Online lessons because schools can't recruit and retain teachers

[Hayliebells]

A school local to me has written to parents to explain that some science lessons will be via pre-recorded online learning, with students in computer rooms, as they haven't got enough Science teachers to teach all the timetabled lessons. This is where an inability to recruit and retain teachers leads, and it's shameful. We really are a two tier society now, with students in private schools in small classes, taught by specialist teachers, and students in state schools effectively teaching themselves at a computer. Pre-recorded lessons aren't even as good as many schools were offering for online learning during lockdown, it's the opposite of responsive teaching. Where's the opportunity to address misconceptions, to answer the students questions? This is not teaching, and only a minority of students can learn this way. Online lessons are standard in countries like Mexico, for families who cannot afford private schools. They have schools made up of computer suites, with students sat learning via online lessons all day, and staff just there to supervise. This is not just the future of schools in the UK if we carry on as we are, it's happening now. How anyone can think this is OK is beyond me. The government should be ashamed.

See the comments on the Oxbridge thread - "Oxbridge isn't all that my sil went there and she's only a teacher" etc. Which is, yes, the result of a capitalist society valuing high-salary jobs over everything else. The public may respect the idea of teachers but no one wants to do the job. Book sounds interesting, I'll read it.

www.tes.com/magazine/archive/vocational-education-boosts-job-prospects-and-earnings-finds-new-study

There is a detailed article here, talking about Finland's split into academic and vocational at 15-16. Ostensibly, it is about "choice," but in reality, those who opt for vocational education will be those who are finding the academic classes they have done at school harder, and grades are used to make the final decision. Finnish teachers have traditionally not done much in the way differentiation as they have taught from the front to desks in rows and have the most textbook-centric teaching style of any OECD country. It is of course absolutely true that Finland has started tracking later than many other countries, but realistically, 15-16 is probably the absolute latest that you can keep all students together in any education system; the differences between students in terms of aptitude, knowledge, attitude to school and what they want to do after age 18 are simply too great by that point.

Finland's late school starting age is nice for Finland, but probably impractical in an English speaking country where the writing system is so hard to learn. Finnish has the most transparent orthography in the whole of Europe; it's so easy to learn that children mostly pick up reading before school by reading TV subtitles and having parents point out letters and sounds in picture books etc; if they haven't, they can learn to read fluently within a couple of weeks of starting school. English has the least transparent orthography in Europe and it is very hard to teach well; a late school starting age would just open up chasms between middle class kids (whose parents would buy phonics schemes and teach them at home anyway) and working class kids who would be far less likely to learn anything but would be bunged in the same classrooms anyway.

cps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/150410115444-RealFinnishLessonsFULLDRAFTCOVER.pdf

I really recommend this excellent read-online book for anyone who is curious about Finland. It really goes into the historical background of why teaching is such a strongly respected profession in Finland, and why education has been so important to Finns.

Online learning requires enormous amounts of self motivation and removes most of the instant feedback that students get in the classroom. Some of the online tutorials are good but they cannot compete with the rich education and social experiences that children get at a good school. Online education is an alternative for children who can’t access school for emotional or distance reasons, but it doesn’t suit the vast majority of children.

I’m also worried. There’s a good chance the Tories could win another election - weirder things have happened - and then I think they’ll hurtle faster and faster towards more online teaching.

My dd is at a girls state comprehensive where behaviour is fine. In Y7 she has patchy quality subs for 80% of her English, IT, history and Spanish classes. I coach her on how to stay motivated but she’s 12 so not easy.. When homework is set it is rarely marked (except maths as majority of homework is a self-marking online portal).

I am terrified that online teaching becomes the default delivery method as it will not be good for the majority of the kids in schools.

However I do wonder if there is an opportunity for technology to support secondary education more than it does today. I’m just thinking off the top of my head but … If AI engines can now write essays, why shouldn’t be capable of marking essays too?

My dd has written termly tests for many subjects which seems to be known weeks in advance … is there a bit of software that would organise teacher/classroom changes so that a class a test is automatically allocated a sub in a “testing room”, maybe school even has a regular sub who becomes expert at delivering tests, will gather the test papers from an online portal where teacher leaves them, print and administer them. You wouldn’t need QTS for that.

It is not sensible to teach via online prerecorded lessons as a stop-gap measure but if this was done REALLY well maybe it would offer something new and useful - for example if it was game-ified. Think of the fabulous quality content on the CBBC website, if that is played repetitively it sinks in. Quizzes, polling, interactive elements, games, sound and video - that is the kind of online learning that is more likely to work (not just a teacher droning at a camera as the Oak National stuff was done). I learned more world geography from playing an online game than I did in 15 years of schooling and the game really wasn’t trying to teach me anything. I played a game that was set in a historical period and I genuinely felt I was living in that period of time for a few weeks as the game-story unfolded. Imagine Roblox style games that actually impart knowledge or skills as you go along. Or online Escape Room type games where the puzzles impart skills and critical thinking. Cooperative games where you meet classmates as an avatar in an online platform or VR environment and have to solve problems together, maybe there is a teacher in there too who can be your guru if you get totally stuck. Many kids simply live online especially post Covid - they’ll chat via text or voice whilst playing for hours on end. Nothing like this existed when I was a child but it is highly addictive and so many kids like to exist this way. For a lot of them their future is going to be virtual. You could also make the game-learning competitive, organising the pupils into small teams so their game results were in league tables. Hell you could compete nationally not just within your own school.

I know it all sounds unlikely but we have to re-imagine how education works for a new era - an era when most adults want to work flexibly from home and are pushing for 4 day weeks. No millennial wants to work 60 hours a week as standard, like I expected to when I started out in my professional career. So our old models of running the professions have to change. And in my profession that change is enabled by technology.

So we need to let go of what we thought worked and try something new?

I cannot see remote learning becoming the norm; we tried it in COVID and it was a disaster for most kids!

Most likely, as PP suggested, there will be attempts to recruit teachers from (perhaps poorer) countries, and have significantly bigger class sizes. Small schools might be closed and the pupils merged with bigger schools. Setting and GCSE/A level options might get cut back. It's not looking great, either way.

All those things you've said are already happening.

Apparently this was also a bulge year for secondaries. With the way birth rates have dropped in the last 10 years, I have a feeling this will be the peak and numbers of kids will start gradually falling from next year onwards, but I'm not sure.

I agree, being a parent is now too much of a liability, hardly anyone can afford to move out of their parents home let alone afford a family home, now the education system falling apart

More revelations today in the ongoing released WhatsApp messages that Matt Hancock (allegedly) sent during Covid, this time not about how hospitals willingly sent elderly infected patients back to their care homes, but about what the government actually thinks of teachers. Apparently Gavin Williamson, much esteemed not Education Secretary thought teachers were lazy and trying to get out of working during the pandemic. Really Gavin? Were you being asked to work in small rooms with up to 30 potential virus transmitters? Or being told to work with wide open windows in the middle of winter? Did you spend time packing and distributing care and food packages to shielding families like many teachers did?

If AI engines can now write essays, why shouldn’t be capable of marking essays too?

I'm involved in a trial on this at the moment. I had high hopes but it's not actually going that well at the moment. I do think it may be the future in some form though.

One thing that suggestion ignores is that teachers actually get useful information about their class from the process of marking.