Does everyone realise about the 'action short of strike'?

[cricketballs]

Just wondering what those who aren't employed in education know about the action short of strike that is starting from 26th September?

Do you realise that teachers from NASUWT and the NUT will basically be working to the letter of the terms and conditions? Do you have any think it will impact on the general public or just those within education given that the vast majority of instructions from the union are of not putting up with added extras demanded on us by SLT?

Just after opinions.....

Cricketballs - tell me something I DON'T know! The HT is a power hungry dictatorial arse, and I am thankful he is not MY boss!!

The cover thing though - I can partly see trust due to the sheer amount of DC's dxd with ASD's in the school, supply teachers just do NOT cut the mustard, it HAS to be teachers known to these DC's.

The average in EVERY class is 2 pupils with dxd ASD's. There is actually 5 in my DS2's class (he is one). If they got a supply teacher in to teach this class in the event of staff sickness, they would have (and have done) walked out by 11am!

So what happens now? A supply teacher brought in, who has to cope with 5 simultaneous meltdowns? With just two hands, and one TA who is allocated to the ONE DC in the class with a statement? So that still leaves 4 DC's in meltdown, and just one supply teacher.

Unfortunately Y4 is 3FE but each class has 4/5 DC's with dxd ASD's. So they have 13 in a year group of 90.

Well, yes. I do after school revision sessions twice a week, plus at least two full days intervention in every holiday. And a field trip every summer.

I earn my money I think (and I think even Sir Michael would agree )

Well Derceto I was recommended for the role of SENCO by the Educational Psychologist because I had the best qualifications and experience for the role, I was chosen as literacy coordinator by governors following an interview as I had the best qualifications and the most experience ditto key stage leader so perhaps it's more than possible to be the best candidate and cheap

I would not do my job without my TLR allowance . I like shoes and holidays too much

and our pupils certainly benefit from staff goodwill

I totally agree, of course you can be the best candidate and cheap. I suspect I was just cheap.

But it is just wrong to do it that way and taking advantage of your kind nature. From another perspective if I was paying you and giving you time I could be more demanding in terms if what I expect . Again I am not saying that you are not doing a good job.

I just think there is goodwill and taking the piss. I do not want an education system for my children built on taking the piss.

What happens mrz if you leave and no one else wants to work for free? It is not sustainable.

supply staff are used in special schools with all students in the class with these issues - they can cope as do the students (there are 15 in my DS's class who have melt downs on a regular basis).

In the case you describe Couthy - what happens when a new member of staff starts? What happens re maternity cover? At some point children have to get used to dealing with different people and what safer environment than in a school where they are comfortable in the general surroundings?

Derceto it's how it works in primary schools across the country.
I'm not alone in my school and it's certainly not unusual in schools where friends and acquaintances teach.
If I left there would be plenty willing to step in.

Derceto,

I think there is a difference between secondary (where after all there are some gaps in terms of being able to recruit staff, and schools are larger and have bigger budgets, allowing more flexibility) and primary (huge oversupply of qualified staff, small schools with limited budgets, perhaps stronger bonds between pupils and teachers).

I do not know anyone who works in a primary - from the lunchtime supervisors up to and including the head - who doesn't do over and above what they are 'supposed' to do as a matter of course.

And it's not that I am cheap, either. It's just that in a school with 5 teachers, every teacher has to take on significant numbers of extra responsibilities. The number of roles that need doing doesn't decrease, though the number of children looked after by each one is perhaps smaller (so out of 90 odd children, we only have 30 or so under the care of the SENCo - a much bigger school would have many more).

Well, thanks for the notification. We're new to all this (DC1 just starting) so I wasn't aware and still none the wiser as to what impact it will have as I don't know which unions the teachers are in or how much their workload is represented in the list.

But I have to say reading the thread, my opinion of unions and teachers is not elevated. I'm sure lots work really hard, are enthusiastic at doing everything they do and genuinely want the best for the kids in their care. But having spent my career in the private sector, I've rarely met anyone there who could be described at 'working to rule' either. This kind of attitude is just normal. And these aren't high paid bankers or whatever. They're on average salaries, £12-£20k type range, doing what they know is necessary to make the team run as effectively as possible, achieve the goal of the company, just make the thing work. Not read their bloody job description and announce they're doing nothing more. And some list of 'won't do X unless approved by my union' makes me think of nothing so much as Soviet-type control and command.

