Teachers, or people who know about the education system..

[HappyYoni]

...can I ask for your help?
I am doing some research for a project and I need to have a good understanding of the main issues that are affecting teaching/teachers today, I have looked on the bbc and guardian websites, plus a couple of teacher forums and the education today website, but i still don't feel like I have a clear idea.
Do any of you have any thoughts you'd be willing to share? Or tips on websites I could look at?
What I know so far is that Gove has introduced changes to the pension, pay progression and curriculum, but I'm not clear whether those changes have come in or are just being discussed?
Sorry for waffling but if any of you can spare a few minutes to point me in the right direction I'd be really grateful.

The TES forums is where you want to look.

Oh I hadn't spotted that one, I'll have a look now. Thank you :)

dfe website would be a good idea too.

or look at the staffroom topic on here. you'll get some insight from what people are complaining about..

TES.

Overuse of "targets", over assesment. Having to prove every tiny little thing you do. Lack of trust in professionals to just get on with the job.

Sheer exhaustion of having to do tonnes of paperwork that benefits noone.

GOves changes to the curriculum that actively destroy some childrens chances of a good education.

Gove.

-Workload
-Morale
-Dropout rate of recently qualified teachers (huge - and who fucking blames them!)
-Lack of trust in the profession (by government, Ofsted and, as a consequence, LAs and Senior Management - each section of the hierarchy is scared of the one above)
-Moving the goalposts every few years so things have to be re-done
-Pointless paperwork e.g. overly detailed lesson plans, reams of risk assessments needed for every little thing and onerous assessment to name but three things
-Deterioration of pupil behaviour over the years
-An overloaded curriculum - but hey a minor issue compared to the other stuff
-People moaning about the holiday 'you teachers get' when we are actually paid purely for 192 days and not for holidays at all. Salaries are split over 12 months for convenience

What captain said... Emphasis on workload! I'm one of the 'dropouts'.... Loving teaching is not enough and it wasn't worth staying in the job for me. Moved to private nursery, same pay but nowhere near the level of stress.

Wow - a nursery will pay teaching salary? Around here its basic wage work.

Thank you all, I really appreciate the input. Beatrice apologies for my ignorance but how/when did the curriculum change? I heard the proposal recently to get read of American books, but not sure if it's come to anything. And I know there was a lot of talk a couple of years ago about Gove reducing opportunities for arts based GCSEs but not sure whether that came to anything either.
In terms of the workload, am I right in thinking it's getting all the lesson plans etc done in a too small amount of time?

*get rid not get read

Also whilst I'm picking your brains, I've heard anecdotally from friends who are teachers that they feel they are expected to be social workers, nurses, mental health therapists, drug and alcohol workers as well as teachers...does this ring true for anyone else?

I guess what I mean is do you feel the support is there from other agencies when you have children who have those additional support needs, or do you feel that teachers are left trying to fulfil multiple roles?

I've also heard talk about 'de-regulation' again apologies if I'm asking a really stupid question but is that because teachers in free schools (and academies?) don't need to get the professional qualification?

This is why I dropped out of teaching (and this was nine years ago now):

Inclusion policies - not having children with additional needs in my class, that was fine. It was that I was expected to teach them with no support and no extra training. I felt I was failing everyone - them and the other children in the class.

Deteriorating behaviour - I felt that having to tackle that alongside increasing academic targets was actually impossible

As a teacher, I NEVER went home of an evening with that satisfied "Ah, I've done everything" feeling. Even if you worked 25 hours a day, you would NEVER finish everything you were supposed to do on paper. You wouldn't believe how bad that is for morale.

I found something else I wanted to do more. So many teachers want to leave teaching but they have been conditioned to think "What else could I do? I can't do anything else" which is simply not true. I wanted to get out before I lost all my confidence and was just one of those bitter, moaning teachers.

Yes, as teacher you are expecting to be a social worker, a parent, an accountant, a counsellor, as well as "an outstanding classroom practitioner" . I knew I wasn't cut out for some of those things, no matter how good I was at getting children good results in their SATs.

Finally I wanted a bit of spare time. I didn't have any at all.

I am looking on there and it is useful, the only trouble is they (understandably) are working on the assumption that everyone knows what each other is talking about, and I really need to start with the basics. I maybe will start a thread there too, just felt more confident starting one here I suppose because I spend half my life on MN it seems less scary!
But you're right, I will start a thread there too.

Thanks Hester, that's a really good insight. I'm really sorry it turned out that way for you though, hope you are enjoying what you do now.
It does seem like there are some really common themes but interesting that the problems predate Gove, I was kind of thinking he was bringing education to its knees, but maybe it was already there??

Ooh Hester - what did you do instead? (Can you tell I'm looking?)

what sort of project are you doing, HappyYoni?

It's on changes in social policy under different governments, and consequences , I'm focusing on education, I thought I would start ( as you can tell it's very early stages) on trying to understand what the main issues are for teachers particularly in relation to policy stuff so pensions, curriculum, pay, inspections that sort of thing and whether that directly links to changes in government policy.

I'm just having trouble finding out concrete facts. Even on the DfE and union websites it isn't always clear what changes have been brought in ( and when) and what have just been proposed/consulted on.

I chose this topic because I know a few teachers and they are all so passionate about what they do but so stressed and unhappy, but I didn't know if that was just our local area or if it reflects a national issue.

Have PMed you Beatrice

Biggest and most stupidly thought out for me is that Gove, with his left hand, has introduced performance related pay while his right hand has taken away the assessment procedures that allowed teachers to demonstrate their performance!

Really? I didn't know that! I knew that automatic pay progression had been taken away and replaced with performance related pay, but what's he done with the assessment procedures?? So how do teachers 'prove' that they deserve a pay rise? Do they have targets and stuff?