What does Nicky Morgan not seem to understand?

[theluckiest]

Nicky Morgan urges teachers' unions to 'do their bit' www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35899478

No Nicky, teaching is not wonderful at the moment. No, teachers are not just moaning yet again (because that's what we usually do, isn't it?). No, your constant interfering, moving of goalposts and unnecessary 'reforms' are not helping anyone. In fact, you are damaging education irreparably.

Here's an example: the 'more rigorous' testing that you insist all 11 year olds should be put through are actually damaging. They are demoralising teachers but much more importantly, they are seriously damaging children's mental health. Yes, really. The stress these children are being put under is unforgivable this year. As a school we are held to ransom because of these tests (let's be honest, tests that we teachers, parents and schools know are bullshit).

They feel like they have failed already because your 'rigour' is inappropriate, unnecessary and completely pointless. They despise learning this nonsense and I can't blame them. At a time of their lives when learning should be exciting, they are force-fed inaccurate, archaic grammar and given the message that their writing cannot be good enough if it doesn't have a semi-colon.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? Because it is. So forgive me if I don't "Use the tools available to them to build up teachers, promote the profession and tell the story of what a rewarding job teaching really is" at the moment. (how I laughed when I read that one!!)

And don't get me started on academisation....Nicky, take your fingers out of your ears and listen. Before it's too late.

According to most of the arguments teachers are already underpaid and overworked. I don't think I would agree with 'overworked' now the new curriculum is here; underpaid I would agree the stagnation of pay is ridiculous.

I don't believe, and never have that a teaching qualification - PGCE or BEd - is some sort of holy piece of paper turning water into wine. I like Teach First for that reason. I believe that to teach someone should have a degree and preferably a good one (2:1 or above.)

I do not believe that once schools are forced into academisation we will see a mass exodus with the dramatic decline of pay and conditions. Academies just confirm what has already been happening for years. The argument against academies seems to be 'they can do XYZ' which is not the same as 'they will do XYZ.'

I agree PGCE isn't a panacea. Diverse routes into becoming a qualified teacher sounds fine to me. I'm just not convinced that there are thousands of amazing natural teachers out there who'd love to teach, would do so outstandingly, yet CBA to pick up QTS whilst they're at it.

I also think it's dangerous to give powerful private interests the power to do Very Bad Things, & then effectively say 'but just because they can doesn't mean they will; I'm sure it'll be fine, really!'

What has been introduced though raining that reduces teacher workload? I've been doing this job for 18 years now and I have to work much harder and do much more at home than I ever used to. There is much more data tracking, target setting and paperwork to be filled in. We have become slaves to spreadsheets. I know where children are and what they need to work on through normal daily interactions but now it all has to be evidenced on paper.

The national curriculum- such a lot of money and effort to produce. But if you are an academy you don't have to follow it! Why? Is it an essential core knowledge for children or not? Most schools are struggling with implementing the 'no levels 'attainment and progress measures. What a shed load of work that is! Changing Y6 sats tests to make them much harder and quite frankly out of reach for many 10 year olds. And for secondary colleagues (who I feel even more sorry for) changes of specifications, grades, progress, Ebac and so on.

Some academies may have better behaviour, but they are more able to select pupils and exclude disruptive pupils which means the problem is just moved on elsewhere.

The older teachers in my school , you're right, don't have a PGCE although they have got a teaching certificate or they did a 3 year BEd degree. I'm sure that there are some very good unqualified instructors and cover staff but I would prefer my own children to be taught by highly qualified individuals in their specialist subjects.

I don't think there are Crowy, but that is largely the point - 'can' doesn't correlate with 'will'.

I don't think I am stating your second paragraph. You see power; I see freedom and flexibility. It's a different way of looking at things: some academies have been corrupt, so have some LA maintained schools. The LEA overlooking them does not stop bullying or malpractice or mismanagement of finances. It's misleading to claim it does.

Raining in my specific case reduced workload (marking of controlled assessments.) I agree data is ridiculous but that's really the fault of individual schools and I think that's lack of understanding about the demands of the curriculum.

