Have state school teachers faced redundancy for not working during lockdown?

[notevenat20]

I recently read

I think those of us who work in the private sector understand we are going to have to work during periods of self isolation whilst juggling family. It was the same during lockdown. We want to keep our jobs so we will have to provide the service.

This got me wondering, is this a pressure state school teachers feel too?

Certainly at DC’s school no educational provision was given for almost all of lockdown (there were 6 key worker children in the school, out of 420).

I wonder if teachers should open their gardens to the public so they can see how hard they worked in lockdown

@BunsyGirl it isn’t that simple. Some teachers wanted to read a story each day for their class to listen to. They were told all classes had to do the same to maintain consistency and due to lack of technology for many pupils at home in the catchment area the teachers weren’t allowed to do it. If a teacher had gone against SLT they would be disciplined. There is really not much autonomy allowed at teacher level in many schools nowadays.

And your comments show exactly why certain teachers did nothing.

Teachers generally do what they are directed to do by management, as in other jobs. We don’t have much autonomy.

I have seen teachers criticised for emailing links to resources like Oak Academy as being ‘lazy’ when Oak Academy was funded specifically for that purpose by the DfE.

@notevenat20 I really hope it is not a reflection of the bulk of the profession. My brother spent a lot of lockdown arguing with members of the public on Facebook pages when they challenged the provision of their children’s school. A number of his colleagues joined in.

I don't understand how I could face redundancy as a teacher because of what happened during lockdown. Redundancy means your job is no longer needed (you can't make someone redundant and then employ someone else to the same role). So unless we suddenly have lost a load of students they need me in school teaching (or at least someone doing my role). We have previously had redundancies due to curriculum restructure that has reduced hours for some subjects but that is not the same as what is being suggested here.

For what it's worth I worked hard through lockdown, but it was different to how I normally work. I probably worked slightly less hours - I usually do 10-11 hour days in term time, whereas I was doing about 8 hours a day in lockdown - not having to chase up behaviour issues or queue for the photocopier/guillotine definitely saved some time.

@noblegiraffe So why did some state schools have excellent provision during lockdown and others do fuck all? Where did the ones who actually worked hard get their autonomy from?! Maybe blame the senior leadership teams, but putting it all back into the Government is ridiculous.

@starrynight19 I wonder if dentists and lawyers could open their gardens too. Many people working in those sectors were on full day and were not working. Schools are back full time for all. Looking back does no good. If you want to find teachers who did nothing during lockdown I’m sure you could find anecdotes to fit this agenda. Many teachers I know are back to 60 hour weeks with increased teaching time due to staggered starts and finishes, GCSE catch up etc. You don’t need to worry about them sitting at home gardening.

Interestingly there are quite a few threads about parents complaining about schools that introduced masks where the schools aren’t in local lockdown areas and that the schools should follow the Government guidance. But if schools didn’t provide work that was wrong even if that was Government guidance. Schools cannot win!

I think parents are directing their annoyance at the wrong people.

Also how many threads were there on here from parents saying they had given up with looking at the work schools were sending out and their child’s mental health was far more important, how dare schools expect their child to do schoolwork. Again schools can’t win.

Do people who think teachers should be made redundant because they didn’t do anything during lockdown also think that school catering staff, admin staff should also be made redundant too as they weren’t working through lockdown?

As a secondary teacher on a 2 day a week contract I worked 4 or 5 days every week. I did days on site to teach key workers children plus wrote the best lessons I could for distance learning, marked all work and kept in regular contact with my students. I am now back in school working to settle students back in to a routine, focus on learning and feel secure.
As in most workplaces, how much teachers do varies but in my experience the vast majority work hard. Teacher bashing is all too common.

90% of the teachers I know were working. My friends were surprised when I said I needed to work at least 4 hours a day to keep on top of everything! Shows how many hours we need when actually student facing!
My school had a huge number of keyworker and vulnerable in. Around 25% of the cohort, and we still had social distancing then so small classes meant more staff in. It's a shame there wasn't consistency across schools but the DFE are to blame there.

I wonder if people feel the same about dentists? 🤔

As said on another thread anyone who currently starts teacher bashing is certainly hard of thinking.

What it is with this complete obsession that some people have about teachers on MN ? It’s like the capacity for rational thought just vanishes out the window for some when they see the word ‘teacher’, I don’t get it.

It’s been bad for years on here but the pandemic takes it to new heights . No other group gets it as much on here, getting absolutely ridiculous now.

@Cookiecrisps I know lots of lawyers who worked all the way through and, on top of that, homeschooled their children as well. Dentists were told not to work. Teachers were not. That’s a big difference. I don’t agree with dentists being closed for so long but you can’t blame the dentists themselves for that.

@BunsyGirl those schools might have given the pupils tech such as iPads and laptops to use at home. We’re a large school so couldn’t do that even for just the pupils who don’t have one due to deprivation levels. We delivered paper resources to homes including reading books and pencils as many of our pupils don’t have them at home as well as food parcels.

From June 1st all staff were teaching full time including key worker groups with Borneo expectations for staff meetings etc so only has time to send work packs and make welfare calls to most vulnerable.

