school

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Dominic.

What a stereotypical and inaccurate view you have of modern teaching and education!

If you were to check with most teachers (and other teaching related school staff) you would find that they more frequently than not, are working up to 12 hours a day. - Pupil contact time may be 9am to 3:30pm but the amount of planning, preparation and marking and recording they have to do extends well into what is there own 'free' time in the evenings and during the children's holidays.

Successive governments have messed about with education so much with new initiatives that additional training is essential to keep pace with current flavour of the month, and it seems that a new initiative is announced almost every week, all of which costs time, effort and more paperwork when often no additional real funding is provided.

It doesn't help when Ofsted inquisitions demoralise staff so much and their judgments are so draconian and have such far reaching effects, its no wonder that staff feel they are being interrogated almost as convicted criminals.

School League tables are so distorted and unreliable, yet the Government insists they are used to rank schools. In a small school one child failing to make a prescribed government target can be worth up to 5% of a schools ranking, and those children with prescribed learning difficulties are also included in the calculations.

How many other professions have raw material (children in this case) thrust upon them of such variable quality and ability, meaning that teachers have to constantly review their methods to bring out the best in each child?

Some children have such poor role models at home they feel it is all right to abuse and disrespect teachers and they can do nothing legally to bring the child to book, Disruptive and sometimes dangerous pupils may be excluded by the Headteacher and Governors, but only to have that decisions overturned by a minion in the local educations department because it makes their figures look bad. What about the danger that pupil represents to other pupils and staff!

Do you work in an environment where dangers to personnel cannot be mitigated or removed?

There are few professions where such highly qualified people are constituently being judged and monitored to the same degree that teachers are, yet despite all these negatives, the vast majority of teachers are dedicated and want the best for our children.

I am not a teacher, but I know many who are, and I also know many people in business, and I am sure that by comparison teachers are worth a lot more than they are currently paid. The skills and dedication that teachers bring to our schools are more comparable with those people in the private sector that have salaried jobs with secretaries, and protected pensions, expense accounts, foreign business trips, cars, private medical healthcare plans.

Teaching is far from the cushy description you put forward.

 

[parker1158]

Well put John and thank you.

As stated above I work in a secondary school. Complicated what I do but basically I teach a vocation subject for half the week and general science the rest of the time. Sadly in this profession one has to get used to the constant tirade of remarks on holidays and hours worked and to be honest its water off a ducks back.

I haven't always been a teacher, just these last couple of years. I have worked in motor sport, retail management and more recently run my own business doing firework displays while I studied for a science degree. I teach motor mechanics on a vocation basis and more recently got roped into teaching science simply because there are no science teachers out there! Strange really with such short working days, long holidays and massive pay cheques one would have thought teaching would be oversubscribed.

 

[DomDom]

No I am not a teacher, I was not clever enough, but I know a few who would get very upset at his remarks.

Steve W

Let them be upset - still doesn't change the cold hard facts of the situation. And BTW - my mother was a teacher until she retired in the late 80's and she says exactly the same.

 

[Bernard2]

My problem is the inconsistency of reactions to snow.Our local TV demonstrated the problem by interviewing a Headmistress who said H & S stopped her allowing children to attend school and if they attended they would not be allowed outside.Later they interviewd a Head who had all the staff and pupils outside for igloo building and winter olympics.He said common sense was what guided him.I know which school I woild want my kids to attend.

Cheers

Bernie

 

[drsorento]

The secondary school where I work shut for one day purely because the busses would not run and being a rural school 70% of our students come by bus. The decision to shut was made not by the school but the education authority, in fact that particular day most of the teachers made it in to be told to go home again. On other days my classes were down to between 75% and 50% attendance and most of those were parents refusing to send them because they deemed it to dangerous!

If our school is representative of most then it is not unusual for teachers to do 40 / 50 mile daily round trips in fact our head does 60+

whimps, not impressed try doing 200+ each day cme any weather

 

[drsorento]

Hello Dominic.

What a stereotypical and inaccurate view you have of modern teaching and education!

If you were to check with most teachers (and other teaching related school staff) you would find that they more frequently than not, are working up to 12 hours a day. - Pupil contact time may be 9am to 3:30pm but the amount of planning, preparation and marking and recording they have to do extends well into what is there own 'free' time in the evenings and during the children's holidays.