I know there'll be a barrage of people saying how tough teachers have it, but really, I wonder sometimes if teachers know how tough the real world just is.

Yes they do itsatiggerday because they live in it!

Itsatiggerday,

Wish there was a 'like' button for your post. having had a career elsewhere before moving into teaching, I agree exactly - every workplace is full of people doing everything needed to run effectively / achieve the goal of the company / just make the thing work. It is - except in a very few highly unionised, or extremely old-fashioned workplaces (the post office springs to mind) - just the way the world works.

I bring exactly those attitudes and expectations to teaching, and perhaps I am lucky that where I work the whole 'work to rule' thing is simply laughed about and dismissed - we do what we have to do to deliver the best possible education to the children we teach. It's just the way the world should work in education, as it is the way the rest of the world works....

Mrz, both you and I have worked outside education. IME, there ARE some teachers who have never stepped outside education, having slid along the conveyor belt from school to university and back into school again, and some of them (not all) do lack awareness of other types of workplace and the 'norms' of those workplaces, simply because they have never experienced them. It's the same as the way that we as teachers may curse some of the generalisations that those who do not teach make about the profession - there are those within the profession who are equally ignorant of the world outside it and so make incorrect and hurtful generalisations.

Perhaps my school is unusual but only 3 teachers did the school, university back to school thing.

We currently have none - which is almost certainly a contributing factor to the general 'we do what we have to do to get the job done, and be blowed to 'work to rule'' attitude amongst the staff, as we have all worked outside education and know what the norms of other workplaces are.

Oh FFS the work to rule instructions are not because teachers are lazy work-shy tossers who don't want to give children a decent education. The work to rule instructions are because of an industrial dispute with the government who are taking the piss with how they are treating teachers, their pay and conditions, their ability to do their job effectively without constant interference.

The work-to-rule instructions are teachers saying to those in charge 'enough is enough, you rely on our goodwill to go above and beyond but you are treating us like shit and we are not going to stand for it'.

It's industrial action, it's supposed to piss off those in charge. Lessons will still get planned, kids will still get taught, teachers will still do their job. What they will not do is things that are not their job that they have been pressurised into doing, and things that are beyond what is considered reasonable in terms of scrutiny and workload.

Quite common among Science teachers too. 4 out of 13 of us went straight from degree to PGCE. I wasn't one of them, although I only worked in a university rather than industry. My DH is in industry though, so I have some inkling of how it works. He is the one who is at doing admin jobs that would be more efficiently done by someone else. And he has no truck with national pay scales, or indeed teachers in the same school being on the same pay scales. We disagree on that one. He gets the long hours culture though, thank God!

I don't think most parents or children will notice anything (the idea is disrupt without inconveniencing parents isn't it)

Noble - I am in awe, fantastic post xx

Yep, noble pretty much has it in a nutshell there.

Noble,

Displays are my job - because they create a learning environment in which my children make better progress and I plan them that way, as teaching tools. I appreciate that if they were just 'to look pretty' that others could do them - but they are not.

Staff and other meetings that may go on late into the evening are my job - because they share good practice across the school, because they help individual children and groups of children, because they are one way in which the staff work together to improve the education children receive throughout the school.

Analysing pupil results is my job - because it identifies where, and in what ways, children are falling behind and what we can do about it.

Providing after school clubs is my job - because they provide a rounded education to all those children who DON'T have out of school opportunities for sport and art and exposure to a wider world.

Getting feedback on my teaching, through observations that are as regular as necessary, is my job - continually improving my teaching is my job, and that is one tool to help me to do so.

Chasing up absence is my job, because it is part of my relationship with parents, and in several instances is part of my responsibility for child protection.

Can't be bothered to go through the others. I just don't agree that what it is being suggested I don't do is not my job.

Gold star and 5 House Points to noble

And nor do I agree that refusing to do those things is going to have any effect on the government at all - it is just going to piss off other school staff, headteachers, parents and children, and make it politically possible to impose even worse conditions on teachers because parents all round the country will react just as itsatiggersday did in her post....

I agree teacherwith2kids, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we take action affects students and parents we will be attacked by at least the right wing press if not most people. If we take action that does not affect students and parents no one will care and all we will achieve is winding each other up.

That does not mean that there are not issues, there are, clearly within in primary sector in particular.