AIBU to think that not being allowed to sit down whilst teaching is insane!

[Supermummy88]

Good evening all,

I’m a head of department in a secondary school where the work load has become horrendous. We have a new senior assistant head and he has made some awful changes and has increased work load by about 50%. Last week he made a complaint that he saw a number of teachers sitting down during lessons and that it’s not acceptable and that we should not be sitting down at all during any stage of the lesson apart from doing the register. I physically can’t stand for hours, but he doesn’t seem to care and thinks that teachers are not doing their job properly unless they are consistently circulating the classroom. I’m very close to giving up teaching completely and finding another career and I feel this has given me more of a reason to just leave.

What do you all think about this?

And for context, you could easily have 90 unmarked books by the end of the day, all of which can and should be placed/ kept anywhere the teacher chooses!

Refer to your union.

Absolute batshit

Haha are you on SLT? Absolute nonsense.

Lazy teaching involves no effort, involves no interest in the students, involves no planning or interesting resources. It has nothing to do with sitting down at any point of the lesson.

My class receive the input for the lesson sitting on the carpet. If I stand the whole lesson I'm looming over them. Sitting creates an inclusive atmosphere which is much more conducive to learning.

Which is how it should be. you may, one day, need to sit down a bit more, but you’ll still be the same teacher!

personally I love to whizz around the room, table to table, on my desk chair.

As a pupil at school 40 years ago I had a teacher who had absolute control of his class from a seated position. He had no choice. He was in a wheelchair.

Lovely that you've found what works for you.

Other ways work for other people.

Sitting down at points during a lesson - completely reasonable. Sitting at a computer doing emails whilst the class merrily (and potentially fairly quietly) do sweet FA - not reasonable.

SLT need to actually determine if any staff are doing the latter, and then speak to those people individually. Potentially they need to review workload if there are a number of staff who are having to use lesson time for other work (I can absolutely guarantee there are no staff sitting at their desk reading a magazine!)

FWIW if everything is calm and quiet, I often go proper old school and call kids up to the front desk so I can have a quick look through their book. Although tbh it's pretty rare that I don't have any hands up at all 🤦‍♀️

Yeah but when you’re circulating you could absolutely sit down sometimes. I do! If there’s a spare chair at the table I’ll take it. I’m not doing my back in leaning over talking to the kids individually or in small groups. Either I’ll crouch down so I’m at their level (fairly comfy for me but not for everyone) or I’ll grab a chair.
´No sitting down’ is an idiotic rule. Encouraging teachers to circulate during group activities is generally a good thing.
No chair at all for the teacher is absolutely awful. Being able to swap between standing walking and sitting more or less whenever I want is one of the things I really like about teaching as a job. It’s good for me physically to have that variety and that freedom. It prevents so much pain from things like sciatica (from too much sitting) and varicose veins (from too much standing).

I teach in a classroom that is so small I can’t get around to each pupil. I kind of stand at the front and talk then I sit at my desk and those pupils whom I can’t reach come out and bring their work to me. I do walk around as much of the room as I can but it’s such a small room that I feel like a tiger pacing in its cage!

My HT has moaned about people sat down when teaching. I am in peri with badly aching joints - if he wanted to raise this with me I’d run a coach and horses through him.

Honestly, the way management go on, you’d think teaching was an over-subscribed profession with people clamouring to get on the classroom. As it is, there are jobs galore up on TES, maybe HTs need to have a wake up call?

Hmmmm. funnily enough one of my skillsets is behaviour management and I am often called upon to give advice or to observe and feed back. One thing I frequently notice is jack in a box teachers who wander about the room interacting obsessively with students - because they have been told to rather than because the students need , want it or are achieving better because of it - and interrupting their flow have noisier , less focused, less serene classroom environments. Sometimes a tecaher sat calmly at the front works best. It was a noughties educational obsession that classrooms have to be a constant hubbub.

As others have said, the most confident teachers can often boss learning form the front of the room, . If I stand up in my room, my visibility of every student is worse, because of the fairly niche shape and layout. Personally, I favour the perch on a desk at the front approach but my classroom doesn't allow for this.

Different things work for different people.

Plus your comment on another 60 year old's health is pretty smug and patronising.

Do you have a strong union at your school? This is a collective issue that you all need to come together over. No wonder teachers are leaving in droves.