Successive governments have messed about with education so much with new initiatives that additional training is essential to keep pace with current flavour of the month, and it seems that a new initiative is announced almost every week, all of which costs time, effort and more paperwork when often no additional real funding is provided.

It doesn't help when Ofsted inquisitions demoralise staff so much and their judgments are so draconian and have such far reaching effects, its no wonder that staff feel they are being interrogated almost as convicted criminals.

School League tables are so distorted and unreliable, yet the Government insists they are used to rank schools. In a small school one child failing to make a prescribed government target can be worth up to 5% of a schools ranking, and those children with prescribed learning difficulties are also included in the calculations.

How many other professions have raw material (children in this case) thrust upon them of such variable quality and ability, meaning that teachers have to constantly review their methods to bring out the best in each child?

Some children have such poor role models at home they feel it is all right to abuse and disrespect teachers and they can do nothing legally to bring the child to book, Disruptive and sometimes dangerous pupils may be excluded by the Headteacher and Governors, but only to have that decisions overturned by a minion in the local educations department because it makes their figures look bad. What about the danger that pupil represents to other pupils and staff!

Do you work in an environment where dangers to personnel cannot be mitigated or removed?

There are few professions where such highly qualified people are constituently being judged and monitored to the same degree that teachers are, yet despite all these negatives, the vast majority of teachers are dedicated and want the best for our children.

I am not a teacher, but I know many who are, and I also know many people in business, and I am sure that by comparison teachers are worth a lot more than they are currently paid. The skills and dedication that teachers bring to our schools are more comparable with those people in the private sector that have salaried jobs with secretaries, and protected pensions, expense accounts, foreign business trips, cars, private medical healthcare plans.

Teaching is far from the cushy description you put forward.

if you cant stand the heat get out of the kitchen !!!!!

 

[DomDom]

I have seen it from the inside having formerly worked in LEA and deployed IT infrastructure to schools. So not really a stereotypical view, more like a birds eye view.

Sure some of the issues like disruptive pupils exist but 12 hours days certainly do not. We have 2 teachers living in our village and both can often be seen out and about, dog walking etc. I've even had teachers tell me that I'm mad for working through the night to get jobs finished.

Sorry, I've heard all the standard rhetoric from this profession and I've also seen it from the inside. None of the sob stories cut any ice with me I'm afraid.

You mention all the fads and how hard it is to keep up with the latest mood. Well I challenge anyone of them to keep pace in the IT industry. Last year alone I had to complete 7 distance learning courses, in my own time and un-paid of course (not inset days!!) as well as working 48 weeks (not 38) etc.

Auditing is normal in all walks of working life. Why are the education profession so offended by it? It's almost as if they're afraid of quality control. Hmmmmm, I wonder why?? Nothing to do with it not being so easy to hide any more maybe ??

I maintain what I said. Relative to the vast majority I hold the opinion that they have an easy life. If that offends, well then it does. I make no apology for daring to speak the truth. If it were not true then why is the education system the worst it's ever been? Why are the highest numbers ever recorded choosing private education for their children? These are not idle coincidences I'm afraid.

Last week I had the task of reading some CV's for a junior position in my department. Most were from applicants aged 18-25. First impressions:

Appalling spelling

No punctuation

Almost unreadable sentences

Plenty of soft subject options like "Media Studies"

All of this is the result of the last 15-20 years of our education system.

Expressions like "That'll do", "It's 5 o'clock" and "Good enough" etc all stand in the way of excellence, instead accepting mediocrity as being the norm. Since 99% of the CV's coming across my desk are mediocre at best one can only conclude this mediocrity to be a product of the education system. Quod erat demonstrandum is but one expression which comes to mind.

Generalisations? Yes. Exceptions? There will be some. 90% accurate? You bet.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Bernard,

You make a good point, but you have to bear in mind a number of factors; No two schools are identical, nor are the children, so the 'risks' will not be quite the same, and that is where the judgement has to be carefully considered.

The Government has been rolling out the extended school concept, and this now means that the caring role the school no longer stops at the school gate. It can cover the pupils journey to and from school, especially where the transport is arranged by the school. If a journey is considered to be hazardous, the school has to take reasonable steps to mitigate the hazard - such as cancelling busses or closing etc.

The strategy is called 'safeguarding' and it is now a very significant part of the OFSTED inspections that all child care and educational establishments have to conform too.

So typical of Government is they have said that every child must be safeguarded, but they don't detail or define what it means or how it must be achieved, - that is left organisations to have a guess at.

