Are there other jobs where you are micromanaged and fear for your job the same way as teaching at the moment?

[Letseatgrandma]

There appears to be the belief at the moment that if teachers aren't continually watched, observed, assessed and improved that we will not do any work! Where did this belief come from. I am sick of people looking through my books, studying my data and watching me teach. The assumption is always that I'm fine at the moment, but that 'you're only ever as good as your last observation' so watch your back!

My DH has a 'normal' job in the city. He's a graduate and has a job with decent pay and some stress, but it's not even within the same league. His boss would question him if he did nothing, I'm sure-but there's no assumption that he needs to be watched. I'm sick of it to be honest.

Are other jobs the same on a daily basis-with the threat of SMT and Ofsted ever present? The feeling that if you're over 30, you're very expensive and frankly just not valued any more.

I have to pitch in with the comparisons discussion and add that there are also things out of your control, of negligible benefit to the customer or company, and widely and variably interpreted measures by which call centre staff are judged. In my experience these were every shift, a selection of your calls being listened to, graded on pointless things like including daily changing buzz words into calls, and bonuses depending on conflicting elements- number of calls successfully completed and number of extras upsold, for example.

But as pp pointed out, at least call centre work finishes at the end of your shift.

Yes, many/most jobs are now.
I came into teaching late, form another career, and over the years in that career the same thing happened.
So unless there is a revolution, its a case of accepting it, changing it, or leaving.
Most teachers are in unions tho', unlike call centre workers etc - does make me wonder why the unions have been spineless.

yep. public services.
full of kpi, tight deadlines, performance observations...

I think a lot of the difficulty re micro - management of professions is the conflict between roles. The tick-box/document everything demands come from managers who (IME) are data - obsessed/quite rigid thinkers, compared to those working in professions which are more intuitive/touchy-feely.

I'm a teacher, I do think observations are important, as is having some evidence of learning, the stress lies in doing things which have no value to the pupils/nobody reads, just for the sake of it.

My DH is in a highly-paid/skilled role. He never used to be stressed about work. He had a boss who didn't care what time he came in/left, how long he took for lunch, and didn't email him outwith working hours unless it was urgent. He knew the work always got done, my DH worked his socks off during the day. He was trusted.

He's got a new boss who is a 'box ticker' and loves data. He's constantly asking them to do pointless things, emails all the time, checks clocking in/out times etc. DH is feeling resentful. As he says, other staff spend time chatting/having coffees/not working, yet because they have clocked in early, that's all the new boss sees.

DH is feeling like he's back at school, he's not enjoying work like he used to. He's never been a skiver, but his productivity has probably decreased because of micro - management. He's got the sort of job which involves a lot of problem-solving/creativity, but his boss is a very rigid thinker. Total mismatch of expectations.

the evidencing in my school has Gordon bad that if a teacher delivers a practical lesson where children aren't required to record anything, they have to write the date in each child's book and the kids have to writ "we did bla bla today" or if they have a change of plan etc. " we didn't do any work because .... "

Got not gorden -where did that come from😀

The culture really encourages controlling/bullying people into management.
I work as a companion/support to people having disciplinary/issues at work and every time thus far it's been clear the manager is a bullying micro-manager who puts in targets and performance assessments that only a robot could hit consistently.
It's really dispiriting that this culture encourages such low thinking types who will do nothing creative or kind ever and just drive away those who want to do a good job - no wonder we are seeing such a high level of small business start ups - just so people can get away from such narrow thinking.

a teacher delivers a practical lesson where children aren't required to record anything, they have to write the date in each child's book and the kids have to writ "we did bla bla today" or if they have a change of plan

Yes- that sounds familiar! If we do practical work, we have to take a photo of each child whilst they do it, find a printer to print the photos off, cut them up, stick them in their books, write a date, write a learning objective, mark it and then get them to respond to it. It makes you want to give them a worksheet!

Honestly, I spend so much trying to get a good photo of them doing the activity, I have no bloody idea if they met the learning objective!!

Why do teachers think they should be different to other workers? I think most workers are micro-managed these days.

I've been an accountant for over 30 years. For the years where I worked in practice, I had to keep very detailed timesheets to explain exactly what I was doing, and for which client, in 5 minute blocks, which were then used to bill the clients. We had strict targets to meet both for quantity and quality of our time. Everything we did was reviewed by more senior staff, even down to random checking of additions and calculations. Spending too long on a client or making mistakes were disciplinary offences.

