Who is/isn't striking among the NUT members here?

[lifeissweet]

Facing a dilemma. My beliefs about unions are based on the fact that united we have a voice. People fought to have the right to unionise. If a union calls a strike, then I believe all members have a responsibility to stand up together. Otherwise, we come across as divided, not united and it weakens us all.

Not for a long, long time has the teaching profession been under so much threat and we need to be united now more than at any time. Our terms and conditions are facing changes which will make teaching a far less stable and desirable profession (and not really a profession at all if unqualified teachers are allowed to take classes all over the place).

However, I am currently the only member of staff at my school who is prepared to strike on Thursday. Half of the other staff are NUT. Lots of the support staff are in striking unions, yet no one is striking (including the NUT rep). The Head has told me that if I strike I will be the only one and that he will have to close only my class that day and keep the rest of the school open, so everyone will know it is only me withdrawing my labour and am I 'prepared to take the flak for that?'

I'm not sure I am, but I believe really strongly in supporting the union. The thought of ignoring deeply held principles and breaking a strike sit uncomfortably with me.

My DS's school is closed on Thursday. Other local schools are too.

So is it just my school where there are no striking staff at all? And if you are NUT, why are you not striking? Is it just so as not to disrupt end of year activities, or because you think striking isn't helping? (I don't, incidentally, but will vote with my feet on that one and change unions when this is done.) How do you square that with yourself?

Not preaching. People have all manner of reasons for not striking. I just think I want to feel a bit less out on a limb!

So what would make people like you stay? As imday, from the outside, the strike aims seem vague. Maths recruitment been a longterm problem so what would make a material difference? And what is affordable? Personally, i feel paying core subjects - maths/English/science teachers a recruitment & retention incentive seems money well spent. For RE? Well, much less so. Actually not at all. Reality is decent maths/science graduates have always/will always be able to pick and choose.

Get rid of Ofsted. I think that would make a massive difference to teachers.

Oh, and get rid of Gove. That probably goes without saying. The man's a menace.

But I don't think we're allowed to strike about that.

I would like to see smaller class sizes, less work for me and more attention and therefore higher achievement for the student.

I would also like to see less contact time.

I read that in Shanghai, that magical place with wondrous PISA results, contact time is about 30%. Compared to our 90%. Can you imagine?!

One hour of teaching creates at the very minimum of one hour of work. In would ideally like to see 50% contact time for mainscale teachers in recognition of that. Perhaps 70% would be mor realistic.

I'd like to be allowed to get on & teach.

Realistically, I am a parent with 3 young children of my own. The hours I'm prepared/able to devote to working are considerable, but finite.

So I'm OK doing long weekdays, regularly working all day & doing overnight 'throughers' at weekends, & working several hours a day through every holiday bar about 3 weeks of summer break.

But I can't find any more hours. So I want to spend those hours, apart from the minority of my working hours when I'm actually teaching a class, on marking & preparing lessons & resources.

I don't want to spend them entering highly spurious data into a spreadsheet & then holding meetings as to why 6% of my year 9 class aren't on course to have made x levels of progress based on equally spurious year 6 data, when everyone in the room knows that 6% of my year 9 class = child A (pregnant) & child B (mum died 3 months ago, dad's not coping).

I spent a large proportion of my time trying not to leap up & shout 'This is pointless BOLLOCKS!' tbh.

It's the Goveshit. It takes up hours.

& then there's the continuous being followed about by a twerp with a clipboard because his Goveshit requires that he fill in many, many tickboxes with dubious data pertaining to your Goveshit.

& I could make such better use of the time all this nonsense eats up. Really I could.

Raven, imagine there's no Ofsted. How much of that bullshit would just vanish?

Imagine a staff meeting or INSET where the word Ofsted didn't get uttered once. No 'Ofsted are looking for', 'aiming for outstanding' or any of that hoop-jumping faddy shite. No 'drop-in observations' to ensure that we are 'Ofsted ready'.

Ofsted is damaging teaching. Absolutely schools need some sort of inspectorate to check whether they are safe and teaching the kids what they should know and not teaching them extremism or creationism. But they shouldn't act like restaurant critics, they should be health inspectors.

I work in (according to the league tables) the best non-selective school in our LA; we are in the minority of schools in our LA to be rated good and we have lost a lot of staff this year, can't recruit and are having to rely on supply staff in September for core subjects.

