Why it's never enough...

[Atropa]

As part of my role I am asked to keep a record of which groups have/ haven't completed assessments.

Week 1 I make a list of both, sorted by year group and teacher. Take 1 hour. Get thanked and asked to produce a colour-coded spreadsheet the next time.

Week 2 I track, sort and colour-code as asked. Get thanked and asked to speak to those who hadn't completed the job.

I did so and forwarded. Get thanked and asked to backtrack and colour-code who hasn't done an assessment twice in a row next time.

By now the 1-hour task has turned into an almost 2-hour one.

I expect next week will get an additional layer added to this task...

It will never be enough, will it?

We have a google database where teachers have to upload their classes' results each half term. I put all the classes on once a year (exported from the registers). You can see immediately which kids haven't done which assessment. Would that not save you time?

There are always easier ways to do things, but that wasn't my point.

My point was that it appears that - no matter how well a job is done - another can always be found to add to the workload.

It's not the first time this has happened; book trawls are another one. Along the lines of: Well done, you have all stickers on/ sheets in/ all tracked in 3 ways/ everything highlighted in 3 different colours,/ fully differentiated - now can you record every time you personally speak to a child about their work, too.

Or, prime example yesterday: learning walked, differentiated task on the board, in 3 different coours, which the kids know constitute different levels of difficulty. Comment: that was great, but can you highlight the challenge by actually writing "challenge" next time.

Surely I can't be the only one?

It sounds like you have a bad manager who couldn’t give praise if his/her life depended on it.

You have made the exact same point as I make to my children's teacher when they talk about 'growth mindset' or talk about how they mark children's work. Every time the child produces a piece of work they are told about 'how to improve' 'next steps' 'even better if'. I completely agree that this attitude is rife in education - nothing you do is good enough. So disheartening. My ds2 got to the point that he asked me what the point in trying was because he could never do anything well enough.

One of our SLT actually thinks he’s not doing his job properly if he doesn’t tell you to change something. We’ve got to be kept under the thumb. No such thing as autonomy in our place.

Totally agree with a previous poster regarding that this is the philosophy in education, it's how we treat the children too. So disheartening, something needs to change

I am not a teacher (so excuse any assumptions/misapprehension). I think it is time for a "one in - one out" approach to teachers' work. For every new task, it should be made clear which other task of similar duration can be dropped. Otherwise you are just spinning more plates until a few drop or they all crash down. It makes sense to make decisions about what to drop rather than just waiting to see what crashes.

Ironically, during my PGCE I was told specifically not to use words like challenge/extension as these are known to be off putting to some students and that instead colour coding etc. was a better way to go.

That probably doesn't make you feel any better, though!

As a teacher I have learned to muddle through, do the things that I think actually make a difference and take the hit for the stuff I decide is bollocks.
My students know what I think of the “ebi” culture. If I can’t think of a way of improving I have started to write “how could you improve your work” as their ebi and tell them it’s code for it’s actually perfect