Looking back at when you started teaching, how different is it?

[Chchchchangesss]

Not intended as too intense (although I’m not trying to police, just saying how I see it) - what sort of things have changed since you started?

I was an NQT in 2003. I have a vague recollection of Bromcoms and how teachers on placements were all excited about them being the next technology leap forward!
Power dressing from Next in an attempt not to look like a sixth former.
OHPs.
The 21 (I think) tasks teachers weren’t supposed to do coming into force and it being a hotbed of discussion on the TES forums.

As we moved through the decade, I remember Brain Gym, Moodle (I think) and APP in 2009, I was KS3 coordinator at that point and it gave me the biggest headache.

As we got into the 2010s academy fever spread, it felt like loads of schools were migrating to shiny new buildings and having new names and new uniforms. Exam reform. I vaguely remember something about blogging your learning being the done thing.

I’ve recently been job hunting again, TES is nearly unusable. It used to be such fun.

What do you remember?

@ Ginghamricecakes interesting, thank you.

Not easy if you don’t have a TA though.

@Ginghamricecakes - yes, Education has always been 'circular'. I remember the one tip my Mum gave me (retiring as I was starting) was to keep resources, as whatever it was that was being pushed out as old fashioned today, would come back into fashion - sometimes under a new name - within a decade or so. Never heard a truer word spoken.

@KnittingNanny - great description / memories

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince - your colleague.... so true!
The pain about reports when I started though, was that, being handwritten, if you made any sort of mistake (easy to do when writing your 20th or 30th, late at night), there was no 'correcting' like you do all the time on the computer. You just had to start again....... so I've found the one improvement in Education

I remember when learning objectives first came in as a thing. Children had to write it in at the top of their work, some little ones never got past writing that sentence before it was time to move on to the next lesson!
Yup ! You have a Yr1 or Yr2 who didn't find writing easy, that would be the whole lesson gone.

Did anyone else have to do the completely ridiculous and logic defying "Could... Should.... Must", where the theory was everyone had it written on the wall what every child "must" achieve, regardless of whether they physically or cognitively were every going to be able to ???

@fedup21 my school's all about Rosenshine's principles of education these days. As described in a book by Tom Sherrington. And I've surprised myself by actually agreeing with lots of it. I know what my objective is for the lesson but 9 times out of ten sharing it with the kids doesn't achieve anything apart from bore them when you want to be hooking their interest.

I qualified in 1991, as the “new curriculum “ was introduced. We didn’t have observations after you had passed the probationary year. You were trusted to get on with teaching children without a barrage of targets and other admin tasks to do. At the start of my career if a child made an interesting observation you could be spontaneous and develop that idea. Not now, it’s like Big Brother.

Just remembered another last straw!
I did a couple of years supply when I retired in 2014 and laughed when I was given a fistful of coloured pens to mark, “ deep mark” ( reminded me of doing a deep clean) every piece of work with. Purple pleasing, green can’t remember, etc etc. There was an awkward silence when I realised the class teacher was being serious!
Same teacher talked me through the day using a whole load of acronyms which she said “ I assume you know what this/that means?” I nodded safely whilst not having a clue.
I decided to pay lip service to any planning and do it my way which always involved singing it, dancing it, painting it and lots of storytelling.
Interestingly, the children were always happy to see me and asked me what stories I had in my bag today.
Couldn’t be a teacher now even if I felt up to it physically.

I've only been teaching ten years but one thing that has actually got way better in that time is the end of the obsession with three part lessons and sharing learning objectives and plenaries. Always found them useless and now the 'experts' seem to agree.

Ah bollocks. That might explain why I didn't even get shortlisted for a Cover Supervisor job recently (have only just returned to the UK, age, childcare responsibilities and mentioning outdated buzzwords are all going to count against me despite all academy trusts going with acrostic mantras that do my head in)

So what's taken over from Learning objectives, starters, mains and plenaries then? And peer appraisal/triple marking etc How much of a dinosaur am I? What are the latest obsessions other than an emphasis on pupil premium? are negative residuals, cats, sats, yellis all out the window? Smart targets?
Shall I just jump off a cliff now?

it's staggered inputs rather then three parts. So plugging gaps and teaching inputs differentiated. Then coming together for plenary that is child-led reflection

Can someone translate this for me?!

We still very much have learning objectives! Children have to be able to say what they’re learning not just what they’re doing.

