Trainees no longer ready for workplace

[Kukcoo]

I used to love having trainees allocated to us. They were so enthusiastic, hardworking and a breath of fresh air. It was great to see them develop.

The last few have acted like they're doing us a favour if they turn up by lunchtime because they could have called in sick for nothing. Seriously can't be bothered doing the basics and expect everything to be done for them. Little respect for anyone else and the huge support they're being given. Won't meet a deadline, because this would affect their mental health and basically impinges on their human rights.

They all still expect to qualify and will be passed by the provider unless they do something truly dangerous, but they won't have the real experience or skills to join the workplace and get on with a job.

I'm barely even a different generation, but wouldn't have dreamed of acting the way they do when I was learning and felt I had to prove myself. AIBU to expect standards to be the same?

I'm not from the UK so I'm not familiar with the system but it sounds like the problem is the University.
They are lowering standards and expecting you to do the same so most of their students pass.
Which might work for them in short term, but I imagine that a qualification from that university will not be worth much if the graduates get a reputation for being unfit to work due to poor training and lowering of the bar. The qualification is meant to have prepared you for the job and show that you are of an adequate standard to carry it out surely?
You say that the University is constantly pushing for a lowering of the bar, disregards reports, can the school not push back and refuse to take any more trainees. They sound more trouble than they are worth and cannot be benefitting your students.
My guess is that once the traineeship doesn't stay a rubberstamping exercise and trainees are required to perform at certain level or fail, there will be an improvement. Right now, why would they bother putting in the effort if they are going to pass anyway?

Can you tell us which uni it is? Or PM me?
My daughter's looking at teacher training courses so want to tell her where to avoid!

I think you need to have earnest talks with them on their first day.

Give strong direction of what calls for them to stay home and appropriate hours at work etc. ie: Negative Covid test or getting broken leg set or Grandma's funeral.

When I was a trainee we were given a two week time table of when we would be expected, with assistance, to plan and take the lesson for the whole class (or a group of children). We wrote up plans to show to the classroom teacher and keep for assessment. All other hours were spent in the classrooms, helping and observing.

You should point out school start times and when assembly is held, where they could be expected to participate. We were used in the lunch time rotation of play ground supervision too as well as being asked if we had any skills to share in a lunch time club with the children. We helped with athletic and swim training etc.
Being on time was always half an hour early.
.
I am truly shocked!
I imagine you have to label your trainees as very poor at punctuality.
How do you find graduates?
Do they have the skills to teach properly?

Yep I have a trainee at the moment who has a really quiet voice- she will talk at the same level - yesterday she told a student the same instruction that the student couldn't hear (lovely student who was getting more and more embarassed) TWELVE times. Each time the student didn't hear- she just did a pained face as if to say 'what can I do about this?'
In the lesson feedback I said she needed to be able to speak louder to which she said 'I just cant'
At some point we need the teeth to be able to say 'Ok then you can't be a teacher then'
We are constantly undervaluing the profession- it's not for everyone and we should be proud of that.

Sending my SIL a link to this thread, OP. She was a teacher all her life but left about five years ago after seeing how things were going.

Im hoping my kids when they hit the workplace will be the ones who understand how to be reliable and responsible. Im trying my best 🤞

I'd sack anyone who was stupid enough to get lip filler!

I do a weekly session for the trainees and they are worse at common sense than my students

I teach in a different room before the session which is Period 2 in our day- so it takes me about 4 minutes to walk down to my normal room. Last week, they turned up exactly on the bell and because I wasn't there , they all left immediately (bear in mind that normal classes line up outside and don't immediately abandon the lesson if a teacher is late)
Then as none of them check their emails in the school day (too overwhelming apparently) I had to spend 20 minutes of the session walking round school finding them. One thing I am finding is the older staff are doing loads as you ask the new ones to do it and they seem put out that they shouldn't have to do things

I wish I was making this up- I feel like a Daily Mail rage baiter!

I’m hoping the same for my Gdcs. Signs so far are good! 🙂

Agree with this. I went to work at my old secondary school a while ago. When I was a student there it was a very good school and super strict with high expectations. I still believe it was too strict back then personally, but even I was shocked as a staff member at how mollycoddled and pandered to the students are now. Lots of refusal to go to lessons, smashing windows etc and the staff could do nothing, students just laughed in the headteacher's face etc. I remember gently asking some girls to move as they were sitting on the floor leaning on and blocking the main entrance doors, and they straight up refused to move! And these were nice 'nerdy' girls, not 'naughty' ones! The challenging children were on another level altogether.

I don't think schools should be as strict as they were when I was young, but they certainly need a touch of that bringing back to help kids get used to having to work in a hierarchy, and build some resilience! I couldn't believe how soft the kids were, coming to me crying all day long often because of the most minor things, and I can fully believe a lot of them are carrying this into their young adulthood and it's not doing them any favours. Some also knew their parents would phone or come into the school screaming at staff if they didn't get their way so they felt invincible.
Just to add they weren't all like this, but a very large number were..

Shut uppppp this is absolutely outrageous!! 😂

I would bet that those trainees had Saturday and holiday jobs even if they didn't need the money.

