Teachers get it handy!

[Take Your Points]

Wife's school has inspection coming up soon and it seems that they are not going to allow the inspectors into their classrooms to observe the lessons... The inspectors will continue to do other stuff though...

Not sure about not allowing them into the classrooms.  The instruction to teachers from INTO is:

Members are directed NOT to:

1. hand over any documentation to the ETI, e.g. school development and class planners, schemes, action plans, policies, pupils' books, assessments, data, etc;
2. discuss any issues relating to the school/teachers/pupils/areas of responsibility or education in general;
teach in front of ETI;
3. complete teacher questionnaires;
4. distribute parent questionnaires;

If an inspector enters your classroom you should:

1. Treat the inspector in a professional and courteous manner;
2. You will cease to teach, but will continue to supervise the children as normal;
3. Inform the inspector that you are an INTO member and in line with INTO industrial action you have withdrawn your co-operation with the ETI;

Below is a statement that should be presented to any visiting inspector:

"I am a member of the INTO, and following a ballot for legitimate industrial action, I have been instructed by my Union that I am not to co-operate with ETI at present. I have been directed to cease teaching in your presence; however, I will continue to supervise the children as normal"[/b]

An inspector can be in the room for up to 45 minutes and is free to inspect the work in any books being used by the children or displayed on the walls.  Be interesting to see how children are supervised during this time as unless they have been given work to do they will be hard to handle and the teacher could be made to look ineffective in supervising them. 

The Chief Inspector has shown herself to be a fairly stubborn person and has radically shaken the inspectorate out of its lethargy that was present in a fairly hand job for many years with inspections interlaced with weeks to be used at an inspectors discretion on surveys or visits.  Nowadays the inspectors are in schools most of their time and the senior managers must be out on inspection.

[JimStynes]

TYP, do you work for ETI?

[Milltown Row2]

Wife's school has inspection coming up soon and it seems that they are not going to allow the inspectors into their classrooms to observe the lessons... The inspectors will continue to do other stuff though...

Not sure about not allowing them into the classrooms.  The instruction to teachers from INTO is:

Members are directed NOT to:

1. hand over any documentation to the ETI, e.g. school development and class planners, schemes, action plans, policies, pupils' books, assessments, data, etc;
2. discuss any issues relating to the school/teachers/pupils/areas of responsibility or education in general;
teach in front of ETI;
3. complete teacher questionnaires;
4. distribute parent questionnaires;

If an inspector enters your classroom you should:

1. Treat the inspector in a professional and courteous manner;
2. You will cease to teach, but will continue to supervise the children as normal;
3. Inform the inspector that you are an INTO member and in line with INTO industrial action you have withdrawn your co-operation with the ETI;

Below is a statement that should be presented to any visiting inspector:

"I am a member of the INTO, and following a ballot for legitimate industrial action, I have been instructed by my Union that I am not to co-operate with ETI at present. I have been directed to cease teaching in your presence; however, I will continue to supervise the children as normal"[/b]

An inspector can be in the room for up to 45 minutes and is free to inspect the work in any books being used by the children or displayed on the walls.  Be interesting to see how children are supervised during this time as unless they have been given work to do they will be hard to handle and the teacher could be made to look ineffective in supervising them. 

The Chief Inspector has shown herself to be a fairly stubborn person and has radically shaken the inspectorate out of its lethargy that was present in a fairly hand job for many years with inspections interlaced with weeks to be used at an inspectors discretion on surveys or visits.  Nowadays the inspectors are in schools most of their time and the senior managers must be out on inspection.

Well same difference, no lesson will take place to no lesson can be observed, they can track a student and do that but as for the teacher being inspected it wont happen

[Tony Baloney]

If the ETI are prevented from performing a proper assessment of the school they should assume the worst possible case and publicly issue the school with the lowest possible inspection outcome.

[Milltown Row2]

If the ETI are prevented from performing a proper assessment of the school they should assume the worst possible case and publicly issue the school with the lowest possible inspection outcome.

Well the only thing they aint seeing is a lesson, they are interested in results stats student progression, they'll carry out student interviews also, its only one area of a dozen other things... they can only mark them down on that surely?

[Take Your Points]

TYP, do you work for ETI?

No.  My days at the chalkface have ended and I am able to sit back and enjoy the goings on from a distance.

[Take Your Points]

If the ETI are prevented from performing a proper assessment of the school they should assume the worst possible case and publicly issue the school with the lowest possible inspection outcome.

Well the only thing they aint seeing is a lesson, they are interested in results stats student progression, they'll carry out student interviews also, its only one area of a dozen other things... they can only mark them down on that surely?

