General Chat

What Schools really need is
more parental support :-D :-D

We also need more than one type of school, and smaller classes!!

Kill GCSEs before they kill our children
15-year-olds need three choices, not a defunct, one-size-fits-all exam that does nothing for anyone

http://goo.gl/1xc8BJ

DET


one of my nieces as one of those overseas teachers hired for 2 years from 2001 to 2003. She taught in Yorkshire, I think Sheffield, with several other overseas teachers on those contracts.

She was / is eminently employable in any school in any country as she had the unusual mix of PE and Maths (both to graduate level), but she wanted the "overseas experience" as the Aussies and NZ'ers call it.

I don't think she got the minimum wage!

An inner city school was somewhat of an eyeopener for her, even though she had taught sewing here in a girls' remand centre where she had to count the needles and pins before and after every class. (easy to use for tattooing!)

Academies, at least the local ones, teach to the curriculum.
Curriculum = exams
Exams = league tables.

Less than expected results sees teachers being unfairly castigated. It's not surprising so many are leaving the profession.

Because so much of the management is budget controlled, the academies tend to hire Commonwealth (as a catch all word) teachers in the UK on a 2 year working visa. As they are on the bottom of the UK salary scale, they are cheaper than home grown ones but are experienced.

Teaching assistants, essential in the 40+ class tag-teamed teaching style, are being made redundant. There aren't few students with SN!

The only benefit seems to be the funding to replace dilapidated school buildings. Thank goodness I was able to leave when I did.

What a rosy future for the profession. No more national curriculum, with its mumbo-jumbo instructions, learning outcomes and prior attainments; no more targets, prescriptive exams, huge burden of time-wasting and arse-covering record-keeping; no more flinty-faced, telltale, confidence-wrecking Ofsted inspectors, lurking in class with their clipboards.

:-D :-D :-D.

'Teachers are bound to do their utmost towards fulfilling the students’ expectations'.

I have great respect for all educators. It's a pity though that my brain capacity is limited.

*bangs head on desk*

Oh joys, children's education to be determined by business bureaucracy.

...Once children's education was no more than preparing them to be factory fodder, now their education will be subject the whim of the local businesses/highest bidder.
Where did the encouragement of a love of learning go?

Just think - no more failing schools!







Just lots more failing Academies..................

Something has got to give!

How many more children will encounter the ever changing targets?

If we do not have the education system right then look overseas for inspiration, if only by engaging children so truancy levels fall. That would be a start.

Two of my nephews were part of the 'phonetics' experiment. What a failure that was. They could already read and write well for their ages and were being forced to relearn English in what would have been a retrograde step and for what?

4 academy schools in this area ( small area!) have recently been put into special measures, 3 possibly 4 of the head teachers has been sacked. Now I don't know, because as some of you know I did the unthinkable and home schooled :-) but it doesn't seem likely to me that the kids round here are any more or less unteachable than anywhere else, there are some social problems but no more than most places probably.

Some comments ( in the local paper) blame it on the behaviour of the children...some blame it on the restrictive nature if the Ofsted reports...eg looking at success only in terms of grades.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/aug/17/no-more-national-curriculum-rosy-time-teaching-profession?CMP=twt_gu