Teachers Strike Using children as a weapon

[Ruimon]

Teachers should not use children as a weapon for their politically motivated demands. Who pays teachers wages? Why have they got so much time to organize strikes? We have all had to forgo pay rises and reduced pensions due to the last government and the banking scandal, why should teachers be any different.

[whendidyoulast]

Hmm.. s/he seems to have gone awfully quiet since that was pointed out.

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

All we have to do, is look at the educational systems on the globe that work and copy, there still exists in this country left orthodoxy that needs weeding out and exposed, children have been let down for far too long by poor systems it's time for a total revamp.

Paragraphs, syntax and punctuation - think about them.

[thecatfromjapan]

Please stop with the Finlandphilia. It's making me homesick for somewhere I've never been.

whendidyoulast sorry, if that sounded as though I was jumping on you. It was intended more as picking up your point and running with it. I do get your point. And it is funny that those who froth espouse the need to borrow examples from across the globe are inevitably confronted with the example of finland.

Boffinmum This is a serious question: Is it likely that PRP will be limited to performance in those areas? That does sound fairer to me.

[DiamondMask]

Personally I like that left orthodoxy called Inclusion of children with additional needs. Gove seems to want them all elsewhere.

[chicaguapa]

I've figured it out. I think the OP is the man himself. He has come on mn to wind up all the parents before Thursday. It's the only explanation.

Maybe this is what his speeches are like before they are toned down and rewritten.

He is also preparing sound bites about how he feels sorry for all the parents and children that have been let down by the teachers.

[BackforGood]

You're probably right chicaguapa

[Morgause]

I think you're right chicaguapa the man himself regularly draws ideas from his arse just like the OP seems to be.

[Deecam18]

Totally agree with Poundpup

[MerryMarigold]

I think OP may actually be a DM journalist. All the signs are there...

[BoffinMum]

Catfromjapan, I don't know, but I think some teachers are very worried they will just be assessed on arbitrary targets for pupils they teach, and nothing else. Which means that if you teach pupils from chaotic homes or whatever, where results are unpredictable, you're potentially doomed basically.

(For example, I had an A* student who forgot the exam and went shopping once. We had many teachers combing the local area but couldn't find her. It happens).

[BoffinMum]

We have an excellent education system in this country, which consistently performs highly in international test results. I posted this on the school strike thread, if you are reading this, GoveyBoy or cronies, in response to a poster saying that the Canadian system was terrific and the English one was more or less not fit for purpose.

---

You are only looking at one data measure, and internationally it is recognised that PISA is only one test, and part of a much bigger picture. However PISA tests tend to be the only ones lay people have heard of, as they are mentioned in the media of OECD countries more often.

The TIMSS tests (maths and science) and PIRLS tests (reading) are a lot closer in content to European curricula, whereas the PISA tests favour the type of curriculum approach used in places like Korea. PISA tests are taken by OECD countries, TIMSS and PIRLS are taken by any countries with the resources to sit them.

(There are endless additional smaller differences between the two forms of testing but if I list everything here MN will probably explode or you will all die from boredom).

In TIMSS and PIRLS tests, England is consistently in the top 10 and generally outperforms Canada by a small margin.

TIMSS maths

PIRLS reading

From the data, therefore, we see that England performs better in such tests than Canada, and is consistently in the top 10 internationally.

(Interestingly, there seems to be a vast difference between Quebec and Ontario in the science results. I wonder what is happening there? Two tier education system?)

[BoffinMum]

The absolute fundamental basis for the teacher strike is this. Increasing fragmentation of the maintained education sector in England will result in a raft of unintended consequences, which will have profound and lasting negative results for both children and the economy as a whole.

If that is not worth striking about, then I don't know what is.

[MerryMarigold]

Bravo Boffin. How do we get ordinary people to understand this though?

[BoffinMum]

Translation:

There are several international comparison tests, not just the ones Gove talks about.

At the moment it's like Gove is going onto a price comparison website, picking the most expensive quote in the list, and saying, "See? Insurance is really expensive! Take over the insurance companies! We will tell them how to sell insurance!"

