More money for teachers plus stricter discipline in schools - Tory leak

[noblegiraffe]

A government document leaked today suggests plans for pay rises for teachers and support for stronger discipline in schools including mobile phone bans. The exemption for outstanding schools from the Ofsted inspection cycle will also be lifted.

There may be concerns about the mention of the use of ‘reasonable force’ as part of disciplinary measures. This is likely to simply be a restatement that yes, teachers are allowed to restrain violent pupils.

www.theguardian.com/education/2019/aug/27/leaked-documents-reveal-tories-dramatic-plans-for-schools

Nothing there seems particularly dramatic, it just shows Dom Cummings is back in charge continuing the Gove era policies.

Another teachertapper hello!

I agree totally with that article. My student teacher last year really struggled to get to grips with lesson design that wasn't based on someone else's PowerPoint.

I made them by the end do tech free lesson other than a board, the visualiser and pens.

othmarstrombone.wordpress.com/2019/08/19/all-the-gear-but-no-idea-the-aggrandisement-of-the-resource-in-teaching/ this is the article.

Thank you!

You can have all the subject knowledge in the world but if you don’t have the pedagogical knowledge about how best to transmit it to the kids, you are fucked.

Quite happy for trainees to be googling for powerpoints that will help them sequence the teaching of solving simultaneous equations (or whatever). It’s not like we have quality textbooks to help with this any more.

Certainly if I’m teaching a new A-level topic I’ll look at how other people approach teaching it rather than starting from scratch.

English textbooks have always been a bit shit.

I really notice this in film : lots of no specialist teachers who just want someone else's subject knowledge.

We quite famously had an NQT who had to check whether Shakespeare was Victorian.... and another one who teaches that Macbeth is Elizabethan (not an NQT). this sort of thing is explicitly tested in English. I guess you could argue that if it's on a ppt the teacher won't get it wrong, but the knowledge needs to be at the fingertips.

Subject knowledge is definitely becoming an increasing issue with the decline of academic calibre of trainees....

I agree you also need to know how to transmit it, but I think, some great books on English teaching aside, this is less complex and more obvious/ same as it was in school in English.

I guess subject knowledge is just a given in maths. If you’ve got a teacher who can’t multiply fractions you’ve got bigger problems than them using someone else’s powerpoint to teach it!

Must get that, though with all the PE teachers ...sometimes...

There’s a guy Mark McCourt who has taken that on - he’s set up a program called Complete Maths which is a fully resourced maths curriculum, powerpoints, worksheets, tests, exams plus lesson plans and notes on common misconceptions and how to teach each topic.

He’s done this explicitly to support non-specialists in teaching maths. It costs £££ but I imagine if you’re saving money on hiring qualified maths teachers it’s a good investment.