This hurts the 'actual' people with mental illnesses. Everyone and their uncle has 'something' these days, and will over-exaggerate the slightest thing to enable them to fit into some sort of box. It's a get out if jail free card. A classic one is OCD. Everyone with a preference for some sort of organisation says they have OCD.
It just enables laziness. "I can't work because #mentalhealth." I feel bad for those with real mental illnesses as it diminishes their plight.

I'm in a profession and it's the same. They don't write in a coherent way, they can't read instructions in an email so everything has to be in a meeting where you walk through the email with them, they often don't do what's asked even with an email AND a meeting about the email, and they don't understand office or email etiquette. If you ask them to do a meeting note, it's clear they've not paid attention to any of it as the note is either incomplete, totally inaccurate, or both. They also commonly refuse to do trainee-level tasks because they're "boring" or they only want to do the things that "really inspire them".

It's a change that I've noticed in the past 5 years and this year is the worst so far. The above were all tasks that trainees were doing brilliantly before, say, 2019. I'm a good mentor and have mentored trainees for 15 years, but I'm struggling more and more to know what to do with them. I mentioned it informally to a friend on the interview panel and she said that the ones we don't hire are even worse.

I know people are going to say that it's COVID but I find it difficult to believe that all of these trainees were great students before 2020 and now can't write coherently, understand instructions or behave appropriately in an office.

I agree about the behaviour making wet adults- I have had a parent come on to school site to 'get me' over 1 demerit given to her daughter in line with school policy about being late to lesson

1 demerit - given for missed homework etc, a very small sanction. This was a 'nice' supportive middle class parent- who started with 'can you explain why I have a sobbing 12 year old in my car who was so upset she couldn't go to netball'
There was not one bit of that woman who questioned her child's resilience over 1 demerit- it was immediately my fault and it should be removed

I have a “friend” who parents like this. She is absolutely unbearable.

Yes me too, we've had a batch of graduate masters mental health nursing students and out of five only one was at the level expected. Four needed loads of extra support and one we had to fail. Just not at the standard expected at all. We fed it back to the university, not sure what they will do if anything

I agree about the Saturday job. Dd1 and her mates have all worked and are noticeably more sensible and practical than dd2s friends who are from very privileged families and never have. Several aren’t allowed to
usr public transport! At 15! So I can well believe these anecdotes

I've heard this about grads and apprentices in our place (large financial services firm) so not just the trainee teachers. There are grads who won't come into the office because they'd "rather work remotely and don't see the point of the commute" even when people are coming in to help them settle, and we had one APPRENTICE who said they didn't expect to have to study and do assessments to qualify!

We've had two work experience students this year. One was 17 and in his first year of A levels, the other 21 and in her last year of uni.

I've told the 17 year old to get in touch with us if he's interested in an apprenticeship when he finishes his A-levels and the Uni student is now working with us on a part time basis around her lectures.

So, @Kukcoo , in my experience it's definitely not all trainees.

That said, we have a swathe of staff in their late 20's that seem to thing they're doing us a massive favour just by turning up. One has used his 20 days annual leave AND his 20 days paid sick leave then strolls in 10 mins late every day. When we had a word with him about the lateness, he said "well you know I have to take public transport". The train literally comes every 6 minutes at the longest interval. It drives me mad!

Sadly it's more systemic than meets the eye. Our dc are 26 and almost 30.

At primary the head closed the school at sight of a snowflake, banned use of the school field when it was windy in case a branch fell on a child. Booked no argument from parents about the idiocy. My children had teachers who couldn't spell or understand basic number work in the 00's. Standards were eyewateringly low and this was at a top of the league tables school. Behaviour was OK though.

DS was pulled out aged 8. DD did one year at a holy grail secondary where there were two behaviour policies: one for the badly behaved which gave terrific licence; one for the well behaved which were afforded no licence. Notwithstanding some execrable teaching and failure to act on behavioural issues. We pulled dd out at the end of Y7.

The primary head became a super head, the secondary head took the governors 7 years to remove.

The expectations and work ethic, together with quality of teaching in the independent sector were much better. My dc were both work ready.

I remember hearing an interview with Deborah Meaden on the radio where she said she gets CVs from graduates who want a managerial role but haven't actually ever had a job. Many were in their mid-twenties because they couldn't find that kind of job and so did nothing while they waited. She was saying she would far rather employ someone who'd worked in McDonalds rather than someone who'd never had a job. She was laughing at the idea of someone coming in to manage others when they hadn't worked at all - the entitlement is shocking.

Interestingly I am just reading a science fiction book about a world where life has been made too easy for the inhabitants. Food is easy to get and there are loads of resources. As a result, they don't really need to think. I could go into more detail but essentially each generation is getting less intelligent, because they don't need to strive for anything.

Not exactly the same, but I drew a connection when I read this thread!

I had this situation when placing trainee teachers into an industry placement and you'd not believe the behaviour and attitude, all displayed to a very well known blue chip company. The company refused to take any other trainees from the well respected SE university and said they got better attitudes and performace from KS4 work experience students!!

I think you’ve hit nail on head. I think over parenting in particular at all ages. I’m raising my children pushing them to be independent and do things as soon as they’re able. Eg my 2.5 can help unload dishwasher / carry things. Yet SIL teens seemed clueless to try