Gone back into teaching after a long break - oh dear!

[MrsGherkin]

I taught for around around 4 years - 2 in Secondary and 2 in primary, then left for around 8 years to raise a family and in that time I ran workshops with children instead. This was lovely but sporadic and unreliable financially.

So I went back this year and am now teaching in an Outstanding Comp part-time. I am essentially happy with the pay in comparison, my colleagues are lovely. The holidays are nice (but I so always do some work or other). I am paid to work 19 hours per week but do around 32-35 hours pw so rarely get a full day off.

I'm going in over half term again to coach (lazy) year 11's . What I find most alarming is that if those year 11's don't make their predicted grade despite my additional input, because I am the only teacher of my subject in school I am personally accountable for their success. My name will go on a big PowerPoint in September and if I'm in yellow my students (and therefore me) has passed or done better than predicted and if their names appear in red, they've not made the grade and nor have I. This is in front off all staff and the atmosphere in the hall is one of quiet smugness / utter defeat - it's terrifying. I am really worried about failure and am doing catch up sessions twice weekly (extra 4 hours per week) too. It's this combined with the constant, monitoring reports, lesson observations, hired consultants wandering in and scrutinising my books and asking the children questions about me all the time; it's really scary (and a little bit dictatorship-like at times). I am awake for hours at night worrying and wondering quite if I'll make it. My boss is only just managing to cope I think -( says the jobs got so much worse in the past 2 years.) There are days when I leave at 6.30 and the poor H0D's still there and sending emails to my home.

Anyway you get my drift, I am just not sure I can always be that Uber Outstanding teacher ALL THE TIME and so utterly accountable. But I'm sure it's no different for the police or nurses or any civil servant really, it's just essentially overwhelming. Any thoughts or reassurance gratefully received.

Thanks all.

I've also noticed that there are hardly any older teachers in the school anymore. The last 60 year old retired early recently. Where have they all gone? There are technicians, support staff and LSAs who're older but there's barely a teacher over 50 in the building - it's young person's game it seems - cheaper, can run the gauntlet better and have not got demoralised?

Yes-I agree. There's just one teacher over 50 left in my school and they are retiring in July.

They are too expensive. There is also definitely the feeling that if you pipe up with, 'haven't we tried this shite new initiative some years ago and it was shite ineffective' -5 members of SMT turn round incredulously to you, point and screetch- 'she's a witch' and you are soon burnt put on a 'support' plan!

New, fresh-faced, cheap and pliable is the order of the day!

I think in primary we are doing our secondary colleagues no favours either. I teach y6. My performance related pay is based on my level 4&5s. It is my job to get as many 4s and 5s as I can regardless of whether that child is a natural L4 or 5. So because our job depends on it we are basically cramming got the test and sending all these magical 4 and 5 kids up into y7 meaning you are expected to make sure they get an A or A* at GCSE. It's just ridiculous.

Yes we've noticed yr 7s coming into our school who've been too highly graded making levelling difficult. We have not really found a way to make levels meaningful across the board, even after re-testing in year 7. It's very hard to make levels equable in different subjects. So a student can get a level 5 in Art which he's very good at and level 7 in English say which he's pretty good at, it's confusing for everyone. So another change is needed as clearly levels are not working, we'll end up going back to old fashioned testing as a percentage and reports will be given out... like the old days.

Schools push and push teachers to level children higher and higher and it just sets the next teacher or school up to fail.

I've just submitted my levels for this half term (and yes, there are still over two weeks to go until the end of the half term!!) and the head is unhappy with three of my children's maths levels. So she's put them up. Without telling me or asking what I think!

She doesn't even know the children concerned! Couldn't pick them out of a crowd if her life depended on it.

It's a bloody joke. I'm going to tell next year's teacher what she's done though. I hope I'll have handed my notice in by then; I just cannot stand it any more!

In my last job, on GCSE and A Level results day, you'd go in at 7.30am and the Headmaster would have already done graph upon graph comparing departments and their results, and they would be up on the wall in reception. It was hideous.