ETI will spend even more time going through the paperwork in primary schools and will be able to garner enough information to issue a report with the caveat that they could not observe all of the teaching required.  However, as in previous action, they will return to each school to do their observations and take a second shot.  No one escapes.

In secondary schools there is a mountain of data that can be extracted from C2K system and it is then compared to the benchmarks.  From this data ETI will draw a range of conclusions and then return to the school to complete the process through observation.

Before any inspection, the reporting inspector will have gathered information from a range of sources including questionnaires from staff and parents that allow the slant of the inspection to be decided.  The inspection team will be given target areas to go for and on the basis of their findings from interviewing teachers, post-holders, ancillary staff, parents and pupils they will draw their conclusions. All of this is usually carried out quickly by the team leader before the classroom observations begin. Classroom observations give a feel for the overall situation and are there to provide on the spot data that inspectors use during the inspection.  Inspectors report back to the headteacher if they find issues with the quality of the teaching, they never mention the name of the teacher and never give anything in writing just an oral report which is not worth the paper it is written on.  They will ask the headteacher to see if they know about the problem and then ask what has been done to sort it out prior to the inspection.  Teachers are never named in the final report and even to management and governors regardless of how poor their teaching is.  So, observation of classes is a jumping off point for inspectors to tackle management at all levels. Only one person is ever named in the report, i.e. the headteacher.  When the inspectors return for a follow up they go directly to the areas of concern with the teaching to see what has been done by management who have had their hands tied by not having a written assessment of any teacher from the inspectors.  Doesn't happen in any other area with proper appraisal built in but is ok for education.

Any ETI team leaving a school inspection disrupted by industrial action will quietly smile and think tiocfaidh ar la and unlike a normal inspection will have plenty of time to consider the data gathered before coming back to judge the teaching standards and complete a final report.  Industrial action against ETI is nonsense for teachers and schools as it will come back to bite them in the long run.

[Milltown Row2]

totally agree, id be all for getting it done dusted and moved on, take on board the report and implement findings

[JimStynes]

I've had two inspections in two different schools in the past three years. I've found them to be a complete load of balls. Both inspections have went well in terms of results and how my own personal lessons went. But I found it laughable at times. Some of the inspectors demands and also how both schools put on a 'marvellous' and unrealistic show for the ETI. All singing and all dancing!

Both inspections had ex secondary school teachers and principals and only one primary school trained teacher. I remember the foundation stage teachers sitting in the staff room laughing about some of the things the inspector was suggesting to them. No offence to secondary school teachers, but they wouldn't be the best people to observe a teacher teaching 5/6 year old children during a phonics lesson or free play lesson. I found a lot of them to be completely out of touch with the day to day running of a school/classroom. And yes they're not allowed to say if someone had a bad lesson, but it was very easy to work it out and they basically spelled it out to some senior management. Thankfully we didn't have any disastrous lessons.

We were complimented in the report for something. The truth was it was something that the school threw together once they heard they were getting inspected. The whole experience was very fake. They compiled a report from our data but didn't seem to take into consideration the demographics and home lives of some of our children. A lot of our children come from the most horrible backgrounds and are lucky to be coming into school at all, never mind meeting their expected PIE and PIM scores.

The box ticking and paper work involved in teaching now is ridiculous and it is being led from ETI and scaring principals into forcing it onto their staff. A lot of it seems to be coming from England. Not the best example to be following in my opinion. I have a lot of friends who are teachers in England. They're regularly landing into school at 7am and not leaving until 6.00/6.30 at night and then work to do at nights. f**k that. No wonder they're leaving the profession over there. I wouldn't mind as much if all the paper work was actually helping children but very little of it makes one bit of difference to their learning.  It just leads to increased workload and staff morale getting worse. I am all for monitoring and evaluation of teachers and schools but it can surely be done in a better and less stressful way.

[DownFanatic]

I've had two inspections in two different schools in the past three years. I've found them to be a complete load of balls. Both inspections have went well in terms of results and how my own personal lessons went. But I found it laughable at times. Some of the inspectors demands and also how both schools put on a 'marvellous' and unrealistic show for the ETI. All singing and all dancing!

Both inspections had ex secondary school teachers and principals and only one primary school trained teacher. I remember the foundation stage teachers sitting in the staff room laughing about some of the things the inspector was suggesting to them. No offence to secondary school teachers, but they wouldn't be the best people to observe a teacher teaching 5/6 year old children during a phonics lesson or free play lesson. I found a lot of them to be completely out of touch with the day to day running of a school/classroom. And yes they're not allowed to say if someone had a bad lesson, but it was very easy to work it out and they basically spelled it out to some senior management. Thankfully we didn't have any disastrous lessons.