The effectiveness of the guess is only tested when Ofsted inspect, and because there is no detail in the specification, each inspection team may have its own interpretation and there is a real danger that schools and other organisations will be marked down.

As a consequence, every organisation is having to second guess Ofsted's agenda, and put in to action much more stringent policies and actions than may be necessary.

The one factor that is known, is that if a school has previously been judged by Ofsted as excellent in all areas (and I am very pleased that the Secondary school I help govern has been) and it retains that level in respect of all its academic and management work, if it fails to achieve an excellent rating in its safeguarding it has to have an overall score of good - not even excellent in parts.

That is how important safeguarding is viewed by Ofsted.

This will force schools to be ultra cautious, and may explain why so many are taking the dangers of snow and ice so seriously now.

 

[DerekBrad]

Hello Dominic.

What a stereotypical and inaccurate view you have of modern teaching and education!

If you were to check with most teachers (and other teaching related school staff) you would find that they more frequently than not, are working up to 12 hours a day. - Pupil contact time may be 9am to 3:30pm but the amount of planning, preparation and marking and recording they have to do extends well into what is there own 'free' time in the evenings and during the children's holidays.

Successive governments have messed about with education so much with new initiatives that additional training is essential to keep pace with current flavour of the month, and it seems that a new initiative is announced almost every week, all of which costs time, effort and more paperwork when often no additional real funding is provided.

It doesn't help when Ofsted inquisitions demoralise staff so much and their judgments are so draconian and have such far reaching effects, its no wonder that staff feel they are being interrogated almost as convicted criminals.

School League tables are so distorted and unreliable, yet the Government insists they are used to rank schools. In a small school one child failing to make a prescribed government target can be worth up to 5% of a schools ranking, and those children with prescribed learning difficulties are also included in the calculations.

How many other professions have raw material (children in this case) thrust upon them of such variable quality and ability, meaning that teachers have to constantly review their methods to bring out the best in each child?

Some children have such poor role models at home they feel it is all right to abuse and disrespect teachers and they can do nothing legally to bring the child to book, Disruptive and sometimes dangerous pupils may be excluded by the Headteacher and Governors, but only to have that decisions overturned by a minion in the local educations department because it makes their figures look bad. What about the danger that pupil represents to other pupils and staff!

Do you work in an environment where dangers to personnel cannot be mitigated or removed?

There are few professions where such highly qualified people are constituently being judged and monitored to the same degree that teachers are, yet despite all these negatives, the vast majority of teachers are dedicated and want the best for our children.

I am not a teacher, but I know many who are, and I also know many people in business, and I am sure that by comparison teachers are worth a lot more than they are currently paid. The skills and dedication that teachers bring to our schools are more comparable with those people in the private sector that have salaried jobs with secretaries, and protected pensions, expense accounts, foreign business trips, cars, private medical healthcare plans.

Teaching is far from the cushy description you put forward.

I could not agree more with the posting from John. My daughter is a deputy head of a primary school and she invariably works into the small hours of the morning on her preparation etc especially on Friday nights in order to have some time for her children over the weekend. A typical half term break consists of 3 days at home and 2 in school.All of this is in addition to her management role which demands innumerable reports, administration issues etc etc.

Comments such as the one from "drsorento" just illustrate the general ignorance of many people regarding the profession.

 

[DomDom]

Hello Bernard,

You make a good point, but you have to bear in mind a number of factors; No two schools are identical, nor are the children, so the 'risks' will not be quite the same, and that is where the judgement has to be carefully considered.

The Government has been rolling out the extended school concept, and this now means that the caring role the school no longer stops at the school gate. It can cover the pupils journey to and from school, especially where the transport is arranged by the school. If a journey is considered to be hazardous, the school has to take reasonable steps to mitigate the hazard - such as cancelling busses or closing etc.

The strategy is called 'safeguarding' and it is now a very significant part of the OFSTED inspections that all child care and educational establishments have to conform too.

So typical of Government is they have said that every child must be safeguarded, but they don't detail or define what it means or how it must be achieved, - that is left organisations to have a guess at.

The effectiveness of the guess is only tested when Ofsted inspect, and because there is no detail in the specification, each inspection team may have its own interpretation and there is a real danger that schools and other organisations will be marked down.

As a consequence, every organisation is having to second guess Ofsted's agenda, and put in to action much more stringent policies and actions than may be necessary.

