The Teachers’s Republic Refuge - solidarity comrades!

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

So continuing on from our boycott/flowers we need to continue to defend our profession. This is teacher/school staff chat - if you do not fall into that category please start you own thread elsewhere.

#solidarity

I've used oak thing with ds to do more maths. Although it doesn't really fit with what ds appears to be doing in.Wales. and I say 'with', it was more:"here, do this.I'm deciding yr 11 and 13 futures'

I am less keen on Teacher Tapp since it was used last week by someone (was it the Ofsted lady?) to say teachers are working fewer hours now.

Don’t waste the test betty. Doubt it’s quite the same as ancient Egyptian mummification methods and they’re pretty desperately needed.

Our school too have had to reassure parents and staff that students are to do what they can and not assume everything provided has to be done. I was grateful for it as my son is at my school. Sorry about the safety glasses riga.

I buy my own as you can barely see through the classroom ones they’re so old and scratched. Think the hospital would have rejected ours

Yes , that's what I am alluding to appu : it's not properly conducted research. Their Monday blog pick all that apart more.

I am one that voted I was working fewer hours, mind. But I always have worked les than lot of newer teachers. And I do not , therefore, assume thi I the same for everyone at every school.

There was a comment on that twitter thread that people see online live lessons as the gold standard because it’s the most work for the teacher and the least work for the student.

That was me! Teachers from other countries who have visited UK schools look aghast at the amount of work teachers put in compared to students. Dutch teachers once visited my old school and said in horror "but the teacher is doing ALL THE WORK! The students should be doing most of the work!". They found it perfectly acceptable, even expected, that they would talk a bit and then give students work from a textbook for the majority of the lesson. That we were making our own resources for every lesson and providing edutainment on tap, and still having to cajole students into work, seemed nuts to them.

Am also fed up of him promoting Oak Bank. I know plenty of you one here like it, but it is not personalised, differentiated etc etc (obviously) and the GCSE English stuff is littered with errors and very poor. I doubt he has even examined the quality of it, so busy is he touting an agenda.
Agreed. It’s riddled with errors. I was shocked actually.
I still think it’s generally good as the explanations are clear and I am using it with DS in Year 5, but there were errors in the Maths and English in the first week; two lessons on translation where incorrect answers were given and an English lesson where an example of parentheses was highlighted incorrectly - the teacher read out the sentence without the ‘phrase in parentheses’ and said ‘see, it still makes sense’ - it didn’t. Also, lots of grammar errors, e.g. ‘their’ when it should be ‘there’.
Luckily I’m on hand to correct the errors, but I imagine a lot of parents would leave their kids to it, assuming the lessons are sound.
It’s embarrassing as an example of the ‘best practice’ in our profession.
It’s because it’s been produced in a hurry, teachers are reading from a script and nobody has checked the finished videos.

Gravity I've heard similar comments from teachers visiting from China (to teach us how to implement the maths mastery that was coming in). They told us all about how it works in their system and said "in China the students work the hardest, in England the teachers work the hardest". They couldn't believe we didn't have set textbooks that everybody uses, regular departmental discussions about which examples make concepts clearest, or the time specifically set aside for interventions.

I buy my own as you can barely see through the classroom ones they’re so old and scratched. Think the hospital would have rejected ours

Thanks honey. We said exactly the same thing. Think it will be a while before they are replaced.

I do agree students should work hardest but I do actually derive pleasure from planning resources, and would leave teaching tomorrow if we all had to teach the same thing, in the same way, to all kids at the same time. What I don't like about the Oak type approach is the 'sit and listen while we tell you what to think' approach. I saw some horrific examples of this direct instruction approach on a school visit once. It's very Gradgrindian . But, yes, it works for now, and parents like ti because it keeps em quiet for 40 minutes. Although I suspect most of mine would give up listening after a few minutes.

But, yes, having no national framework does render the Oak stuff a bit random!

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-adonis-inadequate-online-learning-claim-sparks-fury

I like planning, and in my subjects you really want fresh examples every time you teach something or it starts to look very dated very fast. Also I have my own style and don't like using other people's things. But I'm very happy if the exam board provides me with a suggested order of teaching topics, for example. I started a new A-level this year and Eduqas have a week-by-week plan for two years, and I've used that just as it is. I didn't use the SoW they also have so much, but it's good to have it there already, and if I were a younger teacher I might well have leaned heavily on it, and no shame in that. Why shouldn't these things be at least available?

