Effing whole day lecture/inset

[Ofthread]

Just come out of a whole day of some guy talking at me, a whole day, a day-long lecture. He could have said what he said in an hour. This is Inset, is this normal? It’s my first year teaching.

Haha yes, the lottery wins day off from Inset.
I remember an old HT who suggested I go to all 5 and fill in an overtime form. Not a chance. A perk of being part-time was to sit and look at the year's Insets and decide aside from the mandatory CP what others I could be bothered turning up for.

Then there was the year where we trialled dropping 2 actual days and instead had a couple of 2-hour sessions after school. The downside was we were paid overtime and those 2 days were normal school days.

ahem - paint eyes on eye lids (than you can fall asleep with eyes open) take laptop to take notes (either do catch upon work or talk to friends, but make sure you have note page open behind screen)

The thing I miss least about secondary teaching. YY to concealed planner so you can write lesson plans, schemes of work and plan weekend activities while pretending to take notes. You need a range of facial expressions for when you look up - make sure to catch the presenter’s eye - puzzlement, delight, painful conflict. YY to pelvic floor exercises. You can also exercise glutes by tightening and relaxing, but be sure not to appear to bob up and down. A bad back will mean you have to get up and leave to walk around a bit every half hour or so. (In the olden days that might involve a sneaky cigarette).

A bad back will mean you have to get up and leave to walk around a bit every half hour or so.

But they expect you to stay in the room for that, I'd say go with unspecified toilet issues (they won't ask) will enable you to actually leave the room once an hour

The thing that gets me about this shite is that if a teacher did this to a class when inspected, they'd be graded unsatisfactory, yet it's OK to do this to teachers. WTAF.

Ah sorry Piggy but when the post-it notes come out I know it’s going to be one of those training sessions where the trainer isn’t an expert and we are expected to learn from each other. Usually in mixed subject groups where anything that’s of interest to humanities/English/pretty much any other subject is completely irrelevant to maths.

I have been one of those lucky teachers chosen to given carousel sessions on more than one occasion so I do have sympathy. The worst was when they didn’t allocate teachers to sessions, people went where they wanted and I had to give a presentation (that I’d been told about at short notice and spent hours on) to TWO teachers which was incredibly awkward.

Yeah, I had seven staff at mine last week for something that is actually of national significance. Sigh. I swear I though post it notes were just a way of getting people talking! and I even sourced separate resources for the maths teacher

I use inset to plan my kitchen cupboards and the next shop. Comfy cardi, cup of tea. We have been known to do bingo. Also pass a post-it with dirty limericks is good way of killing time.

Parent here. May I ask a question? When you have these sessions do you have to fill in rating / feedback questionnaires for both the trainer (especially if external) and the SLT?

If you don't, why on earth not?

If you do, then why do SLT continue to put on whole day slow sessions, instead of something short and punchy?

Surely after 3 lots of feedback saying the staff hate whole day chalk and talk, and 6 weeks later haven't found it helpful etc, the SLT would change approach?

I haven’t been asked for feedback yet. I’m new to this but it seems that the dynamic of my workplace is that management try to actively waste/use up my time with meaningless tasks, thus ensuring there is no time left for preparation, marking, developing teaching materials and approaches etc. I feel infantilised by the whole thing. There is the assumption underlying this that I can’t do my job and can’t be trusted. Why not start from the position that we are professionals and we know what we are doing and work from there?

Lol ex teacher here. Agree with taking a notebook and using the time to do all the lists/planning you never normally get your teeth into properly. I once came up with a killer intro for teaching Macbeth that I used for several years.

Our worst one was the woman booked as a motivator who spent ages telling us that her lack of experience hadn't prevented her from getting this, her dream job. Not sure what the message was supposed to be - I was too busy avoiding eye contact with anyone else and scribbling furiously in my notebook as an alternative to shoving my fist in my mouth. Bless her.

My worst INSET was when the presenter had a powerpoint where the words unfurled across the screen. So she’d click, the words would slowly unfurl, then she would read them to us.

Beyond painful.

Oh FFS, giraffe! Presenting skills 101, don't read out the powerpoint! They are having a fucking laugh at us. This guy droning on all day said he had written 9 books, I thought hmmm and had a look - no surprise they are possibly self-published and all have curiously similar sounding titles.

He was in front of a giant screen, which at various moments he would punch for emphasis! I blame TED talks, but at least they are short.

Teentimestwo I have filled in many an honest evaluation form.
However, SLT and other managers always know better than the chalkface worker and therefore their judgements of what INSET days should consist of are incontestable. Any negative criticism, constructive or not, is ignored as inaccurate. So it goes.

In a corporate environment that simply would not occur.