I've just done another catch-up session with my less wiling year 11's. One or two students just are not willing to do anymore work,; they slowly amble though catch-up achieving about 20 mins of work in 2 hours despite chivvying. I'm coming in over half term as I mentioned, knowing it'll be the same and still they may not finish and meet the deadline.

Wondering why can't students be allowed to fail sometimes? Why do we have to drag them through a hedge backwards for the slim possibility they'll get 3% higher (representing hours and hours of teacher overtime?). Teachers putting in 100% to get 3% out - is that a fair exchange - genuine question?

It doesn't bode well for the these young people for the future either, is it? They spend years being spoonfed and carried by teachers whilst at school-blaming the teachers when they don't make the grade, yet the day they turn 18 and join the workforce, when their boss asks them to complete a job well, they're going to get a huge wake-up call! If they've never been accountable to anything in their lives, it probably will come as a great shock when they're thrown out on their ear by a company for being a lazy arse!?

I'm currently teaching two year 11 groups.

Able-ish group - mostly targeted Bs (they are set 3 out of 8). All the keen, hardworking B-targets were sorted into set 2 at the end of year 9 - I've got the ones who didn't over exert themselves throughout KS3, basically.

Definite culture of 'C is fine, I don't intend to take A-Level English anyway, so I just need a C to get into the better of the two local colleges. Yes miss, I know it says on your spreadsheet I can get a B, but you see, I don't need one'.

Very weak group - mostly targeted Ds (set 8 out of 8). Not, realistically, going to get the magic grade C. Unsurprisingly, not that keen to bust a gut to get a D when it doesn't get them anywhere much that an E won't. Those of them who aren't NEETS this time next year will be at college, doing a vocational course & re-taking GCSE Eng, either way.

I can chivvy all I want (& I do!) but ultimately, there's no real reason why these kids should want desperately to turn an easy C/E into a bloody hard B/D.

It's a slog.

How do your PM targets differ from your colleagues teaching sets 1 and 2?

They don't - you're expected to get a positive residual either way.

I've got top set year 10, & it's much easier - OK, no-one's allowed to get a B in anything on pain of death, so the pressure's on there, but they're perfectly happy to re-attempt CAs if it does happen.

The set 3 'bugger the B' factor is just one of those interesting pitfalls thrown up by the over-emphasis on grade C as a pass/fail mark...we generally just make sure that no-one gets lumbered with set 3 for two years running/if they're up for threshold/in danger of being put on competency.

Of course, an unscrupulous HOD could exploit it quite neatly to get rid of anyone she didn't like.

Oh yes. The HOD that eventually drove me out of secondary teaching had set 2 and I had set 3. Twice during the two year GCSE course she informed me that she was moving her 'bottom' ones down to me and taking my top ones up to her. Which would have made sense. But what she actually did, both times, was move the ones from her class down to me who were furthest away from achieving their target grade, and take the ones from my class who were exceeding their target grade. This was regardless of ability - so I would get her students who should have been getting As but were getting Ds because they were lazy and she couldn't engage with them, and she would take the ones from my class who were targeted Cs but were working so hard they were getting Bs. These moves benefited no-one but her and, predictably, my results on paper were shit. I had worked SO HARD with those kids.

I had a boy in my class with severe behavioural problems. His mum was a prostitute (she actually was) and he was alone all night every night playing X box. His target when he came to me in Year 10 was a D. He wanted a D to get into the army. His twin brother was expelled at the end of the year and the TA and I worked so hard to keep 'our' twin in school. At some point during Year 11 during a meeting I was not invited to, it was agreed that actually, his target should be a C. His ability had not changed and his home life if anything was worse. He completed all his coursework, came to all his exams and must have excelled himself in the exams because he got his D. But I had to go to a meeting and explain why I had failed to get him his target grade.

We also had the name and shame PowerPoint but it was RANKED.

I will do everything in my power to avoid going back to that.

I'm a primary SLT member. 20 years in the job, across London. And I'm done.

