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.

This is why I'm so tempted by home ed. our kids are over tested and stressed... & for what? There is no academic / scientific basis for the proposed changes.

Why oh why change the system like this?

I think teachers do need to strike. Heads will have to provide childcare separately to keep parents onside.

So teachers up to this point have been naive and in some sense spoilt?

Do you think that the education system is best served by having inexperienced and unqualified people insisting on "faster" and "cheaper"? I'm not sure I'd want my child to experience education where that was the main driver tbh. The state education system shouldn't be a business, in my tiny opinion, speaking as a teacher (ex, thankfully,
for my own sanity).

Do it faster. Do it cheaper. Says it all really because children are like a product aren't they?

Hang on pretty. A couple of hours ago you were arguing that teachers might be delighted at having more autonomy. That this was a great opportunity for them to 'be the boss'.

You're just making this up as you go along, aren't you?

If we can't get Nicky to talk to us on here, at least we have a convincing understudy, I suppose. Convincing in your Nickyness, anyway.

Your arguments, not so convincing.

crow. I'm sorry if I've not been clear - I've been replying to lots of questions simultaneously.

As I understand it, teachers are unhappy because the environment in which they are able to work as employees is being changed, and people who are not teachers (Academy CEOs) will be in charge of them and do not understand the job.

However, the same agenda that will result in those changes also offers the opportunity for teachers to become CEOs of Academies. So if they want to, teachers can set up a MAT and can then direct the teachers they employ in that MAT in a way that teachers agree with.

I don't work for anyone other than myself.

At the moment with LMS, you can sell your services to local schools Pretty, and a Head has sufficient autonomy to engage you.

I wonder if you will be quite so enthusiastic a few years down the line when as a small business person you find that you haven't made it onto the various MATS approved list of suppliers and your work dries up. This could happen, quite easily.

If you are a teacher it's usually because you enjoy teaching rather than having an ultimate aim of running a business empire. You have to laugh they even lose the title headteacher for principal, like the American system.

You are right crowy, PrettyBrightFlies argues that teachers will get more autonomy and then says that we are used to having autonomy so will object to the changes!
I don't think PBF is Nicky Morgan, but I would hazard a guess that their occupation (whatever it is related to schools) probably is more suited to an academy system?

perigrina if HTs were currently engaging me, I might agree with you. But sadly not. My current LA work will cease as this initiative is rolled out; I will need to adapt to the new model.

Pretty
As I understand it, teachers are unhappy because the environment in which they are able to work as employees is being changed, and people who are not teachers (Academy CEOs) will be in charge of them and do not understand the job.

Have you not read other MN education threads? I don't think they are anything like as self-interested as you imply.

I am not a teacher myself but I can see that teachers are unhappy with workloads which comprise box-ticking and not education, so they are unable to give sufficient time to the job they actually want to do, namely teach.

They are fed up with curricula being messed about with, so that the children they teach cannot be properly prepared for their exams. This doesn't matter so much with SATS but it most definitely does with GCSE and A levels, which will affect the children's employment chances well into their adult life.

There is real concern about the lack of appropriately trained staff - there is a thread going at the moment about how teachers in one subject are being forced to teach another for which they have no knowledge e.g. people who know no French being timetabled to teach it because qualified staff are just not available.

And meanwhile, what is the Government doing to address these issues?

But if teachers become CEOs then they won't be teachers any more, will they?

This little fantasy sounds a bit like the episode of The Young Ones when Neil dreams he's in Dallas.

crowy of course a teacher can be a CEO!

A Dentist who runs a private practice is still a dentist. A teacher who runs an independent school is still a teacher. A Dr who runs a private hospital is still a Dr.

And a teacher who sets up and runs a free school or MAT is still a teacher.

The former Local Authority Education Officers who work for the LA and are now given titles such as School Improvement Partners or Leadership and Learning Partners -they are all teachers.

teacher who sets up and runs a free school or MAT is still a teacher.

Go on, guess how much of a teaching timetable the CEO of my MAT has.

They don't teach anymore, they run a business.