Now, I run my own practice, where not only do I have to keep written evidence of my continued professional development, I have to keep a written record of why I did it, what I learned from it, etc. I also have to keep "bomb-proof" files to defend myself against claims from clients that I've done my work wrong or given the wrong advice. My professional body can come out and review my files. I am at risk of criminal prosecution if I don't have proof of a client's ID and address on my file, or if I don't report a client to the relevant authorities if I suspect them of any criminal behaviour.

I think workers who have "free reign" to do their work without close scrutiny and monitoring are in a very small group and very lucky!

Not hugely surprising that an accountant has to be accountable.

The issue with teaching and accountability is that much of what is important in teaching isn't accountable.

But only what can be measured is deemed important. Which is ridiculously frustrating as it takes time away from the parts that do matter (& from any kind of personal life).

Teachers are also judged on the performance of the children, which can be affected by a huge number of factors that we have no control over. Divorce, house move, new baby in the family, on role but never actually turned up (yup, that's one of mine this year - I am still judged on that child's performance!).

It's the pointlessness of it all that teachers are speaking up about. I don't think anyone would mind a bit of micromanaging if it actually helped the children,

I think what makes teaching different to other difficult jobs is that teachers also have to manage 30 (+) other little people while being micro-managed themselves and trying to meet their targets. That in itself is a huge challenge!

I think Jelly has hit the nail on the head when she said that a lot of what happens in teaching isn't accountable or measurable. In primary school in particular, you are everything to the children you teach as you are with them all day every day. As well as teacher you become councilor, social worker, friend, and carer. There is no way to measure or prove that what you have done has had a certain outcome- helping a child whose parents have divorced or lost a grandparent, sorting out children who find friendships difficult, or even little things like correcting a child who has difficulty holding a pencil correctly all go unseen.
In addition, children in your class are not predictable, we can never gaurantee that a certain input will achieve a desired outcome- children learn in such different ways, and come from such a variety of circumstances, which can change throughout the year that academic and numerical targets are not always as predicted, no matter how the teacher has tried. This is what makes teaching stressful when you are under pressure to achieve a certain target, but unlike some professions, sheer hardwork doesn't always improve outcome, sometimes it's just luck that that you have picked the correct strategy earlier rather than later.
I do think that there are some teachers out there that are not suited to the profession, but there are many teachers that are good enough, and a few that are very good and maybe one gifted one in most schools. However, I think bad teachers are a minority group, as the pressures and scrutiny in schools in such that few manage to last long before they are pressured out.

kwjh, the thing is that while you were completing billing every 5 minutes, your data weren't rioting and chucking chairs at each other, or even just drifting off and losing focus, or kicking the chair of the data in front of them.

We've all met people in jobs who weren't very good at what they were doing. I, unfortunately, am sometimes one of them Given the rise of measuring culture, has anything actually improved? Do people feel that school leavers coming out of an education taught by teachers who are constantly measured in these ways are better educated? Are accountants who are billed every 5 minutes, or 4 minutes, or every minute, actually picking up more fraud and poor practice? I don't get the impression from the headlines but who would trust what newspapers write about other professions?

I am constantly amazed by what ds is learning compared to what I learned at the same age (and he's at a community school, whereas I was at a highly regarded single sex grammar). But I'm actually not sure the overall outcome is going to be the slightest bit better for him. What seems to be being squeezed out is that connection with the individual teacher, which if measured which actually show up in a negative way, as I'm sure the teacher who can make that connection is quite likely to be inconsistent - the sort of teacher that some pupils adore, but others can't stand. As opposed to someone who does a consistent job but never makes that moment of lightning between two brains.

I guess what I'm saying is - thank you Mr T, whose lessons I can still remember in some cases almost word for word, who I don't think was very happy at our school a lot of the time, who got a lot of teasing but who effectively got me to Cambridge in his subject because of that passion he ignited in me for it. Thank God he could spend his time reading up on his subject and finding obscure texts, rather than filling in forms.

The issue with teaching and accountability is that much of what is important in teaching isn't accountable

Absolutely-or measurable.

You are measured and tested and scrutinised and observed on things that are unimportant, out of your control and don't benefit the children.

I'd rather my children's teachers spent their time planning wonderful lessons than measuring things that dont matter.

I've said it before rollon, if they want identical, constantly improving results, stop giving us variable wuality materials.
In a sausage factory, the link between standardised, quality ingredients and the resulting standardisation of sausage would be clearly established.
Otherwise, why don't we have centralised outstanding lesson plans published and followed by all teachers in the state system, along with the provision of identical resources.
Then we'd be able to see where the problems truly lay.

