can't be 'polite' and good any longer....

[swallowedAfly]

ds goes to a village primary with all the subsequent over-reliance on parents wealth, education, time, etc. re: assuming sahms are the norm, money is plentiful for fanciful trips and activities, we all know how to sew up costumes at the drop of a hat etc.

that's fine. i chose to live here. however....

homework is way over the top in terms of quantity and right from day one of school. one part of homework (there is loads) is the 'learning log' which is pretended to be something children could do indepndently and consolidates learning. except in reality it is not, by a long shot.

i've put up with it and put up with and felt enslaven to doing it until today when i've had enough. this week for ds (6yo and one of the most able in his year) it says, "show me what you've learned about number bonds up to 20 and what patterns you can see". then there's a blank page.

i don't know why (because this is far from the worst that's come home) but today i've had enough and found myself writing on the page that i have no idea what the learning objective is, what outcomes they're hoping for or how the hell they see this as differentiated. i've also asked how they think a parent with numeracy or literacy problems would tackle this task and whether they would actually set this as a task in class to 6yos and expect a meaningful outcome.

there is no context, no structure, no literacy support, no prompts nothing. same as ever. sometimes the tasks don't even relate to anything they've been learning.

am i totally unreasonable or would you after a year or so be fed up too? i am (if it's not obvious) an ex teacher and i know what education is supposed to be about and this is not it. homework should be meaningful. how could a 6yo read that question and face a blank page and do something a teacher could look at and assess to see what they've learnt? they couldn't.

on top of this learning log (given on a friday and expected in by tuesday) daily reading and signing of reading book is expected plus other bits and bobs. he's 6! he's been getting this since 5 at a point where some kids couldn't even write let alone face a blank page and an open ended task and produce something yet they'd get in trouble if they didn't. this is just a test of parents surely? and an unfair one given it assumes knowledge and literacy that some parents won't have?

sorry for long random rant but help! i'm not playing this game anymore and i'm ready to speak up. it's a joke.

Mytholmroyd if I used public transport I wouldn't get to school in good weather ...

and I don't live far away

fair point spaniel

no not a teacher bashing thread newname - but a how dare you expect us to ever work when we're graciously doing you the favour of doing your job and educating your children for free type teacher bash has entered the thread for sure.

when teachers resort to the 'parents think we're here to care for their children when they should be groveling with gratitude that we bother to teach them' line it does tend to evoke a response that says, err actually you get paid and chose this job and if it's that much of a back breaking, resentment fueled exercise for you maybe you're in the wrong job response.

"but a how dare you expect us to ever work when we're graciously doing you the favour of doing your job and educating your children for free type teacher bash has entered the thread for sure"

Was that aimed at me?

and to be fair it is very, very few teachers who have such grandiose visions of themselves - but they do tend to be very loud

teaching like any authority post attracts a small number of self important borderline personality disordered types who expect to be given demi god status because in their small ponds they are very big fish.

no

no one thinks you should be grovelling with gratitude swalledAfly just to get your facts right

whatever mrz - i'm afraid you give off such an air of arrogance and entitlement that it pushes this into the polarised parent v teacher bollocks that can be so easily avoided if teachers don't see themselves as grand bounty bestowing idols to be obeyed and worshipped without question.

parents aren't small children.

Thank you. And yes teachers can be "loud", the job requires putting on a performance from 8.45 am - 3.15pm and that means many of the more successful people have that sort of personality.

the most successful teachers i trained with, was trained by and worked with did not have that kind of personality.

Also, parents expect us to self-confident and articulate, so that overspills as well.

I still believe it is a teacher bashing thread and if you are attacked you defend yourself, hence the high feelings and responses here. It is so frustrating when your job is constantly slagged off, when you are constantly being told what you do is wrong and everyone has (contradictory) opinions about what you should be doing.

Are you secondary trained or primary, swallowed? Are you still a teacher or have you deserted the sinking ship?

Interesting swallowedAfly as I am a parent first and a teacher second. I just find parents who think their work needs outweight their child's education rather hypocritical!

no outweigh about it for most of us - just a simple acknowledgment that worthy as education is our children need roofs over their heads and food in their tummies as a fundamental prerequisite to education.

i abandoned the whinging, negative, self important, out of touch reality ship. no need for it to sink and in the county i trained in it was positively sailing forward on the changing sea. sadly here it was your old school, poor me, hard done by, change averse, egomaniac, big fish in little pond culture i'd naively thought belonged to a bygone era.

I acknowledge that working parents have a difficult job ... I know that as a working parent who has had to organise child care ... it was actually far less of a problem when I worked in industry than working as a teacher (teaching a far from family friendly occupation)

mrz Hmm I do get your last point but some people do have extremely important professional lives. Would you say that to the only specialist life saving surgeon in a 500 mile radios? Or a brilliant criminal profiler working on a local murder case? Sometimes there is only one person who can do a particular job.

Cross post. Was about

Interesting swallowedAfly as I am a parent first and a teacher second. I just find parents who think their work needs outweight their child's education rather hypocritical!

I assume from your posts you must have taught here (do I gather you trained overseas?) but you teach in the UK long? I think a lot of misconceptions are made about "teachers" when the range of Key Stages make them incomparable. Teachers, teaching, education, etc. are so different in Early Years, Key Stage One ... though to college/university that comments cannot be applied to all.

and would you have the nerve to tell them that teaching (term time only, school friendly-ish hours etc) was a far from family friendly occupation?

jesus. try the real world.

true enough - i've only taught in secondary school, further education and higher education, private industry and vocational training so i don't know much at all.

It does though doesn't it mrz? I think the view that a child's education is more important than their parents work is a very privileged first world viewpoint. And actually quite a recent thing - I never felt like it to be the case when my eldest children were at school.

If I were to rank the needs of my whole family in order it is more important that we have safety, water, food, shelter, medical care and money to buy and provide these (ie parents wages) before the children's education. And then how do I begin to prioritise my four children?

Education of the population is very important but I dont think a child's education should take priority over the parents being able to work and keep a job. Lots of employers (and I worked in industry and retail before university) do not allow you to take time off for your children. Parents have to be able to provide for their family - it's not hypocritical to want to do that.

Now if we were in Sweden it might be a bit different - my BIL is not ALLOWED. to work if it's his children's sports day! It would be frowned upon to stay at work. Completely different culture!

no i didn't train overseas - not for school teaching. i trained in, surprise surprise, a university town and moved back and worked in what everyone warned me was 'the provinces' but i laughed at till i experienced it and realised it really was like going back in time.

I teach in Scotland. The same policy is in all of my