I have been teaching secondary English in Wales. Prior to this I was in England.
Behaviour is dreadful at the school and it has a huge impact on progress. The English curriculum is dry and uninspiring - and we have to stick to it to the letter and within strict deadlines.
I have really struggling with a y9 class as a result of all this. I have been telling the subject leader and SLT all year that they're not making progress - in fact many of them haven't moved on since KS2. They just couldn't give a damn.
The school enters all y9 students for a level 2 qualification earlier in the year. I was required to make sure that they all got through and every piece of writing had to be perfect, to the letter. In many cases I had to mark 5+ drafts and ultimately point out every single mistake. The kids took no responsibility,earned nothing and the results are a farce.
It's no surprise then, that come the end of KS3 they're not at their target levels and I'm being directed to do new tasks with them / redraft until they're perfect / find one-to-one time and make them into L5s.
I have a new job lined up and I don't think I'm prepared to do this. I strongly feel that SLT need to tackle behaviour for learning and get students making real progress.
I have lots of concerns about the ethics of the place, including the fact that my line manager is the HT's daughter and my union rep is a member of SLT.
Do I just need to suck this up?