Given the rise of measuring culture, has anything actually improved?

Anyone who knows me will agree that this is what I've been banging on about for years. Wherever you look these days, workers are micro-managed, but the "regulators" are looking at the wrong things because they don't know the job themselves and won't do anything that involves hard work and time. The monitors who go around checking accountant files aren't accountants themselves! So rather than checking the work we do, they check the irrelevant, such as making sure our files are properly cross-referenced - we can give crap advice but as long as the paperwork is headed up properly and cross referenced, we pass the audit check! Quality checkers who do the food hygiene checks don't stand and watch what actually happens, they just check the file/instructions are right - they don't check they're actually followed so as long as the file says to check the pie is 100 degrees, that's a tick - they don't check the cook actually does it! I can go on and on based on what my clients have told me from a massively diverse range of businesses, trades and professions. But the same story from them all - the regulators are only checking what's quick and easy to check and aren't checking what really matters. Hence why nothing really gets any better.

why don't we have centralised outstanding lesson plans published and followed by all teachers in the state system, along with the provision of identical resources.

This is what I really can't understand. From the sounds of it, there are literally hundreds of teachers all over the country all creating their own "scrappy worksheets" for their forthcoming lessons. Why? Surely it's a mammoth waste of time when everyone is reinventing the wheel?

The franchising model is surely the way to go, so that all teachers and schools have access to core materials produced by experts that they can print off as and when called for?

My son's school has just started an online homework system, so for the first time, I can see what other teachers are giving for homework compared with my son's class which has been a revelation. In some subjects, the HOD is clearly dictating the lessons and homework across the whole year, because you can follow through all the classes in the year doing the same homework whether it's research or a poster or a scrappy worksheet. So, basically, the HOD has clearly set out the lesson-plans which the teachers follow. For other subjects, the teachers are roughly following the same plan, but producing their own homework - I once saw 5 different trig worksheets - all basically the same, but clearly from different sources, two of which were clearly home=made by the teacher. Why? Even worse, for some subjects, the teachers seem to be following their own plans and there's no correlation at all between the order in which the topics are taught or even what's being taught, so presumably a weak HOD?

Annandale, my 'data' also didn't perform in a predictable straight line of progress. Sometimes pupils regress or plateau, yet the computer tracking data always sees this as teacher failure. As for photographic evidence, it doesn't prove anything. Video evidence does, but our school computers didn't have enough free memory to store it and we weren't allowed to use an external hard drive (virus risk).

I left my job as call handler for a financial institution for this very reason. I couldn't sleep and used to burst into tears after my shift. I was good at my job but they just kept piling on the pressure and I couldn't take any more.
Its crap op. Sorry your going through it.

Completely agree about the madness of everyone reinventing the wheel.
Recently on a teaching forum, a trainee asked if anyone had resources for a particular topic. S/he got a very snotty response along the lines of 'you have to make your own resources to be a real teacher - we suffered through it and so should you'.
Ridiculous! If people shared more, than everyone would be teaching the best, which is surely the desired outcome. But instead they jealously guard their own, and so everyone works more than they have to and some children are short-changed.
Depts should be working to a scheme of work, and should definitely be using similar worksheets, albeit adapted for different abilities as they are presumably set in Maths.
As a supply teacher I often have a situation where I teach two top sets in one year group on the same day and the cover work set by completely different teachers for the two groups - one is a proper lesson, the other is 'colour by numbers.

The franchising model is surely the way to go, so that all teachers and schools have access to core materials produced by experts that they can print off as and when called for?

I know - such materials could be called "textbooks", but in today's climate you're made to feel bad if you use them, like you are a lesser teacher!

I would bloody hate to have to teach from a centralised lesson plan. Teachers have different styles and strengths and what suits one teacher won't suit another. Same goes for the kids - I teach in quite a traditional way, exposition followed by practice. Boring, right? But some kids like it, and say they get my lessons better than other teachers. Similarly, other teachers in the dept do high-octane activities, investigations and the like, and some kids love them. I'd hate to be forced to do the high-octane activities because some centralised lesson plan demanded it.

I think publishing mandatory lesson plans would be a very dangerous route for the teaching profession to go down. They may be useful for when teacher's need ideas but making them compulsory with a one size fits all approach is a step backwards. Personally I think there needs to be more room for creativity in the curriculum, allowing teachers to follow the interests of the children and try new ideas without the fear of being reprimanded for 'going off plan'.