Four day teaching week

[Ralphiethedog]

Jenny Gilruth has said that the Scottish government could cut the amount of time teachers spent in the classroom at the same time as delivering better outcomes for pupils.

Can someone please explain how this is supposed to work? It seems illogical to me. Surely having their class teacher in the classroom is always going to deliver a better outcome for children than them NOT having their class teacher in the classroom?

Am I missing something here, or does our esteemed education secretary think that she can say what she likes and we’ll swallow it like gospel?

@Telephonederby you can only realistically set English and Maths. Most subjects cannot be set as they come at all different times as there may only be one or two teachers in the smaller subjects.

Many primaries in Scotland are single stream so it’s not that easy. Also, there can be issues if a child is strong/ weak in different area of maths for example. I don’t set and pre- assess every topic so groups are very fluid. For setting to work you need man power. Ideally the children finding it hardest need two adults in class/ a smaller class. Without an extra body to help in setting it’s often no better than just having your own class.

I was thinking of setting in secondary school. In England lots of schools seem to set for sciences and languages as well as English and maths.
I'm not sure how the Chinese manage it, but they often have over 60 children in a class at secondary school, with one teacher. It must help a lot that they have few disciplinary issues. I think this is largely because parents are very supportive of teachers and take their children's education very seriously.

No one even has that yet! It's the pay deal from August which was finally agreed last month and hasn't hit pay packets yet.

So to conclude, as expected the Scottish government have made promises they have no intention of funding. Nice. I’m so glad I’m not a teacher. Although the pay is better than I’d expected.

I teach English in a secondary school, and we have bucked the trend in having a fully resourced BGE curriculum that is centrally planned and shared. Each unit has differentiated work, key assessment points, cover lessons already resourced so you're not thinking about what to set if ill. It's been a lifesaver and one of the reasons I'm still teaching. We have EAL teachers who have made differentiated EAL resources to support the units.

What I would say is, DESPITE THAT, I don't have enough time to do my job properly. Senior marking takes so much time, especially in English. More non-contact time would help.

Students regularly suffer through staff absence, which I think would be addressed in part by this policy shift. This week I have seen classes be merged when the subjects are totally different, then supervised in the hall en masse. It's not teaching or learning. We need more bodies in the building.