Go, Nicky, go...

[rollonthesummer]

bbc

Arghhhhhh!!!!

The most likely outcome is that schools will do their best not to admit students with SEN, or students recently arrived to the UK.

Some students just won't get the times tables, because of their SEN. Will heads really want them on their roll if it means their job is on the block.

What do these politicians think we actually do all day?

My dd has SEN issues and is y1, despite daily maths interventions cannot count past 40 or recognise any written numbers. She also has daily phonics interventions and cannot blend any words at all so doubtful she will be able to achieve the stuff in y6 as the gap between her and her peers is widening . I also work in a primary school and know that despite quality teaching and interventions not all children will achieve it.

aNewMein

A tip for remembering 8x8

The boy 8 and 8 until he was sick on the floor (64)

Interesting.

I teach bottom set yr 6 maths. We generally have very high standards, but this year is not a strong cohort and the bottom-of-the-bottom have dyslexia and dyscalculia issues.

No chance will we hit 100%. But every kid who is capable will know them, because we have small class sizes (bottom group is three kids at the moment!) and we drill.

Why is that a failure? I think we are a success.

I'd love a pop quiz in the House of Commons on tables up to 12.

No notice - just get everyone on their feet, fire out the questions and if they get it right they can sit down.

I bet there'd be some embarrassing moments there!

Whenever I read any of her pronouncements I have the voice of Dolores Umbridge in my head...

Hem hem...

Is innumeracy even a word?

I'm interested in this teacher swap for the "failed" school. Does the outstanding school it's paired with get lumbered with a shit teacher for a term? What if there aren't any outstanding schools in the same area? Does the offending teacher get sent on secondment to the Scilly Isles? Is bed and board provided?

What if an outstanding school doesn't get 100%? Does a teacher from a shit school come in and.... What? What happens?

I learned my times tables at aged 30 when I did my teacher training. Never had a fucking scooby doo before that. Despite this I got A levels, a good degree from a top uni and had a "starter" career as a corporate lawyer.

Never needed them. Or if I did I used a calculator.

More political nonsense which actually, I'm not worried about as it'll never work and will get quietly sidelined once this bunch of no hopers realise it'll never fly. My fucking cat makes more sense.

I teach. I can't answer ALL my tables questions up to 12 x 12 as quickly as I can answer my name but I can (and expect 11 year olds) to work out say 8 x 7 or 12 x 9 realtively quickly by using other known number facts. E.g. 8 x 7 is 56 because 7 x 7 is 49 and 8 is 1 lot of 7 more so 49 + 7 = 6. I don't use my times tables every day (unless specifically teaching them).

I am not overly worried. Teachers make up a vast proportion of intelligent voters and I doubt many will be voting Conservatives in the next election.

I won't. They have done absolutely nothing for me except ruin my work/life balance, my self esteem, my confidence and almost tore my family apart.

Sadly, Labour don't look to be any better...

I like Greens!!! Or am I living in cloud cuckooland????

Sadly, I don't think voting Greens will be very effective. They might get a few more seats but I reckon the Tories will get in on a teeny tiny majority unless we all vote Labour.

Who are, of course, bloody awful!

I've had an email about the workload challenge today. Seems a response has been published. I've yet to look at it properly but I will later and report back.

Total garbage.

They have promised they won't make any major changes to GCSE courses or introduce new directives unless they 'absolutely have to'. That was an hour of my life I won't get back...

Workload challenge thing basic summary =
We pretended to read what lots of people thought about it all, and then we decided to do zilch, you suckers.

Exactly!

I knew that's what it was going to be like, but was trying to be optimistic!

Absolutely nothing we have complained about will change-teachers are dropping like flies and schools will be totally fucked by about 2017.

A lot of the workload comes from 'perceived' pressure from Ofsted... I perceive it because it's there. Gits

This just takes the biscuit...

"It is very important that schools maintain a sense of proportion when preparing for an Ofsted inspection," he said.

The results of this survey are insulting.

Ofsted reports are arbitrary, unreliable, inconsistent and final. With a bad one, comes an immense fallout that can cost people their jobs, their health and their sanity.

To say that schools should just 'chill out' about it, makes me hopping mad!

The tone throughout is insultingly patronising, tbh.

HM Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said Ofsted was working to "dispel some of the myths that may have led to unnecessary workloads".

Dispelling myths doesn't go far enough. They need to S.P.E.L.L it out to SLT EXACTLY what they expect teachers to do in terms of workload. My SLT seem to demand the very things OFSTED are dispelling!!

Ofsted is the bloody cause of most of the myths leading to unnecessary workloads!

I agree though, Ofsted need to spell out exactly what they want. Actually-they need to write what they DON'T want. It needs to be things like,
'we do not want marking to be done in certain or multiple colours'
'we do not want photographs of practical activities stuck in books as evidence that the teacher was actually teaching that lesson and not staring out of the window because we trust teachers and know they wouldn't do that.

Unfortunately though, I think that Ofsted actually DO like to see marking in 400 brightly coloured highlighters with next steps that 4 year olds can't read and they DO think teachers are lazy arses who will stare out of the window at any opportunity, so they will never never put in writing that things like this will stop.

I don't know what I thought would be the outcome of the workload survey, but this sucks big time. They haven't even tried to appease teachers with 'if you vote for us, we'll do this'-it's just nothing.