AIBU to think vice principal had unrealistic expectations?

[Supermummy88]

Good evening all,

I’m a geography teacher and took on a new role as head of department last year in November at a fairly new school…this august were their first set of GCSE results. When I started there was a lack of resources, very poorly planned schemes of work and no GCSE lessons on their system. I had a lot of my own resources however I didn’t have any for the exam board that the school do for geography. I have worked extremely hard for the past year to get this department up and running. The other geography teacher is unqualified and new to this country and therefore I couldn’t really rely on him much. I have put in a lot of effort and I don’t think I can put in much more. I am doing intervention classes, lots of exam questions, creating lots of new GCSE content etc. I had a meeting with the VP and AH yesterday and they said that the year 11 mock grades were not good enough in comparison to the RE and history results and that I need to do something as a matter of urgency to ensure that the students reach their targets. They then started going on about how good the RE teacher is and how her grades are amazing. They have come up with a whole list of things I need to do. I just don’t have the time or energy as I have primary aged children on my own. AIBU to just tell them to find someone else for this role? I just can’t deal with the constant scrutiny!!!

Yeah, unfortunately we all work in our own time. I’m gearing up to mark two sets of mock papers today…..

OP I’ve worked for that type of SLT that expects miracles in short spaces of time with little support and I’d run a mile! I suspect it won’t get better.

God they need to stop doing that then!

Are there actually people out there that still think teachers finish at 15:30? In teaching, there are no ‘work hours’. There are teaching hours and then the other hours where you do all the other stuff you’re expected to do, most of which happens at home.

She's head of department? That's not an option.

And then they’ll lose their jobs because it’s not possible to plan, mark, teach attend meetings, speak with parents, enter data in the 1.5 hours after the kids have left.

No of course not I was expecting 5 o'clock or soemthing

This is incredibly frustrating op. I would quietly get through the year and then make tracks to leave and go somewhere you are appreciated (this is what I am doing myself).

I’m burning no bridges but will quietly go

@SaagAloopa

Our ‘work hours’ are spent in a classroom with students, teaching them.

As a secondary teacher I get free periods most days, but as I have a lot of sixth formers, many of those free periods get taken up with one to one support sessions, leaving me little time to do much marking or planning during the day.

So all the planning and marking and admin has to happen after the kids go home. That’s why we don’t finish at 3.30, as per the Daily Mail reader myth. I work into the evening most weeknights and at least a couple of hours at the weekend to keep my head above water. And I work in a private school with small class sizes and a generous free period allocation. When I worked in a state school I worked until 1am most nights.

I’m an English teacher and the marking is the killer. Marking one class set of sixth form essays takes 8 hours of work as a minimum.

I’m a primary teacher that works 4 days a week. I am contracted to do 26 hours per week or 6.5 hours per day. On an average week, I work 40 hours ish per week. I am in school from 8am-5:30pm and still take work home most nights. This is usual practice for nearly all teachers. I get 10% of my teaching time as non-contact time to plan, assess etc, which equates to one afternoon out of class per week.

I’ll start by saying that I’m not a teacher and I don’t live in the UK.

However, I don’t understand why it’s down to individual teachers to keep re-inventing the wheel on a daily basis? Is there no national sharing of standard resources available?

Surely planning lessons and developing schemes of work etc. are prepared centrally (as part of the role of the exam boards who design the subject curriculum), and then leave teachers with a degree of autonomy to implement them? It would certainly help support the unqualified teacher to use existing materials to ‘teach’ the children.

Standard pressure of being a ĥod im.afraid. its relentless. But its your line managers. Job to raise standards. They do compare similar subjects for progress and set targets document your efforts abd challenges in your meetings while looking for another job

I’ll second that: I work three days a week officially, but actually do four as I need time to plan and mark. Teaching is run on teachers’ goodwill. Oh, and I usually have to buy my own stationary and supplies.

Is the school in a MAT? If so there should be MAT wide resources that you can use. If not, there’s been some excellent advice on here. Are there still exam board meetings that you could attend?