The one factor that is known, is that if a school has previously been judged by Ofsted as excellent in all areas (and I am very pleased that the Secondary school I help govern has been) and it retains that level in respect of all its academic and management work, if it fails to achieve an excellent rating in its safeguarding it has to have an overall score of good - not even excellent in parts.

That is how important safeguarding is viewed by Ofsted.

This will force schools to be ultra cautious, and may explain why so many are taking the dangers of snow and ice so seriously now.

Most of what you say can be attributed to the fact that common sense and making individual judgement calls are no longer allowed, mainly due to my other pet hate, "Elf-'n'-Safety". The downside of all this is that our children are never taught how to perform their own risk assessments in life generally. I was taught that rules are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools. Says it all really.

 

[Suzac]

Excuse me chaps but what has this to do with:-

Express your views and let off steam about general caravanning issues

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Quote Dominic ...

" The downside of all this is that our children are never taught how to perform their own risk assessments in life generally".

... and that brings us back full circle to my post at the top. We are raising a nation of wimps. We'll have a nation of ditherers.

"Shall we, shan't we, will we, won't we".

There's too much interference from government and Bugeyed Balls.

Their answer to a crap school is change it's name. Bogtown Secondary suddenly becomes Riverside Sports Academy. All they are doing is papering over the cracks by making it sound more upmarket. Same teachers, same kids.

 

[Parksy]

Same old political posts on the CARAVAN forum

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

29 posts ... are you a Mod?

It's because some who have kids at school live in caravans permanently :O)

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Dominic,

Like you I can only relate what I have seen and experienced.

I do not see how you can categorically condemn the issue of a 12 hour day. I actually said 'up to 12 hours' and again here I can relate to the experience of my wife who was teacher (now retired). She was usually in school preparing for the day ahead at 8:00am, did not leave the school building until 5:30, and when at home was often marking and planning well beyond 8:00pm.

Even now members of staff from the schools where I am a governor are still reporting similar schedules to me. I also hear of similar situation at other schools in our cluster and LEA area.

I see nothing wrong with teachers owning dogs, which of course need to be exercised, that does nothing to prove or disprove the hours they actually put into their professional activities. And by the same token, not all teachers are full time, so some may have the luxury of advising you to work less.

IT is certainly a fast moving technology, and you are correct that you need to try to keep abreast of the changes to the equipment and software you use. Perhaps you should talk to your employer about Continual Professional Development, which if they are serious about retaining customers they must ensure that their employees are properly trained to provide the up-to-date services they wish to offer. As for the weeks you quote whilst teachers may be paid to complete a 38 weeks, I bring you back the extra work they regularly have to do which must add up to a few extra weeks work over the year.

Ofsted inspections are not like any commercially based audit. I know because I have worked extensively in the domain of BS EN ISO 9000 and other related business models which rely on auditing to maintain the accreditation to a standard.

Ofsted are draconian, and the weild so much power. A two day inspection is not enough time to make a comprehensive and fair judgment about the whole workings of a very complex organisation like a school. The assessment made by the inspection team stands even if it contains errors that are pointed out and proved to Ofsted. The damage these errors can do is immense.

It has caused nervous breakdowns, It has unfairly depressed a schools reputation, it has cost jobs where a proven error in the report was not readdressed by Ofsted. It affects the funding arrangements for schools.

The Ofsted regime only visits about every three years, but in the mean time there is very little support from Ofsted to indicate to schools how to improve. That is left to the LEA's and schools interpretation of Ofsteds agenda, and that can and is often not quite right.

The frequency of Ofsted inspections is to low, and that means that if a school is going off the preferred Ofsted course, it wont know for up to 5 years by which time the scale of deviation and the necessary corrective actions can be very dramatic even traumatic.

It is my professional opinion that Ofsted should take a leaf out of the ISO9000 process, where visits are more frequent, (every 6 months) but only small portions of the organisation are reviewed on a rolling programme so that after two years every part has been visited at least once.

This allows for smaller incremental changes to correct errors, and this prevents errors from becoming too large.

The difficulties or lack of effectiveness of the education system are not the fault of the teachers. They have to do what governments set out. Government dictates what they want, without properly consulting with educators as to the viability and even the desirability of initiatives. Targets are getting in the way of teaching.

