Teachers, what is wrong with the education system?

[ColourMeGreen]

England, Wales, NI, Scotland and anywhere else across the world. What's wrong with it, what does it need, how could you reach every child?

It needs money.

Money to ensure each class has a qualified teacher and enough money that schools can afford to hire experienced teacher rather than only endless NQTs.

Money to adequately support all children-especially those with SEN and the most vulnerable in society.

Money to fund sufficient resources-obviously books and IT equipment would be amazing, but I’m talking even about the basics. I have to buy pencils, glue sticks and paper for my class.

Money to enable staff to access CPD-I can’t remember the last training course I went on. There are no free courses any more and we simply can’t afford a( to pay for courses and b) to release staff to go on them anyway.

Money to stop buildings falling down-collapsing ceilings, broken windows, broken lights, cracked chairs, groaning toilets-our school buildings are decaying.

Money to give teachers sufficient PPA release time.

A complete rewrite of the primary curriculum removing all national tests and focus on exploration through play rather than fucking fronted adverbials of time!

Remove

Scrap league tables

Reintroduce national levels. They were scrapped as they apparently confused parents but now nobody has a clue what’s going on.

Yes-it boils down to money.

The curriculum is inappropriate, especially for young children, who start formal learning too early.

Not enough money. Parents with too many children and not enough time or inclination to parent properly (I’m talking basics of love, time, appropriate boundaries of behaviour and attention).

Flexibility - some children need to work ahead or behind their age group; some children thrive in group work; some prefer to work alone; some need to sit at a desk; some need to lie on the floor; some need to run at lunchtime; some need to be on their own and just be.

They need to be allowed to be individuals - this of course does take money but it also takes courage to break away from the antiquated education system we’re currently stuck in.

It needs to be removed from politics. We just get our heads around something and then a different government come along with their own ideas and scrap what we've been doing. It should be independent of politics but with a regulatory body.

And money. Needs more money

Former teacher.

What’s wrong with it is that it is no authentic. It is based on lies and misapprehensions. Schooling is not for the benefit of the individual but for the benefit of society.

Societies need deschooling. Young people need to grow up amongst adults, not closeted away with age-mates. Learning and certification need to be pursued individually, not in classes.

I think it all starts at home!
Ive worked in China where class sizes can be huge but there isn’t anything like the behaviour issues in some UK schools and Japan where self respect and respect for others was integral to learning . The students cleaned the classroom daily. Now back in the UK I think parental attitude and expectation is unrealistic. Respect for teachers was incredible in Asia. Parents actively supporting learning and students appreciating education is a privilege.

Money is needed

And a moral purpose, rather than a tick box culture

One size does not fit all.
GCSEs are a test for the brighter kids and not an assessment of the lower ability

A MUCH broader curriculum

Smaller class sizes

Overhaul of school management (who seem to think they are now 'business leaders')

Schools are NOT 'corporate' organisations. Their function is not to make money (Academy trusts, I'm talking about you)

Money - facilities are a disgrace in too many schools

Overhaul testing/exams. Again. Michael Gove fked it up.

Smaller classes.

Money- impossible to properly support EAL, SEN and so on.

Less testing and assessment.

A less packed curriculum; how can you encourage a love of reading when you barely have 10 mins per week to read with each child and its only to check their technical use of phonics, etc? How can you promote 'real maths' when you have to move onto another unit instead of using and applying skills?

The fuckload of marking- mostly useless.

Parental involvement- what can we do as schools to bring parents in more, more so what a lot of parents need to bloody do- just because you send your kid to school doesnt mean you're not responsible for supporting their learning!

I could go on but I won't .

Well, it isn't the same even in the 4 home countries in the UK, so can't speak for all, let alone other countries further afield, but p's picture is so very true.

The main issue is that Education is a political football, and no Government minister ever listens to the people that work in schools, nor the parents, nor bothers to look at any research. They charge in with their own half baked ideas and demand everyone does their will.

There is FAR to much 'weighing of pigs' rather than 'fattening of pigs'.

Teachers have had all autonomy taken from them, and the hours of pointless paperwork just drains all energy and spark from teachers.

Government after Government has no idea about provision for children (and families of children) with complex additional needs (and I'm including complex social needs in with that as well as children with SEN/D). The constant cut backs over the last 9 years have exaserbated the situation, but it was a LONG way from ideal before that. Again, it goes back to the point of them making policies and decisions with absolutely no idea how it will actually impact.