In this case it’s because each exam board (there isn’t a national standard one) examines on different topics. So, in geography the case studies for one board may be focussed on the human geography of say, Lagos. History one board may study the American West. Planning isn’t usually done day to day, most departments tend to teach the same scheme of work every year, with tweaks. You know the topics coming up on exams.

I’ve been in your situation and you’re absolutely right. It’s always a thankless job and you always need to do more. By the time they get to Y11 it’s often too late; the children who get the best grades have worked solidly from Y7. Oh and RE isn’t an academic subject, so there’s no comparison! For me, it killed my ambition. I worked really hard and ended up with work related stress and anxiety. After a lot of thinking, I now just do a classroom teacher role. I’m capable of being a really good Head of MFL, but it’s not worth the toll on my mental and physical health. I’ll stick with being a good classroom teacher. Good luck with whatever you choose. X

I've worked in secondary schools since 1991 I long ago realised some schools have good leadership others have poor, like yours. I second every one who advised leaving. They wont change they can't you can.

I wonder if you could set up being a private tutor and have your own business .I have to say it sounds as though you are being put under a lot of pressure .I also would advise looking for a change of school.

OP, I'm a HoD too and was in almost the same boat as you (except with a bigger department). I inherited a department with NO shared resources, no schemes or work nothing. The results were the worst in the school, unsurprisingly. I worked hard and turned the department around. Admittedly I worked all through the summer holidays my first year. However- the difference is, that my SLT valued and respected the work I did. They didn't criticised me for a moment. They haven't compared my department's grades with other departments (despite our grades still being lower than they could be). They have just shown gratitude for everything I'm doing. As a result, I feel valued and am motivated to keep going. In your shoes, I would walk in a heartbeat. Best of luck.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Was that expectation from a xmas cracker?

"Work hours" in teaching aren't what you think. A full time teacher in England has something like 32.5 hours a week of "directed time" spread over 195 days when the school is open. But in 2023 the average full time teacher actually works 52.4 hours each week once marking and lesson planning are taken I to account.

Source: https://schoolsweek.co.uk/heads-and-teachers-working-longer-despite-workload-push/

@whiskeytangofox if it was just the planning! anyway even if you have ready made plans and resources, it is often necessary to update or adapt to your actual students that you know (otherwise they might as well be taught by AI). But in any case, planning is actually just a fraction of the work. There is marking, if you teach subject with a lot of free writing it takes time to read, then you have to process all the data, track their results, etc. And you have to attend meetings and deal with all sorts of issues and record everything, keep up to date with policies and training, record all of that too… It really is a lot more than it may seem from the outside!

I have spent the past year working until about 10.30 most nights. I just can’t put in any more effort than I already have. The VP said that he’s been in schools where geography results have been so poor that the head of geography had to do intervention lessons every day after school for an hour! That’s not something I will be doing!

Ah, I see the mistake here, and it is common from teachers. Work hours do not include breaks (e.g. lunch breaks, tea breaks), so when I say I work 9-5, that counts as 7.5 hours, not 8, to account for the 30 mins of the day when I am nipping to the loo, grabbing a snack, etc.

I assume you grab a snack and nip to the loo during your days - you may even grab a 20 min lunch break and take a tea break as well. This time isn't included in your work hours, so you likely work less than 40 hours a week (prob closer to 35), which is entirely reasonable and comparable to most other jobs.

This whole "I work 50 hours a week" from teachers, when they are including all breaks (and sometimes even their commute 😂) is ridiculous - no one else does that. I have heard a teacher on here say "I leave the house at 7am and get home at 6pm, therefore I work 11 hours a day, or 55 hours a week"...where that just describes a normal 37-40 hours a week of actual work, like the rest of us.

OP, did you expect SLT to shrug their shoulders and say, "oh well, these kids will not achieve what they should, hard luck on them"? It is their duty to ensure that doesn't happen, and you are accountable for that.

You really should have asked for support earlier, but now that you are in this situation, you are responsible for fixing it. Yes, you will need to work harder over the coming months make sure they don't under-achieve. Who on earth else did you think would be accountable for it? Sometimes we have to work harder after we have underperformed.

Why is it poor leadership? Do you think they should shrug their shoulders?