Teachers - Action short of a strike

[FermezLaBouche]

Hello teachers, (and anyone else who would like to comment!)
I was just wondering how many of you are planning to carry out this action short of a strike?

For me, this course of action would only make MY life worse - I have to keep everything up to date for my sanity's sake. It also seems designed to create massive bad feeling within schools. I work in a happy environment and actions such as refusing to be observed, refusing to cover, refusing to implement new policies, etc. would stir up such bad feeling. I genuinely would like to hear from anyone who is taking this course of action.
Link if anyone's interested: www.nasuwt.org.uk/Whatsnew/NASUWTNews/NASUWTindustrialaction/ActionShortOfStrikeAction/index.htm

If the salary is so good, the holidays are so long, the day-to-day job is such a breeze, then why isn't there a queue around the block to convert to teaching?

I earn in the region of 40K, not a huge amount but way above the average salary and it provides us with a good life.

I could have earned more, and have done so previously, but those jobs also required long hours without the holidays and they were a lot less fun.

And why do 50% leave within 5 years.

I enjoy it too - how the hell anyone could do it if they didn't, I have no idea.

I think one reason why there is not a queue around the block is because we love to knock the profession, and I mean teachers and non teachers alike. I wanted to be a teacher when I left university but friends of mine who had gone into teaching seemed so unhappy and overworked. I worked in a different sector for a few years and ended up drifting back into teaching after going into schools on career days to talk about my job.

I think people also fear teenagers in particular, when I tell people what I do for a living, some of them look at me as if I have some kind of supernatural power that enables me to control the endless stream of ferel youths that cross my threshold. In reality teenagers may have the odd grump but most of them cause you no trouble and they are jolly good company.

In many parts of teaching there are too many teachers for the vacancies, especially in certain parts of the country.

I think some people leave because they became a teacher because they could not think of anything else to do with their degree. As you say, you need to love teaching to succeed. Again I think that is the case with many professions.

Unfortunately there are some ridiculous schools out there that over work and under value their staff, treating teachers as glorified cannon fodder. I have worked in a school like that.

Some schools are just bloody tough to work in because of the nature of the intake, they require a level of grit, determinism with a very thick skin that is rare.

The first few years of teaching are also tough, it gets easier and easier.

I don't think that's true at all - my job in primary is much harder than it was 20 years ago.

I teach secondary, maybe it is different. But unless you are constantly changing schools it should get easier. I have been teaching at my current school for six years, I have my lesson plans and resources, yes I may tweak them or even work with my colleagues to write a new scheme of work but I have in my arsenal a set of activities that I know work for me and my pupils. When I started teaching I didn't have that. By now the students know me and they know that I take no shit. So my classroom management is quite easy, when I arrived I had to establish myself and that was hard work. When I started teaching I had to develop classroom management techniques that suited me.

When I started teaching I had to plan everything to within an inch of my life, now with just over a decade of teaching under my belt I can "wing" it when I need to. If I want a night off I can manage it, as an NQT I worked late every night and often was up at 5am working again. I , hopefully, will never have to do that again.

You can't tweak the same set of plans for any year group from Reception to Y6 across 11 different subjects!

No which is why I said it is probably different for secondary. For six years now I have been teaching one subject ( well thats not true I teach three subjects but the principle is there) to children between the ages of 12 and 18. There have been exam board changes in that time but roughly the same content was being taught. Our schemes of work are on a rolling programme of rewrites but we do that as a team and have allocated INSET time when we get a good start. I may wish to tweak the lessons planned as a department but I don't have to.

As you have been teaching surely it must get quicker as you have your mental toolkit and arsenal of experience.

I would never teach primary, I suspect you work far harder than we do at secondary. I love my life and lazy ways too much to teach little people.

So do you have to plan from scratch every year, seems a rather inefficient way of working and a waste if your valuable time. I admit I know nothing about primary other than I would not want to do it.

Derceto, it is largely due to the constant interventions and changes that have been forced onto primary schools over the last decade and a half. I've been teaching almost 30 years and any plans become obsolete as soon as you have taught them.
Add that to 11 subjects and changing year groups, you might as well shred everything you have done or thought at the end of every year.

That is utterly ridiculous, I would not last as a primary school teacher and would not put up with being treated in such a way.

You need to move to secondary, positively easy street in comparison.

Horses for courses, I've taught up to Y8 but I like the holistic approach that engaging with 30 children over a year involves. I just want to be free of the government interference.
The job is a lot harder than when I started out, certainly paperwork wise.

I like the idea of a holistic approach but if I was being expected to reinvent the wheel every year I would think "fuck it" and go back to my old job.

I think much the same about paper work, I keep my markbook up to date which is updated once a fortnight for each class. Each term each class gets either a short report of effort and attainment grades or a longer report of about 150 words. But other than that I don't do paperwork.

No paperwork= disciplinary procedures enacted.

I'm a Headteacher. I'm one of the 'emporers', Wofflingon.
I am in and out of the classrooms in my school as often as I see fit, watching, talking, looking at books and displays. It's my job!

What's an 'emporer'?

One of my biggest gripes is the expectation that we must all have responsibilities for a subject but with no TLR or release time. We didn't choose to have these responsibilities- they were just pushed onto us.

SLT are asking us to complete action plans, monitor and assess teaching and learning, check plans and give specific input to others. For no extra pay.

Action short of strike action now moved to Oct 3rd - just got NUT email....

Zackly wot I thunk Feenie.

I want to be judged by my peers, who can spell.

I'm NASUWT so we're still going ahead from 26th, but then we have technically been on ASoSA since December 1st! I told my Head about this the other day, and she was genuinely surprised...