Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 116 total)
  • more Govist idiocy
  • ian martin
    Free Member

    Pay teachers more money, reduce class sizes, decrease amount of school holidays and extend school day with extra curricular activities.
    That should help solve a few social and economical issues with this country.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    If I ever want to hear my sister (she’s a teacher) head off on a rant that would make STWers proud, I just drop his name into a conversation. 😀

    Thing is, is there anything he could do that would surprise us any more?

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    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    How will it solve social and economic problems? Reducing class sizes would be sufficient to improve education. The public schools dont seem to worry about longer holidays.

    bruneep
    Full Member

    Mp’s don’t worry about their long summer holidays, maybe they want the beach all to themselves?

    wrightyson
    Free Member

    Having had kids in school for the past 6 yrs I can honestly say class size and teachers not up to the job are the two biggest problems, not the length of holidays. Daughter basically had a wasted yr last year in a class of 34 with a teacher permanently on and off sick. However this yr (her last yr at primary, so a more important year) smaller class size loads of extra work at home and a good teacher has improved her a lot. Same thing with laddo now who’s 3 yrs younger and in a big class with split teaching, one teacher is great the other is rubbish!

    jonba
    Free Member

    Longer working days would make things easier for parents as would shorter holidays. I guess he’s appealing to this rather than any real benefit in education. It also appeals to those who follow the idea that teachers are working short hours for the money paid.

    My (private) school actually[*] had longer holidays than the state ones nearby.

    What really needs to be done is nothing. If we stopped changing the education system every 5 years it might give those involved more of a chance to teach rather than implement the latest fad.

    Bear
    Free Member

    Public schools probably have a longer school day?

    mrmoofo
    Full Member

    But does he not have a point. Teachers are a particularly whiney bunch – not dissimilar to how the miners were back in the 80s. They have to put up with the dregs of society and their spawn and it’s not a job that I would want to do . And BTW I come from a family of teachers …
    They DO get long holidays, they do get good pensions. I have no idea what the salary of a teacher is but 30 K – so above average and 13 weeks vacation time?

    Parenting standards in the UK are rubbish, so teachers are getting blamed for many facets of child rearing that their idle , feckless parents seems to think that it not their responsibility ( morals, discipline, cooking, washing, financial skills etc).

    But with strong unions, many professional practises are back in the 70s. Ofstead are not great, granted – but pay for performance has been with me since 1986. I see very little tranparency with this in teaching. I can can be sacked easily, and I get 5 weeks holiday a year.

    So Gove is trying to reform, it has to reform because UK education is not as good as everyones eems to think it is ( just like the NHS, we seem to assume we are beating the world. Trust me, we are not!. But he is preaching to a smug bunch of luddites. It will get bloody.

    Teaching – you are meant to be preparing the way to the future. How about doing that with you terms and condition? Help pave the pathway forwards.

    anagallis_arvensis
    Full Member

    Public schools probably have a longer school day?

    maybe but how much is sat down lessons? State schools dont have the resources to provide all the extra curricular stuff they do.

    ScottChegg
    Free Member

    those who follow the idea that teachers are working short hours for the money paid.

    Imagine that.

    gonefishin
    Free Member

    I have no idea what the salary of a teacher is but 30 K – so above average and 13 weeks vacation time?

    Even accpepting that figure, which by your own admission is pulled from nowhere, is that actually a high salary for a graduate profession?

    …granted – but pay for performance has been with me since 1986. I see very little tranparency with this in teaching

    Well if you can come up with a good metric that actually measures the teachers (and not the pupils!) performance I’d like to here it

    Ming the Merciless
    Free Member

    They might be on 30K+ but every week Mrs Ming works 60+ hours, she gets maybe one day off at the weekend. She is not alone, every other teacher in her school does the same. So on a £/hr basis it sucks.

    She has to put up with lazy and aggressive parents and continual changes to working practices that they struggle to implement before the next government changes tack completely.

    I get my wife back for 2 weeks over Xmas, Easter and 5 weeks over the Summer Holiday.

    Gove is nasty piece of work, never a compliment to teachers, it’s all bash, bash, bash, he wants a confrontation.

    I would not recommend teaching as a profession or career path.

    Tom-B
    Free Member

    Education needs to start at home.

    I agree with the idea of shorter holidays (jeebus I agree with Gove).

