “I can give a detailed explanation of …” - what exactly constitutes detail? And there are also many benchmarks that do not progress the skills and knowledge required for the national curriculum.

The teachers are striking for 10% because we are 24% worse off than we were when I started teaching, and we are working significantly more.

Nice deflection. I screenshotted exactly what you said, twice, to prove your lies and lack of coherency. Yet I’m the one apparently making up scenarios? 😂

Hmmm at that deletion it seems attacks in one direction are ok. The general point was right though. Dc in Scotland are facing a tougher time

@KievsOutTheOven

I haven't lied. My point was clear. I'm sorry you're unable to understand what I was saying

You have repeatedly said I've said things I haven't. Whether through lack of understanding or malice I'm not sure.

I thinks it's very odd behaviour to be this upset so I'll apologise for any offence caused.

I genuinely hope teachers can help improve things, if only for the kids sake.