Oh I completely agree piggy, there's no way I want to be told the exact way to teach. But textbooks do have their place in the classroom, it shouldn't be frowned upon to use them (as it sometimes has been in recent years). Obviously a lot of schools currently can't afford to provide textbooks, so it renders it all a bit of a moot point.

I have to admit I like a bit of direct instruction, but I'm maths, so it's not like you can have an opinion on what the answer is. The answer is the answer, the only thing you can have an opinion on is the method you're going to use to arrive at that answer. Obviously it's very, very different in other subjects as you'll want them to be forming their own opinions rather than regurgitating yours.

Eduqas are great. Very underrated board.

What annoys me on my FB group is the number of teachers who basically ask for complete SOW and lesson plan. They even pot assessments and ask others for marks!

But then I remember they probably have zero support at their school.

Agree ms but I bet you don't tell them all the answers before they have tried to work it out!

Absolutely not piggy, I tell them the method to work it the answers and then make them work out a load more lol.

This is a nice article and echoes some of my positive feelings about remote learning;

www.tes.com/news/my-most-unassuming-students-are-thriving-lockdown

And this one shows that the NASUWT also fear what I fear : that the government will leave all planning (and , thus, accountability) for return up to schools:

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/01/government-must-lead-on-re-opening-of-uk-schools-after-coronavirus-lockdown-says-nasuwt-union-boss

That is a lovely article piggy. It's not come as any surprise to me that these unassuming pupils are thriving in remote learning, I always knew they would. I'm loving being able to give them that feedback and praise they need in an email because when we're at school they're drowned out by the attention seeking or badly behaved pupils. I love the fact that they're now getting the recognition they deserve!

I was one of those "grey" pupils when I was at school. I would do anything I could to avoid being noticed, but would quietly get on with the work. I would have hated being praised in the classroom but loved a good sticker on my work or similar. It always came as a complete surprise to my classmates that I would come near the top in tests as I really, really didn't stand out in lessons.

Bloody hell. It' 2.30, and I thought we had got through the day without a when will schools open/ why can't they work over the summer thread and one has just popped up. Feisty OP, too.

Am ignoring.

I have some quiet, diligent students who wouldn't dream of asking me questions in class - they might be shy, or just feel like that can get on with the work perfectly well without asking questions so don't want to take up my time. I've found they're the most likely to ask me questions over email and also the ones I'm happiest to give detailed explanations to, find new examples for and generally discuss stuff more with. In some ways they're getting more of my time and attention than they ever did, and using that time and attention very well! The effort-to-payoff ratio for me is high for these students but they very rarely get any of my time face to face.

Don’t waste the test betty. Doubt it’s quite the same as ancient Egyptian mummification methods and they’re pretty desperately needed.

I won't be, it'll wait until needed. As for the Egyptian techniques, it was a jokey reference to how you apparently have to push it so far up your nose it goes to the back of your throat (and not your brain!). Before education I was in the NHS and have a weird sense of humour.

Betty - I saw a diagram of the test technique and agree it looked like you had to stick it way back there!

No practicals then riga? If my hod walks in and sees any student without glasses on she barks at them (indirectly at me).

I would love to use textbooks more but the exam board ones are inaccessible for many kids and only have like 4 small paragraphs of text and 3 questions per topic anyway.

I don’t think I’m cut out to teach science. I miss discussing and debating and setting tasks that get them writing and justifying their own views whilst explaining others’.

schoolsweek.co.uk/keyboard-commentators-should-think-before-they-type/?utm_campaign=1895601_Update+to+members&utm_medium=email&utm_source=National+Association+of+Head+Teachers&dm_i=3OT7%2C14MNL%2C1TE1EF%2C3Z4ZU%2C1

Nice response to Adonis

No practicals then riga? If my hod walks in and sees any student without glasses on she barks at them (indirectly at me).

Same here as we have had a serious incident in the past at another school close by. I am so paranoid about it that it puts me off.

Also Good link Appu