Any differences between the private and state schools cannot be laid at the feet of the teachers. The teachers do the same job, have the same qualifications and training. What is different is that Private schools have a different relationship with the LEA and government who cannot interfere in the same way as the do in state schools. Most private schools are selective, if not by entrance exam, then the fact of the costs of private education preclude the less well off sections of society, and there is a clear correlation between academic achievement and social wealth. Class sizes are smaller, and the school has the funding to employ staff to look after the management functions of the school as a business separate to the curriculum staff.

It is interesting to note that secondary schools generally have enough funding these days to allow the employment of a business manager and other administration staff, and where this happens the schools results are generally better. Unfortunately Primary schools are rarely large enough to have such an extensive compliment of admin staff, so struggle to full separate out all the duties.

Your experience with looking for a junior employee rather illustrates the points above. It's not necessarily the teachers, but the regime under which they have to operate which is dictated by government.

I don't make the same outright conclusion as you though; The education system only provides part of what makes up a prospective employee the motivational and social skills are usually fostered at home.

 

[Parksy]

Yes Lord B I am a mod, one who is fed up of having to sort out arguments on this forum which invariably stem from petty political points scoring.

It's one thing discussing schools in the bad weather but every time that somebody decides to foist their politics onto the rest of us the arguments, squabbles and name calling begin.

Of course it always ends up being entirely the fault of the moderator.

When Practical Caravan Magazine decide to discuss politics and politicians in their articles I'm sure that the forum will follow suit but I wouldn't hold your breath if I was you.

Until then let's leave the politics to more appropriate forums.

 

[Suzac]

Here, here, buzz off to the Chit-Chat section or better still Speakers Corner

 

[Suzac]

I am into caravanning for the relaxation!!!!

 

[ProfJohnL]

Ladies and Gents all,

I apologise for my short notes on this subject - I can provide longer ones if anyone wants them!.

However I would like to point out that it has not degenerated into name calling, and I have careful not to refer to politics except to refer to government which could be of any persuasion. They are all as bad as each other.

To satisfy Chris G if necessary this will continue in chit chat.

 

[BrianStAlbans]

Chris G.

12 Jan 2010 08:02 PM

I am into caravanning for the relaxation!!!!

You should be a teacher Chris , they get LOADS of holidays ;O)

Brian

 

[Suzac]

Better than that I retired last May.

I do have sympathy for teachers my daughter-in-law is one and she considers it a vocation. She is good at it and deservedly gets well paid. (P.S Ray I also happened to be a postman for the last 13 years of my working life)

Joby why you start up this thread causing all this hassle? Thought you on holiday in Spain. Just cos' the weather's been bad no need to upset everybody here struggling in the snow.

Welcome home next week - was hoping to get some Winter Sun myself but waiting to hear date for replacement knee. Hospital (now there's another subject) bit slow with appointments.

 

[Parksy]

To clarify my earlier posts -

There's no problem with discussing schools, how different schools / headteachers deal with bad weather etc, let's face it there's not a lot happening with caravans right now.

The problems start when individual politicians are named and party politics are discussed here.

Others who may take the opposite view feel compelled to reply and things start to get out of hand then.

The discussion so far has in my opinion been polite and measured, all that I was doing was trying to make sure that it remains that way with a timely reminder.

 

[602]

Hi,

Many years ago. I worked (draughtsman) in the petro-chemical industry, and became aware that there was a problem in retaining staff. They were constantly being head-hunted, then head-hunted back again.

"Hmmmm!" I thought to myself, "If the factory provided a private school for their employee's children, maybe they wouldn't be attracted away by a slightly higher salary".

OK, its probably not that easy, but firms do provide sports facilities and creches.

602

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Yes Lord B I am a mod, one who is fed up of having to sort out arguments on this forum which invariably stem from petty political points scoring.

It's one thing discussing schools in the bad weather but every time that somebody decides to foist their politics onto the rest of us the arguments, squabbles and name calling begin.

Of course it always ends up being entirely the fault of the moderator.

When Practical Caravan Magazine decide to discuss politics and politicians in their articles I'm sure that the forum will follow suit but I wouldn't hold your breath if I was you.

Until then let's leave the politics to more appropriate forums.

I wasn't replying to you, I was replying to the post from Chris G who seems to be after your job. We posted at more or less the same time.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

Here, here, buzz off to the Chit-Chat section or better still Speakers Corner

As you can see Parksy. Watch your back, he's desperate for the pay and job.