    From what I can see, the PGCE just isn’t very good. I work as a peripatetic guitar teacher in ten schools per week and have done whole class teaching too. Some of the teachers that I see are absolutely dire.

    robdixon
    Free Member

    Malcolm Gladwell’s book “outliers” contains quite a powerful section describing how longer teaching hours and shorter holidays has helped to raise educational attainment in some of the poorest communities of New York to that of the most well off – worth a read for anyone genuinely interested in this subject.

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    maybe but how much is sat down lessons? State schools dont have the resources to provide all the extra curricular stuff they do.

    Exrta curricular activity used to be called ‘play time’

    I don’t think its the time in lessons that matter or needs to change – the school day is an hour and half shorter than when I was a kid. Thats not because theres less lesson time, its all the breathing space between lessons thats gone. Nothing needs to be structured or provided in those times – just a break. In my childhood the teachers got to spend that time turning the air of the staff room opaque with fag smoke and kids spent it running around, and talking about whether we saw Mr Reid the music teacher on Thats Life playing the piano standing on his head last night, and having a childhood.

    If I was a truck driver my tachograph wouldn’t allow me to work with so little break time as school children get. I’m going to be working in a school today in fact and a 6hr day there feels like a 12hr day of any of the other work I do, part of that is the school thermostat is set to stun, but the other is working without any let up, your performing to a heckling audience – three matinees a day, without intervals. That’s brain deadening for the teachers but the most ‘challenging’ kids (which in my experience are the ones that just ‘get it’ faster than their class mates) are just crawling up with wall being pinned down for that long

    Not that I have any reason to side with Gove, he’s a meddling prick. And not for economic reasons or education reasons but for the simply because the current school day is unreasonable. If you started to design a school day and a school year from scratch you couldn’t invent a reason for 1.45hr lessons and 45min lunches for 5 year olds, just so you can finish your day two hours earlier. As we no longer require children to bring in the harvest it wouldn’t occur to anyone to create a 6 week void in calendar either.

    neilm
    Free Member

    Both my wife and my daughter teach in secondary schools.

    Unless you are a teacher or have one as a close friend, partner or relative, you cannot possibly know how hard teachers have to work.

    How many of you get to work at 8.00am (or earlier) in order to prepare resources for the days work? How many of you then work a full day and how many of you then take home at least two hours worth of work to do each evening? Not many I suspect. That is standard practice for all the decent teachers I know.

    The best comment I have read above was the one about just leaving things alone for a few years, to let the teachers actually get one with educating their pupils. It would also help if the Govt. would drop the ‘one size fits all’ approach, both to teachers, some of whom are crap but most of whom do an excellent job under huge amounts of performance related pressure, and also to pupils, most of whom are not going to get a 1st class Honours Degree at Oxbridge before moving on to get their Masters and PhD, but who are going to grow up to be ordinary people like us.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Can’t help but think this will steal a lot of time from kids childhoods.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Parenting standards in the UK are rubbish

    Are they?

    ian martin
    Free Member

    Extra curricular activities I think are vital to help let young people develope, gain confidence and choose something they like doing. The resources that modern schools have near me are amazing and were not available to me growing up.
    I dread when my kids go to school because of the short days they have, I really would prefer to have my kids to be at school longer but doing things they want to do.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Parenting standards with some in the UK are rubbish

    FTFY

    martinhutch
    Full Member

    Can’t help but think this will steal a lot of time from kids childhoods.

    Maybe in the 70s and 80s when I was growing up, but I can’t help thinking that all it will do is steal their Xbox time.

    When I was their age the holidays were spent just heading out on my own from age 7-8, playing unsupervised with mates in the street or parks, exploring woods and fields or just blasting around the estate on my bike. We’re a paranoid, frightened society now and that joy has already been denied to most kids.

    Gove has a point (gags silently), but I’m not convinced that extra teacher-delivered curriculum time is particularly needed. I’d favour far more emphasis on organised sport and other activities.

    I think he’s just doing it to p*** off the teaching fraternity though, as they tend to go entertainingly apoplectic at the slightest hint of change.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    has mr gove ever been a teacher ……

    if not why the **** has he got that job he has no idea

    if those plans go through i guarantee all that will happen is a mass exodus of teachers.

    mrs T-r is a teacher and you couldnt pay me to do the hours she has to put in – she regularly gets no lunch or break due to doing your “extra curricular” activitys for little timmy , working till 8/9 at night marking their homeworks/tests and planning lessons.