It needs money.
It needs to be profession led.
It needs to be child centered.
It needs to stop being used as a political football.
It needs to stop being the profession that is continually dumped on to sort all society's woes.
It needs people to stop believing crap in the media.

I could go on...

It needs to get back to basics. To teaching children and not patronising them with pseudo-educational self-esteem boosters. It needs to be liberated from the social issues so that teachers can teach rather than deal with (and get blamed for social problems). Education might be a route out of poverty but that doesn’t mean that the existence of poverty is the fault of schools. Those who are economically disadvantaged tend to do much worse than their not disadvantaged peers. Therefore the solution to that problem is to eradicate poverty not to set higher GCSE targets.

It needs to be a joined up system, when in fact, in my LA certainly, it is a fractured, privatised system, running on government funding with too little scrutiny of finances.

School management are business leaders. Multi million pound businesses. That is the reality

So, if there were a way to make the entire UK education system individualised to each child, for them to choose their learning methods, to have specialists teaching each subject, to make education accessible for all in the way they need it, including children in poverty, those with special needs and even those in hospital or regularly travelling, if there was a way for teachers in different counties or even countries to collaborate on the delivery of their classes, to include cultural learning and real enterprising skills, to make all schools equal and charity funded, would this be a good thing in the opinion of teachers?

As a side question, how do teachers feel about the use of technology in classes?

I agree with what many have said: schools are impeded by government desire to use them for their own agenda boosting purposes. Every single time there is a social issue - terrorism, knife crime, poverty, mental health issues - it gets added on to the school's list of responsibilities. I'm in no way saying that schools shouldn't care about these things, but they are schools first and foremost and not an extension of social services which is what many are becoming.

And they keep mucking about with the assessment criteria and getting it bang wrong. What's with all the 9s???? They were supposed to be mega rare but then they bottled it.

One exam board. One exam for all. Doesn't make sense any other way or you are comparing apples with oranges.

It needs to be de-politicised. Trust needs to be restored and the creative freedom to teach. Teaching is about inspiring, not admin. There is NO NEED to record everything to prove you are doing your job every lesson - certainly no need to record the fact you've had a conversation with a child (verbal feedback stamps, anyone?!). Funding needs to be boosted to restore essential support staff and ensure the less able are properly supported, and teachers aren't wasting time doing menial tasks.

Teachers need to be trusted to use their instincts and be creative. Not everything needs planning/recording within an inch of its life. Spontaneity is not the enemy of progress. Creative, maverick, inspirational characters have been drummed out of the profession in favour of highly organised administrators. This is hugely damaging.

GCSEs need to be appropriate to the whole spectrum of learners, and revert back from these pseudo o-levels (which were only ever intended for the most academically able). Daily fail readers should not dictate policy because they perceive exams to be "easier". Creative and practical subjects should be given equal importance with academia, not eradicated in favour of some government baccalaureate shite.

If the authorities and media don't respect teachers, then it follows that neither will the community. Teachers are not subservient to parents, children or management. They are highly qualified professionals with significant depth of knowledge. However their role is to educate, not replace basic parenting. Education is a partnership between home and school - it only works when both sides pull their weight.

Ah. I am suspecting that our opinions on EdTech is not a side question at all...

@TheFallenMadonna I suspect you may be right 😂 methinks this is about replacing teacher humans with teacher bots!

Teacher bots, while a brilliant visual image, are not what I had in mind! I just meant does tech add value to lessons, do the pupils engage with it well? Does it cause any problems?

In my experience tech does not add value to lessons. It takes half the lesson to get it to work and the other half trying to get the kids to type in the URL correctly. There's always one kid whose laptop won't work at all and the it manager is never anywhere to be found.

Are you trying to sell something?

Shit tech detracts from lessons.

A computer with a projector is brilliant.

Anything that involves kids having ipads or laptops is more hassle than it’s worth.

Kids like going to computer rooms, not because they ‘engage with tech well’ but because they see it as a doss lesson. They don’t learn as much as in a classroom based lesson.

I'm not trying to sell anything, no. I'm actually writing an idea for a digital, globalised, and individualised education plan for a study project. I don't really want to give it away as I'm quite sure it's an original idea.