Teachers get it handy!

Started by wherefromreferee?, June 20, 2008, 08:49:07 AM

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maggie

10 days (minus the w'ends)

Farrandeelin

Inaugural Football Championship Prediction Winner.

FermGael

taken from
     http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/may/19/secret-teacher-letter-home   
Dear Mr and Mrs Parent,

I'm sorry I have to write to you, but it is important you know that your daughter is not progressing as well as she could at school. This isn't her fault, it is the school's.

I only teach your daughter one subject, RE, which she is forced to do and she isn't terribly interested in it. I see her once a week for 50 minutes. As there are 30 other students in the class this means that, if I did nothing else all lesson, I could spend about 100 seconds with her as an individual a week. To teach her, to get to know her, to understand her as a young person. But, as you well know, there are some children in her class who demand much more of my time. This inevitably means that some students will be left with nothing. Unfortunately, that applies to your child. I'll be honest, I haven't held a proper conversation with her in weeks.

I teach 400 children. Slightly more, actually, but we'll call it 400. That means your daughter counts for 0.25% of the children I teach. It is difficult for me to honestly and accurately tell you anything about her, so please forgive me if I speak in vague generalities at parents' evening and try to avoid using your daughter's name. I might have forgotten it.

I teach twenty five lessons a week. Despite my best intentions, some of these lessons are boring. To plan an outstanding lesson can take hours. I can't do that for every lesson I teach. Sometimes I stand in class delivering a lesson I know isn't as good as it could be. I know how to make it better. I just didn't have the time to do it. I don't think the children notice, they are used to this.

Schools are full of middle-management types. They like to take "learning walks" around the school and "quality control". They sit at the back of my class and want to know if the students have been told their "learning objectives" and if they are sat in a "seating plan". They believe that learning simply cannot take place if the students haven't been told what to do and where to sit. What you might consider real work: comprehension, creative writing, silent reading or a class questioning the teacher about the topic being studied is considered hopelessly old-fashioned and slightly abusive by my superiors. Instead they like almost anything involving power-points, scissors and glue. All work for students needs to be scaffolded. That means be done for them. The very notion of giving a student a task they might fail is considered child abuse. Every task must be completable within about ten minutes.

The school needs to improve, but I'm not sure it can. Common sense and trust in human communication is being forced out of the profession. A lot of teachers seem to like being told exactly what to do and how to do it. The status quo is just fine for a lot of middle and senior management too. It allows them to wield power, justify inflated salaries and be recognised by their peers as being "outstanding" teachers. A recognition the children in their classes would never give them. Never mind. They never really liked teaching children that much anyway.

I'm sorry to have to write to you like this and tell you that your daughter is under-performing. But I'm part of this system. And I had to confess.

Yours

Secret Teacher
Wanted.  Forwards to take frees.
Not fussy.  Any sort of ability will be considered

ONeill

#753
Didn't think these reports made the news. Shows the pressure the leaderships of schools are under. The report appears to highlight just one failing aspect of the school's performance but the BT run the story.

Grammar school's leadership rapped in damning report

School inspectors have rated the leadership and management at Larne Grammar School as "inadequate".

The damning report by the Education and Training Inspectorate states:

In important aspects of leadership and management, including governance, there is insufficient improvement since the standard inspection;

The school's process of self-evaluation leading to improvement is not making a significant impact on improving the overall quality of education in the school;

The current CEIAG (careers education, information, advice and guidance) programme lacks coherence;

Important aspects of strategic leadership and management, including governance, remain inadequate.

The school's senior leadership team, including the principal and the board of governors, have been ordered to "improve significantly the poor working relationships that exist between and among a significant minority of the teaching staff, the SLT and the governors", and "improve the quality of the provision for CEIAG".

However, inspectors pointed out that the standards attained by pupils at A-level have improved from below the Northern Ireland average for similar schools to above the NI average. ETI rated the overall quality of education as "satisfactory" — the fourth lowest of six possible grades, unchanged from an inspection in 2010.