Unfortunately just having a PGCE or equivalent doesn't make someone 'highly qualified.' It sounds good, but it isn't the case. Someone can get a place on the PGCE with a couple of Es and a third class degree.

raining you might think that lack of controlled assessments might reduce your workload, and I'm sure it will in respect of having to drag kids through it and then mark it but you will certainly be feeling the pressure more come exam time when there isn't that nice cushion of marks already in the bag to help borderline kids make the grade.

Unfortunately just having a PGCE or equivalent doesn't make someone 'highly qualified.' It sounds good, but it isn't the case. Someone can get a place on the PGCE with a couple of Es and a third class degree.

Do you think removing the need for QTS will mean we'll suddenly have an influx of the 'brightest and best' graduates queuing up to apply for teaching posts?

And people wailing 'What what about the children' is quite telling actually. I'm not worried about my job-my notice is written and will be handed in. 18 years of teaching and I'm done for. I'm worried about my own children's education, not my job.

I'm not claiming the LA stops any of those things just because it's an LA.

I'm saying that a requirement for QTS, a transparent pay scale & fair progression make it easier to recruit & retain good teachers, & academies don't have to offer this. Many currently do, because teachers can choose where they work to a large extent.

Once all schools can handle these matters as they like, many schools, I think, will adopt either a Waitrose model or an Aldi one.

They may be competing for the children of affluent parents who will just go private if they don't like what they see - including qualified teachers. This will probably result in an ok school in a naice area.

At the other extreme they'll be in 'competition' with themselves, in the shape of another school within the same MAT, for a much poorer demographic with no private purchasing power. At that point, they can just recruit cheap/unqualified 'teachers', burn them out & replace annually whilst paying the CEO silly money & chucking out the more difficult kids (where will they go?) Many MATs are already being heavily criticised for this.

As for the NC - yep, with you on demise of CA. Don't think anyone is sorry to see then go! Not sure terminal exam only NC actually reduces workload if you do it properly - my old school would just mock exam everyone to death, so just as much marking.

But in any case - if it's so great - why don't all schools have to follow it? & if it's an option - why not let LA schools choose whether it's right for them?

Giraffe , I didn't state pressure would alleviate - I said workload would. What I feel and what I do aren't the same things.

No, I don't think that LetsEat and certainly didn't say it. At the moment we have a qualification to teach, which is fine, only it is not one that is a guarantee of excellence therefore I am not too worked up about it not being required any more. In practice it almost certainly will be however it allows some flexibility in some circumstances.

I don't think it's 'great' crowy, it's 'better' :)

As for 'why don't all schools have to follow it' because put simply not all schools are the same and I can certainly understand why again, flexibility is a good thing. I don't personally think again that it's necessarily a good thing or a bad thing - it's falls into the 'neutral' camp for me, as do academies generally.

The situation you describe of employing cheap staff then replacing them on a yearly basis has been going on for at least two decades. Teaching has always been a career with a heavy turnaround. I think there are multiple reasons for this.

raining pressure translates into workload! When exams are the only endpoint then don't assume that the gap left by the absence of coursework will not be filled to overflowing.

It allows the 'flexibility' to employ absolutely anyone in any teaching post, as far as I can see!

You really can't see that this could be problematic, both in individual cases & in terms of its overall effect on teaching as a profession? Really?

My ds currently has an MFL teacher teaching his year 7 geography class. That's fine. Not perfect, but hey ho - one geography teacher left unexpectedly, the other has been moved about to ensure IGCSE & IB are covered by a specialist, & the person doing supply happens to be a languages specialist.

She's actually pretty good - effective in the classroom, hard working & experienced enough a teacher that tackling unfamiliar subject matter is no biggy.

At the academy he would have attended in the UK, my friend's daughter had no English teacher after Xmas of year 11; so a TA looked after the class (bottom set) whilst the HOD popped in occasionally having set work for her own group to do with a cover supervisor. There was no one else in the department to move about because ks3 English was already mostly supply; they tried & failed to recruit a qualified replacement, to be fair, but once they couldn't, decided existing TA would be cheaper than more supply.

(I tutored friend's dd; she scraped a C, the only one in her group).

No it doesn't giraffe; it can translate into workload but someone can feel under pressure to stop smoking or to wear a certain style of clothing that doesn't require 'work'.