Why? Because attendees would say “this isn’t working. Please could you wrap up remaining material within an hour please”

And he would never be hired to return again.

Be pro active OP. Give feedback to head, explain it had merit but in future just be reduced to a 2 hour session

After an inset at the school I have now left people were asked to give feedback. A few gave negative feedback, they were given a warning for doing so.

I despair. Feedback needs to be anonymous.
This really isn't rocket science.

Q1) How would you rate the content usefulness 1..5
Q2) How would you rate the pace 1=too slow ….5 = too fast
Q3) How would you rate the clarity of the presenter 1..5
Q4) How would you rate the overall effectiveness 1...5

Comments:
One change to make or piece of knowledge you are taking away with you
Most useful session
Least useful session
General

I am a TA, I feel your pain.
And yes, I bring a thermos mug of coffee, a notebook and a fancy pen (and a cushion!)
I sit and write my shopping list, menu plan, plan dc's wardrobe overhauls, sketch out a rough garden plan / room layout depending on what we are doing to our house at the time.
I have been a TA for 11 years and inset days are becoming more and more an activity in needlessly reinventing the wheel.....

I always wished I had a pair of these:

And yy to the pp who said they wouldn't let us get away with teaching like this. I daren't think of the hours I have wasted in inset training - and you are right OP, it is insulting, but I must have become inured to it and don't expect to be treated any better now.

Very very occasionally I have experienced some good/useful inset, but most of it has been patronising and needlessly prolonged - the worst is when they use to have you there for the day, and the afternoon used to be a workshop where you all pooled your ideas and the provider took them all away with them to use at their next training session. CF!

When they used to not use - grr! I need inset on typos obviously - that should take a day or two. "Make sure you proof read everything" said patronisingly and at length, it wouldn't surprise me.

"After an inset at the school I have now left people were asked to give feedback. A few gave negative feedback, they were given a warning for doing so."

I think this ^ is what would happen at my place. I hate this job. The default position is 'you are all idiots and don't know what you are doing'. Having worked in industry etc. I find this completely unacceptable. I know I sound like a raging arse, but I'm used to people respecting my integrity and opinion - or at least pretending to!

I know what you are saying , and your CPD sounds soul destroying, but do you not see any value in professional developement? I have been teaching 22 years, and still think I have lots left to learn. I don't normally take threads like this too seriously and respect everyone's right to vent , but it's a bit depressing that the thread has turned into 'let's mock/sneer at CPD' which can come across as lack of respect for those who go to a lot of effort to plan and deliver it. (Not especially aimed just at your posts , OP)

I have CPD to deliver on Weds so am porbably feeling a bit sensitive!

A recent workload and wellbeing survey did suggest one thing that might make a difference to teachers' sense of status and porfessionalism was access to high quality PD and a focus on research and career development. Thsi is certainly a major difference between the UK and Finland, Canada, Japan.

@Piggywaspushed not all CPD, I've had some amazing training in the last couple of years where everybody came out buzzing and couldn't wait to try stuff. I think the frustration comes in when we're presented with lazy training that just to fill up an inset day. Another one here that's not really allowed to give negative feedback. My bugbear is new technology training. I'm not confident with technology but will use it well once I've got to grips with it. However, I'm sick to death of inset run by people who are very confident with technology who pack fifty people into a room then whizz a mouse round saying "so it's easy you just click on this then open this, download the yada yada..." I'm usually lost in the first ten minutes.
I recently gave all such courses (there'd been a few) a low rating in feedback and was summoned to the head's office for a dressing down.... sigh!

To be fair, I work in a school where thta has happened with negative feedback. I too deplore 'kneejerk' training. I'd want to know if there was a robust evidence base , for example, that technology enhanced teaching and learning, which it often doesn't, before I even began to contemplate offering, or stiing through, CPD.

I agree it's rubbish in a lot of schools but I think something is wrong in teaching when we all panic (me included) because it takes awys form marking time. Get rid of half of the ridiculous marking workload and we might not resent CPD so much! For example, we have just had a behaviour 'guru' in but we have no idea why him : is he tried and tested? Are we supposed to assume he is in line with our school 'vision' and 'values'? Does he align with other behaviour traning we have had? Are we supposed to evidence our engagement with his ideas? Are SLT going to follow it up?? Who knows...

My other bugbear with CPD is that so much of it has gone in house being delivered by teachers who are busy, not experts, and not experts in training either, and that it has been pushed to the fringes, so lots of it happens in twilights: not a conducive atmosphere for enthusiasm. I am going to what should be an amazing CPD today but it runs til 6pm and I have to drive back up a motorway in rush hour. Even my enthusiasm might wane,

Just been to amazing CPD with external speaker (not at my school). He was very expert, very clear and ispiring. Hoorah!

There were post its! I feel vindicated!