Inspectors warned "in important aspects of management, including governance, there is insufficient improvement since the standard inspection and significant areas for improvement remain to be addressed".

It is the second blow for the school this year after teacher Julie Muldrew successfully won a case against the board of governors that she had been "unlawfully and indirectly discriminated against" on gender grounds. She was awarded £5,000 compensation.

The Belfast Telegraph on Monday tried to contact several members of the board of governors by phone and email but they were not immediately available for comment.

To get a copy of the report go to www.etini.gov.uk/index/inspection-reports/inspection-reports-post-primary/inspection-reports-post-primary-2012/follow-up-inspection-larne-grammar-school-co-antrim.pdf

Background

Larne Grammar is a co-educational voluntary grammar school that caters for 741 pupils aged 11-19. One of the proposals in the area plans published by the North Eastern Education and Library Board this month is for Larne High School and Larne Grammar School to establish a partnership, leading to the creation of one co-educational school for 1,200 pupils.



Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/grammar-schoolrsquos-leadership-rapped-in-damning-report-16189040.html?r=RSS#ixzz21aLw6t39
I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.

Milltown Row2

Just on O'Neil's post regarding the last part. the teacher taking the school on in relation to "unlawfully and indirectly discriminated against" was that for a job within the school she went for?

It's just that I know a teacher who is doing something similar at their school. Three of them went for a job and based on the criteria and job description the teacher felt that he/she was best placed for the job, though during the interview the line of questions did not relate to the job description. He/she didn't get the job and has started legal procedures against the principle.

I find the teachers actions crazy, plenty people go for jobs and the interview sometimes doesn't go the way it was intended but when you don't get it, that's that, take it on the chin and move on. Will it be difficult for the teacher to work in that environment after the case gets seen?
None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Ea

02

O'Neills Therapist

Farrandeelin

So when is everyone back? I'm back on Thursday in my new job.
Inaugural Football Championship Prediction Winner.

the Deel Rover

Quote from: Farrandeelin on August 27, 2012, 07:52:37 AM
So when is everyone back? I'm back on Thursday in my new job.

Fair play deelin did you get a job in Mayo ?
Crossmolina Deel Rovers
All Ireland Club Champions 2001

Farrandeelin

Quote from: the Deel Rover on August 27, 2012, 07:57:38 AM
Quote from: Farrandeelin on August 27, 2012, 07:52:37 AM
So when is everyone back? I'm back on Thursday in my new job.

Fair play deelin did you get a job in Mayo ?

I sure did. Around 20 minutes from the house.
Inaugural Football Championship Prediction Winner.

the Deel Rover

Quote from: Farrandeelin on August 27, 2012, 08:00:03 AM
Quote from: the Deel Rover on August 27, 2012, 07:57:38 AM
Quote from: Farrandeelin on August 27, 2012, 07:52:37 AM
So when is everyone back? I'm back on Thursday in my new job.

Fair play deelin did you get a job in Mayo ?

I sure did. Around 20 minutes from the house.

Thats's great good luck with it .
Crossmolina Deel Rovers
All Ireland Club Champions 2001

laoislad

Quote from: Farrandeelin on August 27, 2012, 08:00:03 AM
Quote from: the Deel Rover on August 27, 2012, 07:57:38 AM
Quote from: Farrandeelin on August 27, 2012, 07:52:37 AM
So when is everyone back? I'm back on Thursday in my new job.

Fair play deelin did you get a job in Mayo ?

I sure did. Around 20 minutes from the house.

So it's true then. Teachers do get it handy.
When you think you're fucked you're only about 40% fucked.

ONeill

Back tomorrow. Sure it's not long til Halloween anyway.
I wanna have my kicks before the whole shithouse goes up in flames.

Gaffer

"Well ! Well ! Well !  If it ain't the Smoker !!!"

Tony Baloney

Quote from: ONeill on August 27, 2012, 08:33:54 AM
Back tomorrow. Sure it's not long til Halloween anyway.
Back to fish fingers and oven chips from tomorrow for me too!

maggie

Great news about your job far.

Congrats and good luck for it.