I'm leaving in July with no job to go to. That's fine. Will be looking for other opportunities. The key issue that has tipped the balance for me is this relentless drive for level 4b+, level 5 and now 6. Relentless at all costs. While year on year a group of kids leave to go to secondary school not being able to flipping read and write properly. These are the ones that get levelled as 4c. They very same kids who then struggle through secondary school. It's a joke.

Absolutely. And an unscrupulous HOD could engineer it so the top sets were his/hers too, to ensure personal targets are made.

I bet there are plenty of those around!

I think going for a non-teaching SMT role is the way forward. They have meetings, they leave early, they don't teach and just seem to tell other people they're not working hard enough. I could do that.

Apologies to members of non-teaching SMT who do work very hard. I just haven't met any before.

I would walk a day in SLT shoes rollon.

It is dreadful. It is horrible telling people they are not good enough teachers when actually you know that the challenges they face with their class make it virtually impossible to tick Ofsted's boxes. It is soul destroying to condone the curriculum being distilled down into grammar practise and endless 'responding to marking'. It makes you feel a bit sick telling the teachers of infants that they mustn't have afternoon playtime in the hot summer days because it is 'wasting learning time'. Hounding struggling colleagues into their sick beds is not fun.

And if you can't prove you have been doing all of this (and more and worse) then they will come for you.

I did it for 4 terms and became really ill. I have gone back to my SEN classroom now where, for now, I still have some freedom to meet the children's needs.

Not SLT. Never again.

Completely agree with Finola. The relentless drive for [x] levels of progress within [arbitrary amount of time] AT ALL COSTS. I am secondary. Parents do not want this, they tell me so at every parents evening. They want kids to achieve, of course, but overwhelmingly they want them to be happy and balanced, to enjoy learning, to benefit from a broad, creative curriculum.
I as a parent also want that. I absolutely hate the thought that my kids' teachers are under the same nonsensical pressures as I am.

our year 7 levels this year are riciculous, meaning I should get them to a level 7 by July - I said to my boss there is NO WAY , but as levels are going, no one gives a toss. phew

the hours primary schools spend on maths and English doesn't translate into other subjects although schools do expect it, oddly.

TBH i let a lot of it wash over me, Its only GCSEs that bother me

I'm reading this and it makes me sad, especially as I see this everyday at my school.
Sometimes I think our Head revels in making the staff miserable. I adore most of the children (though there are few who do say "Well YOU have to get me the grade or you won't get paid Miss!") and have a lot of friends who work bloody hard day in day out to meet our Head's unrealistic targets (100% FFTD) for pay progression.

It is a sorry state of affairs when aty least 3 of my close workmates are on antidepressants and other drugs because of work.

It is a very sorry state of affairs when staff are coming in with pneumonia and lung infections as they are worried that they will be placed on competency or fail their NQT year if they are off sick.

It is a sorry state of affairs that I am one week into my maternity leave (after a farcical time for me and my dept sorting cover - the girl covering me is not a subject specialist thus can't teach my GCSE classes and my one top set class, therefore messing up the entire dept timetable, but hey, the head refuses to advertise anywhere that costs more than £3!) and am already dreading going back (plus have been told "You're back in sept full time aren't you? Er - NO! October you cretin!) to that place.

But the worst of it - knowing that this is the current culture and there is not a lot I can do about it.

Where will it all end? Will we just all leave and a new generation of young cheap teachers who haven't known anything different will come in and it'll be fine?

I've got another 30 years until I retire though!

i looked it up

The UK has one of the youngest teaching workforces in the world. 20% of teachers are under 30 and 50% under 40.

I have taught in two other countries, so not claiming to speak for all .
However in those countries, teachers . They are not expected to be, and would not dream of being, police and social workers. They are teachers.
Somehow, here, teachers have been suckered guilt-tripped into doing more ancillary work than they should.
In France, for example, there is whole pastoral division that takes care of behaviour and pastoral care, beyond low level classroom control. Anything more than chat is taken care of outside the classroom.
I have chosen to do supply, as this way I do what I want to do, which is teach. If I had chosen social work or policing, I wold not expect also to be teaching an academic subject.
Teachers need to vote with their feet.