Cutting teachers workloads.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What's going on?
For years we were told that teachers workloads were necessary to drive up standards and now we learn that the government is to cut it.
Do the government want standards to fall. What happened to the Gove directive that teachers were to work even harder?
Are they now telling us that the millions spent on buerocracy was unneccesary?

[floo]

Teachers who are doing their job properly work very long hours. My husband was in the profession, latterly as a secondary school head. He would leave for work at around 7.30am and on a normal day it was unusual for him to be how before 7pm, often much later if he had meetings. He worked on school stuff during the school hols, often taking work on holiday with him, which irritated me!

[Robbie]

Exactly, my dad was same as were two aunts and now my niece- though all very committed and enthusiastic, must be said! They loved/love their jobs.

Yet many people put in lots of hours in their professions, that's life.

I don't really see the point of the OP - please explain!

[floo]

Exactly, my dad was same as were two aunts and now my niece- though all very committed and enthusiastic, must be said! They loved/love their jobs.

Yet many people put in lots of hours in their professions, that's life.

I don't really see the point of the OP - please explain!

I think the OP is self explanatory.

[Harrowby Hall]

The point of the OP?

Well, don't ignore the fact that it comes from Vlad. He like to make contentious statements to stir up conflict - and then lets others get on with it.

A generation ago one of the great joys of being a teacher was that - within guidelines - a teacher was free to behave as he or she liked within a classroom providing the outcomes were acceptable. There was a syllabus - that it should be achieved and there were students with positive, optimistic attitudes was a teacher's main objective. The behaviour of teachers was usually influenced by what was perceived as good practice within a school and by investigations conducted within educational psychology.

Then came two political "initiatives": a politician, Kenneth Baker, discovered that he could determine and impose syllabus requirements. Allied to this was the discovery, by political party researchers, of practices used in industrial management - one of which was "management by objectives". This led to the development of targets which were readily observable and which could be recorded on forms  and used as sticks to beat recalcitrant teachers when the did not reach the targets. One flaw in this "management" methodology is that all to often targets are chosen because they are easy to recognise and not because they give meaningful information.

Along came Gove. His problem was that the few neanderthal genes in his makeup dominated the homo sapiens genes.

Another general problem is that the UK government system has discovered the concept "efficiency". This is interpreted as getting things done using the least resources - ie money. Thus, if you can get people doing more work for the same amount of money you are increasing efficiency.  Thus 30 pupils in a class is more efficient than having 20 in a class.  Having 30 pupils all doing the same task at the same time is more efficient than having a smaller (or even the same) number of pupils engaged in solving problems in an individualistic manner. Hence Gove was enamoured by the idea of all pupils sitting looking at the blackboard.

What is missing from the political analysis is effectiveness - not doing things cheaper but doing them better.

End of rant.

[Aruntraveller]

Indeed HH - yet again we are saddled with a government that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

[Rhiannon]

Firstly, I was a primary pupil in the 70s/80s before the curriculum was introduced. I went to an old school kind of place, all phonics and grammar. We were expected to punctuate speech correctly and learn negative numbers, all within the relaxed framework described by HH. When I got to senior school I was the only person in my class who could use full stops and capital letters correctly and identify the verb ‘to be’. Negative numbers appeared after I’d been there two years. I can see why some thought a national curriculum was desirable. The problem is that it is too stringent, too micromanaged, too politicised.

My kids started school under Labour. The curriculum was so dictated by central government and so full of ‘initiatives’ that there literally wasn’t enough time on the teaching day to deliver it all. Even hearing pupils reading was reliant on parent volunteers.

As for fucking targets...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Spot on as usual.
 I was being sarcastic in my opening post.

The party of Government has always been begrudging of giving an education to the masses with exceptions.
Thatcher wonderfully came up with the idea that the public would enjoy seeing old social villains being sorted out.
For the Tories that was trendy teachers for, Joe Public it meant ''Chalky'' and yes I think there was a good bit of misogyny that knew a largely female workforce would try to accommodate any workload if pupil life success were notionally at stake.
The past thirty years has been a catalogue of people coming in to think of ways of driving this along and enforcers treating them mean and keeping them keen while of course using the process to preserve their own jobs and justify getting more and more money and the best ruse was paperwork and the collection of statistics.

