Anyone else feel deflated after one inset day?

[absopugginglutely]

So much information/ fear of ofsted looming.
I feel demotivated and uninspired.
Think I need to look into a new career path.

[Piggywaspushed]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Sorry tan but that's funny!

Schools have become very much like private companies....

[BrigitsBigKnickers]

No I am not SLT - I am a specialist teacher. This particular school has a number of pupils with a particular special need who are on my caseload so am doing staff training on that. The slot they have given me is 40 mins which isn't really enough... wish me luck!

[ValancyRedfern]

If we dare to question SLT we're out the door!!

[BrigitsBigKnickers]

Well I survived- they were all very attentive and I got some really good feedback- 100% would recommend my training to a colleague! 🙂

[Piggywaspushed]

Well done bigknickers !!

[noblegiraffe]

Well done Brigit! Must have been useful.

Paul Dix got a name drop in our INSET. 100% would not recommend to a colleague.

[Knittingnanny]

Ah this brings back memories of my last couple of years of primary teaching. I retired a couple of years ago aged 59 after 38 years.
There were a couple of last straws...... mainly during inset days!
“ we must do better than narrow the gap, we have to close the gap completely”
“New and innovative ways with number lines”
We also spent a whole inset day on the first day of new academic year working on a new “ strap line” for our school website. Which was never used. I wanted to weep. I just wanted to get on with actual useful stuff in my classroom.

I did supply instead til last year. No inset, just actual important teaching.
I feel for you all.

[cantkeepawayforever]

Noble, Paul Dix got a name check at ours too....

I was perhaps not Popular Person of the Day by pointing out that religiously doing everything that he suggests in his books is not universally regarded as a good thing. This seemed to be news to the person doing the name check.

Could be a long year.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Paul Dix is not in favour at my school, thank goodness!!! We had a long session about setting/maintaining standards and the how important the ethos of the school is.

I got very little time to get on with stuff in my classroom, which was annoying. I got plenty of time in meetings though.

[NCBabyBoy]

Glad it's not just me who is severely lacking in motivation... Really loved my school, but there have been some pretty significant changes and nepotism is rife at the top. The lack of fairness and consultation has just made me feel like the staff are at the very bottom of the list of priorities. This in turn makes me less motivated to do my best. Inset was mainly the head blowing their own trumpet. Shame, I used to really like them...

[NCBabyBoy]

As in: what's the point in working hard? As a woman with a small child I do not have the time required to "volunteer" to progress my career. Still trying to decide whether I am going to mention this or not... might do some job hunting first

[absopugginglutely]

@NCBabyBoy I completely agree. It’s hard when your other half of the week colleague is really willing to do all that voluntary stuff because they don’t have toddlers at home to raise.
I got home after a 10 hour inset day yesterday, cooked dinner, played with my DD, bathed her, tidied the living room which DH abd DD had trashed while I was at work, put DD to bed (she took ages to sleep) then finally watched TV with my DH for 5 whole minute before falling asleep.
I was essentially working from 7am - 10pm and it starts all over again today. When in all that am I actually expected to get anything extra done?
No pay rise for me this year I imagine, even though I’ve never been so busy.

[TheFallenMadonna]

I did two workshop CPD sessions for half our MAT yesterday, and am doing another two today for the other half. Yesterday was pretty good, but am anticipating a tougher crowd today!

[NCBabyBoy]

The bit that is extra galling is that two slt members have children, and wives who are happy to be a sahm.

[SuperMoonIsKeepingMeUpToo]

tan - you get pulled in for a meeting with SLT (who are heads, deputy heads and assistant heads) if you dare question anything. And I've heard of the same happening to governors who want to discuss/ explore/ question ideas as well.

[noblegiraffe]

I know people who were told off for asking pointed questions during staff meetings even before we became an academy so it’s not down to that.

[mbosnz]

I'm not a teacher, so huge apologies for intruding into the staffroom. If you shout at me to bugger the hell off and leave you all be, I shall, with huge apologies, and leaving a large bottle of gin behind me.

But could I ask - what do you do in inset days? (It sounds like a circle of hell that Dante didn't catch up with. . .)

[criminallyvulgar]

We sit in the hall while various members of the Senior Leadership Team explain what we have to do better this year. This includes but is not limited to:
Closing the gender gap
Closing the disadvantaged gap
Making sure that all pupils make better than average progress (you do the maths on that one).
Ensuring that even though Ofqual has made it impossible for more than 75% of the cohort nationally to pass, we understand what
complete and utter failures we are as teachers if we do not substantially outperform this national figure
GDPR
Elf and safety
New behaviour policy (one every year, they do not work because SLT do not enforce)
New marking policy
New homework policy
New displays policy
All of the above explained by shiny new assistant heads who taught PE for three years before being parachuted into SLT
And then... if you are lucky... an hour to actually work with your own department on what you are actually going to teach the kids.

[noblegiraffe]

Because there’s no money for outside experts, endless carousels of listening to colleagues from other departments talking through a great idea for marking that they found on twitter.

[mbosnz]

OMG what a sodding nightmare. You are not paid enough. You could never be paid enough.

That on top of students, and parents of students.