I have pressure to get students through a key examination but I honestly am lost as to how that is the same as collecting and marking a minimum of 120 pieces of coursework.

Pressure and workload are entirely different things.
Workload is what you have to get through = neutral and same for everyone doing that job.
Pressure is what you feel if you think you don't have enough time/are not organised enough/are not competent to do the task = will vary from person to person.
Some people who were suited to the job when there was less of a workload may no longer be suited to the workload now - same as in any job.
My previous career changed dramatically over the years with new demands on the workforce, and some of those who did great when it was easier fell by the wayside when it became more intense. Many assumed it was because they too old or expensive, which was not the case, it was they could not cope with the evolving job, and there were incomers who could, and who thrived on it.
No unions in that business so people were not signed off with stress, they changed to other jobs they were better suited to.

raining - I've been teaching for nearly two decades. Are you claiming teacher churn hasn't worsened in that time?

raining - I've been teaching for nearly two decades. Are you claiming teacher churn hasn't worsened in that time?

At the time or a national teacher shortage the freedom to employ anybody in a teaching role us a good thing for the government. A good thing for teachers perhaps not but the delicate sensibilities of teachers are not what the public cares much for and teachers know this so we sidestep it with concern for children and extreme examples of how it could all go wrong. The problem is it's as transparent as glass..

I do think most people with a decent degree could teach KS3 in related subjects with the arts and sciences - would I expect a science teacher to be able to teach history, no probably not, would I expect them to be able to manage Y7/8 maths, yes. You've given that example which absolutely is wrong and should not have happened, but then you are against anyone without a teaching qualification stepping into a classroom so what do you think should have happened with that class?

I'm awfully sorry Crowy I'm not sure what 'churn' means in this context was it a typo?

Greater churn in all professions. No-one expects any longer to do the same job at 22 as at 62. People now have much more flexibility and aspiration, and so there will inevitably be greater churn - with people moving into as well as out of teaching.

And as raining says, there is no shame in being concerned for pay and conditions of your job - human and natural. And teachers could say that openly. But trying to dress it up as concern for the children is transparent dissimulation, and the public see through it.

Ah I see now :) Thanks!

I feel that that's question is as individual as schools and I definitely think a lot of schools are obsessed with endless data and assessment to the point of actual teaching being lost a bit.

That's stupid but that's schools not the government.

raining - I think the school should have been obliged to employ a qualified teacher on medium term supply - non specialist if necessary, but at least someone who had an English Language GCSE - & enough classroom experience to control a group of understandably pissed off & demotivated teenagers. The TA didn't & couldn't.

I don't know your specialism, but I bet you could have coached them through one rather prescriptive exam paper, no? & kept them on task?

But being an academy, the school was completely within its rights to just make a business decision - they were going to spend x amount on English supply to fill the gaps, & they were going to deploy it at ks3, & sod bottom set year 11.

raining SLT will fill the gap, don't you worry. From someone who teaches a core subject which lost coursework a few years ago who still has an insanely high (and ever-increasing) workload. Trust me, the maths department has more than once looked enviously at English who have managed to maintain their high results by fiddling the coursework getting high quality controlled assessments out of lower-attaining students. How do you think that maths teachers get those same kids through their exams?

Already responded to that Guy - it's not dissimulation. Oddly I quite like children & think they deserve a good education.

Ultimately, though, I'm quite open that it was concern for my children that drove me to the international pages of the TES jobs section. Many, if not most teachers have children.

giraffe that just seems as if you think whatever system is brought in will lead to the same workload so we just should stick with the old one even though it was rife with cheating and hugely stressful for staff? I can't agree.

Crowy the hypothetical solutions you propose don't really make an awful lot of sense to me I have to admit. If agency staff are unwilling they can't be forced in and I don't think someone who teaches Science would necessarily be any better than someone with a degree in English.

I am not staying schools should go out and find just anyone with a clean DBS to fill the gap. I imagine teaching will continue to be a job requiring a degree and that probably 95% of teachers in schools will have a teaching qualification.

raining no, I'm not saying we should go back to the old system, coursework = cheating and always has, I'm just warning you that you might be breaking out the champagne too early when hailing it as the saviour of your work-life balance.