Ah thank you gingham
So how would that work in secondary mixed ability or set classes?
I would appreciate it if any secondary teachers could flag main changes/what kind of cover work is left now?
(used to be ECI educational colouring in, wordsearches, design something or other with no paper or colours, or turn to page x and copy y) That's why I liked the triplicate lessons as it held people down to aims and different activities/resources.

I remember could should must but think we used All Most Some (same idea I guess - differentuation by outcome throwing as much glue on the wall and seeing how much sticks)

differentiation, damn my sausage fingers
The 'having a conversation' dialogue still exists as I saw my child's books the other day (primary) in which she had replied 'don't know' in purple to her teacher's questions (meant to make her reflect but the books do not come home so she never gets to finish the work or answer the questions properly)

Children learn perfectly well without knowing a learning objective. My entire school career (80s and 90s) I never saw a single learning objective and yet somehow I learned enough to get all my GCSEs and A levels. My students never see a learning objective and I get well above national and school average GCSE results every year.

Children learn perfectly well without knowing a learning objective.

I completely agree! This has been the emperor’s new clothes for ages now.

I used to have to wheel a tv on a stand into the classroom if I wanted to watch one of the videos

Oh I agree too re LOs. The new ofsted hobby horse is planning scrutiny now though so they might come back into favour!

Oh blimey - just read the workbook scrutiny document. Maybe this is why my kids' primary does book share afternoons.
Takes me back to our SLT randomly taking pupils' books in each week
total farce when HOY were bribed to name names

NQT year in 1993. So different. No computers or email, handwritten reports and registers . The key thing though for me is that everyone was so much less stressed and students were genuinely much more independent learners. Very little scaffolding, modelling etc

I qualified in 2005. We used the Searchlights model for teaching reading where phonics was only one part of it. Philosophy for Children and Brain Gym were big things. 21 tasks was mainly adhered to, and we got a 15 minute morning break and am hour for lunch. Only one meeting a week.

Qualified in 2001, my first class was Y2. I had two standalone PCs with 5.25inch floppy disk drives. Paper register. Roll around blackboard and chalk as well as a whiteboard on a stand. Shiny varnished parquet floor. Planning was done on A3 photocopied sheets and written by hand. Worksheets were mostly handwritten and included photocopied pictures or hand drawn ones, glued in the appropriate places before copying. OHP and a tv/vcr on a trolley until we upgraded to a tv/dvd on a trollet a few years later. I remember watching reports of 9/11 on that tv in the hall, I had only been teaching a week and had a class of 29 RC children and one Muslim boy. The others came in the next day talking about it and saying 'the muslims did it'. A few weeks before I left that school, the July 7 London bombings happened and we had to hold on to a few kids whose parents couldn't get back in time to collect them. I have many happy memories of working there but those two events marked the beginning and end of my time there.

I honestly think it's better than when I started in 2007. Spend ages planning all singing and saving lessons with fucking card sorts and VAK strategies and ineffective group work. Now the emphasis is on knowledge and direct instruction and my lessons are simpler and more effective. Removal of controlled assessment and nc levels have also been a positive change.

Qualified 1996. Pre PPA years. Pre NQT status.

Banda machines and making any photocopying A5 to save paper as there was never any money even back then.
Acorn 3000s for computers.

No whiteboard.

OHPs in assembly.

Half term planning fitted on one sheet of A3 paper.

Far more independent children. Far fewer extreme behaviours.

Am laughing at all the mentions of paper registers - we were still using these in 2017!

I started teaching in 2004. It’s so different now that I quit. We used to have loads of pens and pencils - by the end I resorted to pinching them from Argos and Ikea. We had unlimited paper - now everything is done on computer and marked on the screen to save money. I wasn’t allowed to print worksheets, I had to email them. We had new folders every year - but the last few years there was no money for folders so I had to bundle up last years work with string and reuse the knackered second or third hand folders. I used to get paid for out of hours meetings and training courses - by the end I was expected to attend for free “or we’ll have to reconsider your employment as you clearly aren’t committed”. I used to get paid for marking, until they decided I should be doing it for free. There used to be a lot of SEN support in the classroom, but they were mostly sacked due to budget cuts and I was expected to do that job as well as teaching. The paperwork increased exponentially. I’m glad I’m not going back because it was impossible to do a quality job when they had no money to fund it.