Then comes Gove who was a step too far and had eventually had to be mothballed by Cameron but not until he had created a quasi privatised profession complete with academy trusts who could set their own often lousier pay and conditions. But rather than strike people just left or didn't come in.

So the entire education system has proved unsustainable. Billions has been spent on what is now being owned up to being unnecessary and that has left a public, who have frankly enjoyed thirty years of watching teacher being caned and blamed in the event of individual academic failure, wondering if the Government aren't going to let standards slip because as we have been led to believe academic success is down to putting the screws on those lazy teachers to work for once, paperwork, statistics and tables.

[floo]

The point of the OP?

Well, don't ignore the fact that it comes from Vlad. He like to make contentious statements to stir up conflict - and then lets others get on with it.

A generation ago one of the great joys of being a teacher was that - within guidelines - a teacher was free to behave as he or she liked within a classroom providing the outcomes were acceptable. There was a syllabus - that it should be achieved and there were students with positive, optimistic attitudes was a teacher's main objective. The behaviour of teachers was usually influenced by what was perceived as good practice within a school and by investigations conducted within educational psychology.

Then came two political "initiatives": a politician, Kenneth Baker, discovered that he could determine and impose syllabus requirements. Allied to this was the discovery, by political party researchers, of practices used in industrial management - one of which was "management by objectives". This led to the development of targets which were readily observable and which could be recorded on forms  and used as sticks to beat recalcitrant teachers when the did not reach the targets. One flaw in this "management" methodology is that all to often targets are chosen because they are easy to recognise and not because they give meaningful information.

Along came Gove. His problem was that the few neanderthal genes in his makeup dominated the homo sapiens genes.

Another general problem is that the UK government system has discovered the concept "efficiency". This is interpreted as getting things done using the least resources - ie money. Thus, if you can get people doing more work for the same amount of money you are increasing efficiency.  Thus 30 pupils in a class is more efficient than having 20 in a class.  Having 30 pupils all doing the same task at the same time is more efficient than having a smaller (or even the same) number of pupils engaged in solving problems in an individualistic manner. Hence Gove was enamoured by the idea of all pupils sitting looking at the blackboard.

What is missing from the political analysis is effectiveness - not doing things cheaper but doing them better.

End of rant.

 

You are being very unkind to Neanderthals!

[SweetPea]

Vlad.... I couldn't quite believe the OP and thought you may have posted sarcastically. Agreeing very much with your follow-up post and also with Harrowby and Rhiannon.

Teachers have been leaving the profession in droves simply because they have been unable to do what they signed-up to do - teach. Instead they are stifled by mountains of paperwork in the form of assessments and targets besides planning and marking. Gone are the days when a teacher could add their own thoughts on a subject, now there are guidelines to be followed. A new recruit enters their chosen profession full of anticipation and a burning desire within themselves to show children how the world works only to be told by the establishment.... you'll do it Our way. Thousands of children are missing-out and losing what could have been a truly wonderful education.

Michael Gove at one time had Sir Ken Robinson as his right-hand man, but would Gove listen to Sir Ken? Eventually we lost the great insights from Sir Ken Robinson of developing children's creativity when he left for the United States where he found a more welcoming audience.

[Rhiannon]

When I was a governor a teacher of some thirty years’ experience told me how ‘great’ teaching was now thanks to the curriculum. All she had to do was download the materials, display them on the whiteboard, print off the SATs friendly, target driven worksheets and hand them out.

I don’t get that.

[SweetPea]

Rhiannon.... I've witnessed the same when working, before my retirement. No teaching actually takes place anymore. It's a very sad scenario.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Sweetpea and Rhiannon

I am startled and deeply saddened by your reports which means that not only has education been beaurocratised but teaching has been removed. I share your despair.

This is dreadful because at the end of the day there must be individuals who have not only wagered on this but have been prepared to throw billions of public money at making it happen.

[Robbie]

I am saddened too, hasn't been my experience nor that of my children. I suppose depends on what sort of school they go to.  Must be very difficult for dedicated teachers but they will seek out jobs in schools where they can teach properly & there are some.