Are students actively encouraged to ignore experienced teachers in ITT?

[fjordsfocus]

This is the second year of absolutely awful students and ECTs. They won't listen. They know best and they're going to solve everything through 'relationships'.

I'm genuinely beginning to wonder if it's institutional.

But we're so old fashioned. What could we possibly know?

I think one ECT in particular thinks I was trained about 1910 and am proficient in needlework, caning and producing dunce's hats.

Make them a dunce's hat

You’re not alone. I have two students at the moment who are not like this at all but I’m seeing a few of the new staff with this attitude thinking they can revolutionise behaviour with a high five at the classroom door. 🙄
I had a pupil tell me that their ECT 2 form tutor told them that I shouldn’t have given them a behaviour point for being rude because they didn’t think they had been! This sort of ‘trying to be their friend’ attitude is only going to lead to a decline in behaviour, respect and overall standards. In any other profession experience is respected and valued, clearly not in teaching!

My ECTs and students have been great this year and have listened to any advice I have offered them. It was the link tutor who I was surprised at. Slated my student teacher's behaviour management, saying it was too negative, despite student teacher following the school's behaviour policy. I had to ask link tutor to remove some of the feedback as it contradicted school's behaviour policy and was not fair.

There is a push in ITT towards certain methods, isn't there? That's part of the reason so many institutions are losing their accreditation in 2024 (and part of the problem for some of those institutions is that they knew schools wouldn't want to work with the prescribed methods). So I do wonder if there is a bit of "you must teach this way" going on in unis?

I'd be surprised if it was all relationship building focused though?

I know during my PGCE, VAK was very much on the way out- but one of my placement schools was still very into it and I felt I had to walk a difficult line between teaching the way the school wanted, but being taught it was outdated theory with little evidence to support it at uni.

I do think it's really important to emphasize solidarity to new teachers- explain why it's a bad idea to undermine other members of staff, and how to be professional even if you disagree with that member of staff. But then, equally, you do sometimes get senior teachers who undermine trainees/ECTs to students/parents- so it needs to be modelled, too.

I think it's all so idealistic at uni and very black/white, good/bad. There's no sense of the nuances of planning as a team, of being the least experienced and learning from others, or even just plain old professionalism.

One of our ECTs has criticised every resource given to her by an extremely experienced teacher. The teacher quite rightly has now told her that she'll need to make her own.... cue tears and accusations of bullying!

Our local uni has lost accreditation and will be replaced by the cult of teach first. That's me out of taking trainees.

I think that's rubbish from the ECT, of course, and should be recorded against Part 2 of the teacher standards.

But by the time someone is in a job, surely it's not really the fault of the uni that they're being unprofessional?

I do think someone needs to have a chat with the ECT pretty sharpish about how to work as part of a team...

@MrsHamlet TF is a cult. So weird hated it when I had to old NQTS that were TF.

I mentored a few NQTs and the last set of 2 who knew absolutely everything and questioned every single direction they were given, such as we’re all following the SOW and doing a Year 9 assessment in week x, were certainly part of the reason I left classroom teaching. Maybe I’m just a grumpy old woman, though.

That sounds really bizarre too. If unis aren't teaching trainees the basics - like how a sow works, they're really letting them down.

Did they just expect to be able to teach whatever they liked?

@Postapocalypticcowgirl They did. Kept arguing that their classes needed more time to understand the topic, wanted to throw in extras, all sorts. They just didn’t get it, kept arguing and complaining to SLT about being bullied. I am certainly not one of those who give all the bottom sets to NQTs, as I suffered through that, but as a newbie you sometimes just have to accept that this is the way it’s done and get on with it!
I had even more ridiculous situations with them, but they would be too outing. Let’s just say that they “did their own research” regarding Covid rules in schools…

I'm an ECT 2 and can certainly say that I've appreciated and taken on board each piece of advice I've been given by various people, so I'm sad to hear that there seem to be lots of new teachers thinking they know best. If anything I value advice from experienced teachers far more than inexperienced teachers/other ECT 2s in my school.

Did they just expect to be able to teach whatever they liked?

Yes!
I think unis sell 'professionalism' in a way that's completely at odds with reality. Instead of giving examples of SOW and teaching them to plan within it, it's all about starting from scratch and catering to each individual need.

I was nodding my head reading about wanting to stay on a topic because the class hadn't completely got it yet. That should be taught too, using previous topics as starters, building them in to lessons to keep the learning going.

One of my students nearly had a stroke when I tried to explain that yes, the school resources might be a little bit dull, but they're all there, she could actually go home, have dinner, relax and come in the next morning with some enthusiasm instead of working until god knows what hour and coming in already exhausted.

@PenOrPencil That seems really poor. I remember having uni sessions on how to do long term planning, which at the time seemed really dull, but were actually really helpful when we had to re-write our scheme of work a few years ago. Had they not considered that if they took as long as they wanted on everything, they might run out of time?

TBF, the GCSE and A-level syllabuses for science are so crammed, the idea of staying on a topic until every student gets it is just alien to me. I hope by the time they reach the exam they will have mastered certain skills BUT I know they won't know everything (and I also know what the grade boundaries are). I do think it's a rubbish way to teach, but the alternative is worse for the students' exam results and thus future.

@fjordsfocus Tbf when I was an ITT student, at one placement, my mentor told me she never used the shared resources and I shouldn't either. I was so relieved as an NQT when I was actively told I didn't need to plan everything from scratch. And I think the move towards shared planning is in general really good!

Definitely agree that some unis sell professionalism as selling your soul to the school!

I was a SCITT student 21/22 and my SCITT definitely pushed the Paul Dix relationships thing. If a child misbehaves etc, it is up to the teacher to find out why, correct this and then they will behave of their own choice.

What wasn't covered enough is planning, what to teach, when, what order etc, because both my placements schools had paid for all lessons for EVERY subject on powerpoint and coupled with only having a couple of sessions on planning the whole year during training sessions, means in my first job, planning is taking a lot longer than it should.