[quote BunsyGirl]@noblegiraffe So why did some state schools have excellent provision during lockdown and others do fuck all? Where did the ones who actually worked hard get their autonomy from?! Maybe blame the senior leadership teams, but putting it all back into the Government is ridiculous.[/quote]
Individual teachers will have worked as directed by their senior leadership team. If an individual teacher didn’t do the work as directed by SLT, that’s a disciplinary issue. If SLT didn’t direct them to do the work, it’s not.

Yes, the variation in provision was an issue, but it’s also an issue when schools are open. There are outstanding schools and inadequate schools. Lots of people seem to ignore this point when moaning about lockdown provision. The difference is when schools are open there’s a procedure for inspecting and intervening.

Cookiecrisps apols my post was being sarcastic.

I assume all these posters who think teachers are crap and lazy are now sending their children into the care of these people they have no faith or respect in.

I forgot to say that many support staff on on low hour contracts (like one bour a dat) and claim for extea hours o
weekly again for flexibility as things like SEN support can fluctuate over a year. So those people were only doing their minimal hours and none of the 'this persons ill can you increase hours' extra.

I know lots of teachers who homeschooled their children whilst working (and some didn’t have much time to as they were report writing, marking and setting work.)

The issue is, teaching involves a lot more than face to face teaching. That is the most important part IMO. The planning, curriculum rewrites, CPD training, monitoring, report writing, data, meetings all take up lots of time but are the part of the job that people don’t see. Many teachers were directed to work on these tasks during lockdown by the head teacher so were working. Many primary schools went back full time from June 1st for the groups of children the government specified (and secondary too.) The fault lies with the government that it wasn’t school for all from June as they banned rotas and limited group sizes so not enough teachers or space for all full time.

It wouldn't be redundancy would it, that would imply they're getting rid of teaching posts rather than the staff members themselves, which may have been true for support staff with schools dwindling budgets; but it's not like anywhere has said meh we don't need any year 5 teachers anymore, we are making the role redundant. What you surely mean is people refusing to work and being sacked.

@RigaBalsam

As said on another thread anyone who currently starts teacher bashing is certainly hard of thinking.

Or has an agenda.

Not at all suspicious that when nearly 2000 MNetters voted on my thread that the govt have fucked up the re-opening of schools that a thread criticising teachers for lockdown provision would pop up. Let’s try and keep the public against teachers, right?

We know the govt spend the entire summer whipping up anti-teacher sentiment in a fake war against the unions.

@ineedaholidaynow You assumed wrong. My children’s teachers are not crap or lazy but that doesn’t mean that I can’t criticise those teachers that did little or nothing during lockdown. I have never taken “I’m all right Jack attitude”. I believe that every child has a right to a decent education.

None of this should really be directed at indivdual teachers though. Teachers all did what they were told to do by their line managers and SLT. We were told to provide a normal amount of work (so 5 X 1 hour lessons a day) so we did. They were lesson by lesson assignments, we did some form of assessment after about a month and we tracked their activities on online resources such as them uplaoding work to Google Classroom, their progress on Senenca etc. We called home for our forms using data collated across the school at least once a fortnight, some kids more. For my (extensive) A level, we made sure they had videos and narrated work, and we checked in on Teams once a week (once all the equipment we had to buy ourselves arrived).

We did that as we were told to. Some staff were very resistant, and I know they were told to sort themselves out or face support plans. I know staff that didn't have laptops or computers or even broadband in one case, so had to wait for that to be installed etc.

Considering the situation, the fact that the GOVERNMENT SUSPENDING THE CURRICULUM, some schools just didn't provide work. That is on school management, not the individual teachers.

Please don't forget, with this being something that has never happened before, and how ridiculous some SLT can be, teachers would not just start doing stuff that their management didn't tell them to do; contacting students at home, videoing lessons, expecting students to have internet/device access, delivering work packs. I asked permission before I did anything outside of the expected, because one parent complain is all it takes for a shitstorm to fall on you.

I do accept there are shit teachers though, I should say that. And they don't do those like me any favours.

It’s not unusual for teachers to be made redundant as a result of budget cuts. Low birth numbers for current cohorts because schools are funded per child even if the following years are bumper sized cohorts leave many headteachers with no choice but to make staff including teachers of shortage subjects redundant.

That is sad.

But you are right. The many schools that did next to nothing to support children during lockdown have a left a bitter taste in the mouths of many parents. Combined with the sometimes frankly preposterous and often self righteous explanations given, this has not helped the reputation of teachers. On a personal note, when I saw the heads children out for yet another all day cycle ride with their father the head, the teachers having long lazy lunches in the park etc while DC were getting no support, I had to work and had no childcare, well... you can imagine.

All this is grossly unfair of course on the many teachers who worked hard to look after children and the many excellent schools who moved heaven and earth to maintain a high level of education for as many as possible.

Teachers all did what they were told to do by their line managers and SLT. We were told to provide a normal amount of work (so 5 X 1 hour lessons a day) so we did.

Unless you have done a national survey, I don’t think you can say this. I do believe the head sets the tone but I am not sure the head exactly said you must e.g, shield and then you would be excused from all work (on full pay). I guess they just let them get away with it.