Traditionally given we are centre of a triangle of teacher trainer provider we normally have huge numbers applying to every school within our LA; this is getting very unsettlingI

I remember saying that 5 years with no new government initiatives, and half the paperwork would be enough to keep me in the classroom as a ft teacher.
As TheLateMrsLizCromwell says, over the next decade or so, teaching will become a short-term career, or flooded by part-timers or supply teachers. The continuity and body of knowledge within a school will be lost, the collective experiences that build towards a customised approach for every child in the best schools.
Many of those making the decisions, many parents and politicians, won't see the problems that will come of that approach. But maybe that doesn't matter if we want Shanghai-type education. It's not based on a personalised approach.

some things are very hard to quantify
i have taught all over the world
teachers most places are respected by parents and children
that is a cultural difference
you cant really strike about it
but you can see the difference it makes to the job, the learning and the behaviour

i would recommend any teacher who is able to, looks abroad for work (avoiding the usa, who are worse than us)

Before anyone jumps down my throat my question is coming from a non teacher and I accept there will no doubt be some very goo reasons why not. MY very simplistic approach is if someone has an 'A' level in maths and not a degree why can't they teach it - why do you need a degree? Isn't how good they are as a teacher and it' not like they are teaching to degree level.

Like I said I don't want to belittle what anyone does but it seems that it could help with recruitment.

Because your knowledge should be one stage further on than the students you teach, to put it simply. We are a comp/ secondary modern that sends students to Oxbridge every year. We need degree specialists to stretch those very able students.

Exactly what raven said. I would have been on strike if I wasn't on mat leave, in fact I changed unions earlier this year because I feel so strongly that the teaching profession is just being eroded and no-one is noticing.

I don't want more money, or a bigger pension (although of course if money was no object to the government that I'd take it). I don't want to spend hours of my time having meetings about sub levels of progress or to be judged on it against my bottom sets. They come to school, to my lessons, don't muck about and were starting to enjoy maths lessons and feel they might, in the long run, be able to do some of it! I have finite hours I can work, and have to also see my young children and spend some time with them. I love being in the classroom, I enjoy creating resources and activities that they will enjoy and will motivate them to have fun and enjoy my subject seeing a point to it.

I am terrified to think how school will be for my children when they get there, what changes to goal posts mid way through exam courses will happen overnight. I worry that there will be no enthusiastic teachers left to teach my children, especially in maths and English because the pressure on these subjects is shocking.

Teachers, in my opinion, are striking over workload and conditions. I have taught for nearly 15 years, but the last few have just resulted in the number of meetings trebling, and this obsession about data and sub levels is ridiculous. I have to spend so much time trying to prove I am doing my job properly, there is no time left to do my job which is ridiculous. I want to leave, but I can't,p because what will happen to my students. I feel I am having to choose between them and my family when 6 years ago it was much better balanced.

I don't dispute other jobs have long hours and shit pay, but I don't know any other job where so much is taken up with meetings discussing all the. Million and one things you need to do to jump through everyone's hoops and then having zero time to do them.

Take the point about highly qualified subject specialists to stretch the most able. However, for the other kids and for up to gcse level, I'd say it is more important to be a highly effective classroom teacher equipped to teach/motivate/discipline appropriately even if they dont have the requisite degree.

By which i mean the specific degree for the subject they're teaching. Obv shoukd still have degree & pgce

I would say both are equally important and both can be learned. Until this year we have never hired teachers without at least a 2:1 in an appropriate degree. Many of our teachers have 1sts and a significant number are Oxbridge educated. This is in a comp/ secondary modern. I would imagine that other schools would have an even higher academic demand.

There is also someone to be said for a teacher who has enough passion for their subject that they chose to study it, exclusively for at least three years.

What i mean is if it's hard to recruit maths/science graduates in sufficient numbers, then it's reasonable to compromise somewhat on what they can actually teach eg a biology grad with good maths -'A level teaching maths to gcse.

Why not just make teaching a more attractive career?

Biologists are usually propping up the shortage of chemistry and physics teachers.

Anyway, there are plenty of non-maths-trained teachers teaching maths already, that's how the gap is being plugged.

I've taught another subject, one that I haven't been trained in, although it formed part of my degree, and it was bloody hard. I didn't really know what I was doing, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't very good. The training to teach the subject is very important. Of course there are transferable skills from classroom to classroom, but maths is a very different subject to teach to other subjects. It needs knowledge of how to teach maths, not just how to do maths. A history teacher could probably transfer to a geography classroom fairly easily, but not to maths. And vice versa.

I'm not a teacher anymore, so come at this purely as a parent. I am shocked by the complete lack of regard that so many people seem to have for teachers....because it shows a lack of regard for education in general. I don't believe that anyone can truly think that we should be aiming for non-specialist, inexperienced teachers who will simply 'do' without questioning and then clear off after a couple of years? I know that I want far better for my son.

I certainly never suggested inexperienced! In fact that WAS my point. Better a really good teacher with an A level in the subject than one with mediocre skills but relevant degree. I think up to GCSE level, teaching ability is all.

Even better a degree educated teacher with great teaching ability. How shameful that we as a country can't do that.

Were have always found biologists easier to recruit than physicists and chemists, this year we are struggling to recruit a specialist biologist as well - in a school that used to receive cvs on the off chance from subject specialists - including in the sciences and maths.