I’m primary and I have constantly got this as feedback for the past decade. Not even just about me sitting in my own chair, but that I shouldn’t be sitting down with the group I’m working with, or while they do a test, or if modelling writing at the board. I’m disabled and literally use a walking stick. One of the reasonable adjustments that is always agreed by the school is that I can sit as needed. Yet if I point that out, I’m accused of not taking feedback well 🙄

That is absolutely outrageous. I'm genuinely appalled by that.

Keep evidence of this and look forward to taking them to the cleaners when you're finally ready to leave.

I no longer teach but I used to answer emails or even laminate or do some displays during many of my lessons. I had everything planned and prepared well and had well established routines where the students had a 'figuring out' or 'doing' part of a lesson and rather than interrupt and give the answer I sat at my desk and used my time wisely. It took a huge amount of work and persistence to get to that level and my reputation was good. My groups achieved and the atmosphere was positive. All while I sat when it made sense to and used my time wisely. Being in your seat doesn't mean students can't signal that they need you. I had SLT who behaved like leaders. I could call them if a rare student was out of line and they supported with the issue. They managed the situation, not me. They could also be called if again rarely I had to go to the toilet. I would likely still be a teacher if more schools were like this. Now everything I hear is blame the teacher for all social ills.

I don't think you've in understood. We're obviously not sitting at our tables doing direct teaching. Nor are we sitting at our tables when people have work they are stuck on. However, walking round when people are engaged in an activity and all answers have been sorted can be distracting. Wandering round during short fire timed activities can be distracting. Sitting in your chair with a small group of children on the floor around you is better for my body than me also sitting on the floor - which I used to do 10 years ago etc

I’m so shocked by this. It seems to me that treating teachers like they are the lowest of the low and then wondering why kids don’t respect them more is pretty silly.

"Learning theory moves on and learning g practises move on. Sometimes you need to try a new way to see the difference."

Some children find it very off putting to have a teacher hovering over them and reading over their shoulder. My dd had this from an invigilator during her exams and it was quite distracting and made her feel that what she was writing was incorrect.

When I was a kid, there were some teachers I'd not have asked for help from, had they been sitting on my desk! My favourite teacher sometimes did the crossword, while we were working, but trust me, that man knew everything that was going on in his classroom.

I don't think many teachers are sitting down for the entirety of the lesson, but you have to trust teachers to know their own pupils and to manage their classes accordingly.

If a teacher is struggling and there are behaviour issues or poor results, then it's fair enough for SLT to step in and make suggestions.

The important thing is that the teacher is approachable as a person and that pupils feel supported and comfortable, within the classroom.

When I do long independent writes in in Year 2 I've been known to sit down and turn my back on the class for ten mins. If I scan the classroom there's a couple who will catch your eye and use it to ask a not needed question which disrupts everyone.

Also, when the children are completing a reading assessment and I ask them to read the text in their heads, I also sit and read it in my head. It models what to do and helps them to relax and focus on the text.

I'm very confident in my practice and know what works for my classes. It's different for each class.

I have had a complaint about it made through my union as a particularly bad school but tbh it didn’t make much of a difference! My current school is a lot better about it, still have the occasional thoughtless comment but they do often correct themselves and my job share is deputy and always sticks up for me on it anyway!

Well they can be prescriptive if they want. They are in charge. But that's not how to get the best out of teachers. And often thet know absolutely fuck all about teaching subjects other than their own, so they come up with bright ideas that actually don't work well across the board. The more prescriptive they get, the less creativity, enthusiasm and good will they will get from their teachers. Doesn't sound like a great plan to me. They should trust that subject specialists know best about how to deliver their curriculum.

Well I'm coming at it from a primary school perspective and you obviously from a secondary perspective. I would never say no sitting down at all but I have seen some very bad practice where teachers sit in the corners of primary classrooms the whole lesson and the children are so bored and disengaged. Teachers need to be active in most of the lesson for many reasons.

I could manage it and tbh it’s the way I’ve had to teach at the beginning of the year with difficult classes because it was like if I sat down I didn’t exist suddenly 😂 but I have a chronic pain condition and I would be in absolute agony by the end of the day. I don’t think sitting down for a minute while they’re working independently is an issue honestly.

That's horrible! You need a base, even if you are out with the children most of the time.

I'm coming from a primary perspective and I've never seen teachers sitting in a corner the whole lesson, apart from when I was at school in 1980s!