FFS saying that teachers who are unhappy with the way things are run can set up their own schools. Because it's that easy and that's totally their skillset.

How about if a teacher goes to work in a supermarket, are they still a teacher?

Clopper this:

*Would you actively support a system that destroys the collegiality of a profession, that seeks to undermine pay and your own working practices, drives down wages, destroys the professional status of the profession you trained for, regards you as expendable? This is what you are asking teachers to do. To just make the best of it . To accept without criticism. To not ask for evidence. I wonder PrettyBrightFlies if you are an academy broker? I don't think that it was actually made clear that all schools would have to become academies and I was particularly surprised that it was announced as part of the budget.

Maybe we should give up as a society and just lets things be 'done' to us rather than protest about injustice or unfairness. Just allow ourselves to be governed by a benign dictatorship, as other people from a certain type of background know best. I wouldn't dream of lecturing a corporate lawyer or a journalist about how to do their job correctly because I don't have the experience or expertise. However, I have been told how and what to teach by such people.*

Is exactly how I feel about this issue. Very well said Clopper!

Now I'm not actually employed as a teacher, I refer to myself as either an ex-teacher or a a teacher by training, to be clear that I'm no longer teaching.

What would happen to staffing in schools, if all unhappy teachers jumped ship and set up their own MATs or free schools? Where do the teachers to replace them come from?

FFS saying that teachers who are unhappy with the way things are run can set up their own schools. Because it's that easy and that's totally their skillset

So what is it that teachers do want?

Because what I'm reading is that teachers believe that they are best placed to decide how they do their job, but don't want to be held accountable by people who can't teach.
Equally, it has been said that the people with the teaching knowledge to hold teachers accountable don't have the skillset to run a school.

The only solution I can see is self-regulation. No oversight by the body who provides the funding (LA, MAT or otherwise) - teachers are left to deliver what they think is right and trusted to deliver it to the highest possible standards.

That's not open to abuse, is it? It might solve the recruitment crisis though!

I don't think teachers would necessarily be allowed by the D of E to set up their own MATS or free schools. That's one criticism of the current situation - the lack of transparency in the criteria leading to what appear to be idiosyncratic decisions. There was an article in the Guardian a few weeks back, about this.

Come on, don't be wilfully obtuse. The point is that this academy experiment is being done for reasons that are nothing to do with improving state education. It's a big gamble with public money based on no evidence it will actually help. At the same time, the actual issues that prevent teachers from doing their jobs are being ignored. Frequent curriculum change with very little notice, similarly exam system change with little time to prepare, just to think of a couple of things.

perigrina some have, some are doing so, and some are being encouraged to do so by the Regional Schools Commissioners.

So what is it that teachers do want?

For politicians to shut the fuck up for a good few years and stop changing things at the drop of a hat. Teachers have got a million changes to be getting their heads around, most of which are more than a bit shit, and each additional change is just increasing our already overburdened workloads. Lots of teachers are quitting and it's not to set up their own free schools, because even free schools will be serving up the dogs' dinner that are the new qualifications.

Pretty And some haven't - I think what I said was clear enough - teachers wouldn't necessarily be allowed to set up MATS.

I would assume too that a significant number wouldn't want to anyway - not all teachers aspire to Headship positions, for example.

Yes noble giraffe has the answer!

She knows exactly what she's doing. The guff she talks is just guff. Behind it, she knows education for all is being destroyed. She just doesn't want us to know that. This is what the tories want: skilled education for the few, semiskilled for the rest. So the monies stay in their pockets.

For politicians to shut the fuck up for a good few years and stop changing things at the drop of a hat.

Has that ever happened, under any administration, since the state school system was established?

GCSEs, National curriculum, league tables, Beacon Schools, Every Child Matters, Education Action Zones, Performance thresholds, advances skills teachers, formula funding, Grant Maintained Status........

I can't honestly believe that any teacher went into the profession not knowing that the state system is a political football.

I'm not sure what being accountable has to do with becoming an academy. Why do you think that will make teachers more accountable?