We were complimented in the report for something. The truth was it was something that the school threw together once they heard they were getting inspected. The whole experience was very fake. They compiled a report from our data but didn't seem to take into consideration the demographics and home lives of some of our children. A lot of our children come from the most horrible backgrounds and are lucky to be coming into school at all, never mind meeting their expected PIE and PIM scores.

The box ticking and paper work involved in teaching now is ridiculous and it is being led from ETI and scaring principals into forcing it onto their staff. A lot of it seems to be coming from England. Not the best example to be following in my opinion. I have a lot of friends who are teachers in England. They're regularly landing into school at 7am and not leaving until 6.00/6.30 at night and then work to do at nights. f**k that. No wonder they're leaving the profession over there. I wouldn't mind as much if all the paper work was actually helping children but very little of it makes one bit of difference to their learning.  It just leads to increased workload and staff morale getting worse. I am all for monitoring and evaluation of teachers and schools but it can surely be done in a better and less stressful way.

Agree with every sentiment.

[Take Your Points]

Major blow to 240 teachers!

A scheme to allow 120 teachers over 55 to retire without any reduction of their pensions and to employ 120 teachers in their place has been suspended after the 120 retiring teachers had been informed that they could leave.  Not sure if any teachers had already left or new teachers employed.

A key element of the scheme was that the new teacher had to be qualified no earlier than 2012 in order to ensure that a cost saving could be realised to pay towards the cost of the scheme.  The cost would be huge as normally pensions are actuarially reduced by 5% per year for each year a teacher retires before 60, potentially reducing the teachers pension by 25% to take account of them not contributing until they were 60 and then drawing their pension for an additional 5 years before retirement age.

It appears that a teacher who was excluded from being employed in the scheme because they were qualified before 2012 has sought a judicial review of the scheme criteria for employment.  The DE civil servants have decided in the absence of a minister to halt the whole scheme while this legal situation is resolved.  No hope of a minister in place in the foreseeable future to make a decision on the scheme.

Also 120 teachers were counting on permanent jobs, young ones hoping to get mortgages and move on.  A disaster for them as the budgets in schools are about to crash down and major job losses just around the corner.  So, no hope of permanent employment.

Imagine having been given the OK to take early retirement on the full amount of the pension you had accrued (no actuarial reduction), planning for getting out the door and now being told that it was cancelled.  Oh dear, 120 teachers already mentally left the building are not going to be happy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39208077

[DickyRock]

Always thought the scheme was discriminatory. Not surprised that someone took a case

[theskull1]

I'd say it would be only the 120 complete wastes of spaces that they would want to retire.
Rubbish teachers are letting there pupils down and leaving the dedicated teachers to carry the extra burden leaving them completely overworked. What incentive is there to be a diligent 55 year old teacher?

[thebigfella]

Major blow to 240 teachers!

A scheme to allow 120 teachers over 55 to retire without any reduction of their pensions and to employ 120 teachers in their place has been suspended after the 120 retiring teachers had been informed that they could leave.  Not sure if any teachers had already left or new teachers employed.

A key element of the scheme was that the new teacher had to be qualified no earlier than 2012 in order to ensure that a cost saving could be realised to pay towards the cost of the scheme.  The cost would be huge as normally pensions are actuarially reduced by 5% per year for each year a teacher retires before 60, potentially reducing the teachers pension by 25% to take account of them not contributing until they were 60 and then drawing their pension for an additional 5 years before retirement age.

It appears that a teacher who was excluded from being employed in the scheme because they were qualified before 2012 has sought a judicial review of the scheme criteria for employment.  The DE civil servants have decided in the absence of a minister to halt the whole scheme while this legal situation is resolved.  No hope of a minister in place in the foreseeable future to make a decision on the scheme.

Also 120 teachers were counting on permanent jobs, young ones hoping to get mortgages and move on.  A disaster for them as the budgets in schools are about to crash down and major job losses just around the corner.  So, no hope of permanent employment.

Imagine having been given the OK to take early retirement on the full amount of the pension you had accrued (no actuarial reduction), planning for getting out the door and now being told that it was cancelled.  Oh dear, 120 teachers already mentally left the building are not going to be happy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39208077

This sickens my hole.

[JimStynes]

In what way? I was earning more than my wife but couldn't get a mortgage because I didn't have a permanent job at the time.