What he hasn't done is sorted the list so you can see the lowest prices, or work out which offers the best value to customers like you, when you take everything into account. If we were to do that with the English education system, then most customers would be thinking, "Well that quote is in the top 10, and the customer service is supposed to be very good for most people, so let's go along with that one".

Incidentally I am not sure whether he knows he is doing this, or whether he just doesn't understand how to read figures properly. Many of us are starting to suspect the latter, as he has said some things in Parliament that suggest he misunderstands basic GCSE type statistics - in fact he regularly looks a bit silly when the numbers come out.

[BoffinMum]

More translation:

In this country we have a high reliability electricity system, which means practically all of the time the power supply works, unlike parts of the US, or Africa, for example.

What we also want is a high reliability education system, so when you send your child to school, you know it's going to work, wherever you are in the country, and whatever background you are from.

Since the 1990s we have taken a number of steps towards developing a system like this. The National Curriculum means that wherever your child goes in the country, he or she is likely to be learning similar things at similar times, for example. We have also accepted that SEN children need extra funding, and buildings need maintaining to a similar standard across the country. Teachers now receive compulsory ongoing training throughout their careers, and so do heads, to keep them up to date.

The steps taken since 2010 risk undoing a lot of those changes. Parents will know longer know what to expect from their children's schools, and on some cases children will fall foul of a system that emphasises test performance at the expense of child development. Parents can expect to:

a) find it harder to get places in local schools
b) end up paying a lot of money out of tuition outside school, so their children can keep up with testing requirements, and
c) see increasing mental health problems amongst their children.

[MerryMarigold]

c) is very, very worrying Boffin

Thankyou! I feel more equipped for playground gossip time!

[BoffinMum]

We are already starting to see the effects of some of these policies in the sector - waiting lists for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services have zoomed up in some areas, for example. (While there is an 18 week upper limit for treatment if your child has a physical problem, if it's a mental health problem there is no time limit for starting treatment, which is rather scandalous in my opinion).

[BoffinMum]

Finland isn't perfect either - loads of their schools have major mould problems!

[BoffinMum]

Finland isn't perfect either - loads of their schools have major mould problems!

[Ruimon]

Just had a quick look through, some of the comments are condesending and kind of prove my point. Facts are facts are facts guys. the leadership of the N.U.T. Is very concerned about inroads to the organization being made by " the left" socialist teachers alliance etc etc, bit like militant tend. And labour a few years back.They have a wider agenda please wake up. The strike is about protecting the interest of teachers pay and conditions Just had a look at the pay scales and the final salary pension scheme. I think it all stacks up very nicely and so it should good teachers deserve it. Poor teachers do not deserve to get the same pay as good/excellent teachers. Therefore p.r.p. is a must. I,m sorry but striking for the above reasons at this point in time is I believe immoral when the people who pay taxes, who pay teachers are just having to make sacrifices ( no wage rises pensions reduced etc etc) BUT ask the teachers to face reality and SOME of them those driven by the left call for strikes, it's the same old sorry recipe for disaster, only this time it involves our children's education. The law needs changing A. To make it a requirement of striking teachers to inform the management that they are going on strike and B. allow supply teachers to cover striking teachers, or even allow parents to cover striking teachers. Oh and why i are the strike nd rallies not being called during the school holidays, .............because it wold nt affect the education of the children would It?.....

[MadameDefarge]

was it a bit like marking homework?

[Ruimon]

That actually made me laugh, by the way the general secretary used to be in the socialist alliance and earns a reported £154,000 a year.

[Strumpetron]

It really does sound like the OP is a college kid writing an assignment on the critic of something.. I'm not even sure what but something..

[Ilovemyrabbits]

Wow, Ruimon, do you know what a strike is meant to achieve? It's a disruption of labour. It's planned to have maximum impact. It won't work if you ensure people can cover for you and there is no adverse impact on service. I despair.

I am not a teacher or a loony lefty, but I can see the damage Gove is having on our children's education and it's frightening. Lord knows how this mess will end, but the teachers of this country have my support til Gove is out, no matter how much it might inconvenience me.