    Fack that.

    “They DO get long holidays, they do get good pensions. I have no idea what the salary of a teacher is but 30 K – so above average and 13 weeks vacation time?”

    over the course of the year i bet they work the same number of hours as someone with statuatory holidays. and its not 30k unless they are reaching the top of the pay scale or have taken on management duties

    “Longer working days would make things easier for parents as would shorter holidays. I guess he’s appealing to this rather than any real benefit in education. It also appeals to those who follow the idea that teachers are working short hours for the money paid.”

    this is the only concievable reasoning i can come up with for his retarded idea – turn schools into creiches for the great unwashed to send their kids to in the hope they might get jobs now that their kids are no longer a burden to their working hours.

    the man needs a shake and a slap with a stick !

    LordFelchamtheIII
    Free Member

    mrs T-r is a teacher and you couldnt pay me to do the hours she has to put in – she regularly gets no lunch or break due to doing your “extra curricular” activitys for little timmy , working till 8/9 at night marking their homeworks/tests and planning lessons.

    Like most other people in work do? I work for myself, do similar hours and get paid less.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Like most other people in work do?

    They need to get themselves a good strong union if that’s the case.

    fuzzhead
    Free Member

    They need to get themselves a good strong union if that’s the case.

    Unfortunately, the previous generation voting Thatcher in persistently put paid to that. 🙁

    allthepies
    Free Member

    How come ? Unions can still withdraw labour if their members agree that course of action can’t they ?

    Would you rather return to strikes without ballot ?

    mrmoofo
    Full Member

    That is the basic – so waht else is there. TBH – it seems pretty good

    The arguement that “Mrs T is a teacher and I bet she works just as hard as you do over a year”
    I bet she doesn’t !! How many 4 am starts does she have, how mant 11.00pm finishes does she have , w/e lost to travelling etc. Teachesr are very sactamonious about their position.

    Just as “we” don’t appreciate how difficult being a teacher is, teachers have no idea what it is like to work in “business”. Other than those who have made the jump.

    When have teachers ever embraced a minister of education? When have they ever suggested ways of moving their careers forwards positively for better efficiently and results?
    If you only craw about how badly paid it is , and how it is awful, people stop listing on the “cry wolf” basis

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    “Like most other people in work do? I work for myself, do similar hours and get paid less. “

    You choose to work for your self – employ someone to share your work load. Cant afford that – maybe look at your business plan.

    i work for someone and i work my hours and thats that – no unions involved. I do the odd late night / early morning when required but never 5 days a week etc etc …..oh and unlike teaching – when i do work extra OR travel OR start at 4am i get paid extra.

    fuzzhead
    Free Member

    How come ? Unions can still withdraw labour if their members agree that course of action can’t they ?

    erm, there are a lot fewer unions represented in workplaces, healthcare and teaching and a few others excepted.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    I thought you were making a point about the teachers unions not being strong ?

    National main payscale is, i belive, 25k-32k. A decent salary at first glance.

    But, bearing in mind the skillset required, the pressure to achieve results, and the low regard they are held in by the rest of society, I think that’s actually pretty rubbish.(Along with other professions that are seen as “vocations”).

    You could be a middle manager in a large organization, sitting on your arse all day playing with spreadsheets and powerpoint and get paid more than that.

    The government has to advertize teaching as a career all the time (I don’t think they do it in the same way for any other professions?). In my locality there is never a shortage of teaching vacancies and it seems a lot of schools (primary and middle) find it very hard to recruit and retain good teachers.

    It seems that unless you see it as a real vocation, the remuneration isn’t worth the aggro.

    I reckon if Gove keeps acting the got he’ll just make the situation worse, with more teachers leaving the profession and fewer entering.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    Longer working days would make things easier for parents as would shorter holidays. I guess he’s appealing to this rather than any real benefit in education. It also appeals to those who follow the idea that teachers are working short hours for the money paid.

    Aye it is to help working parents rather than to help schools or the kids
    Also appeals to the folk who claim it is phenomenally well paid PT job – ie those with no idea of teaching

    Teachesr are very sactamonious about their position.

    perhaps but they can spell 😉
    They are not they are sick of folk like you going it is easy or other folk have it harder. I may as well ask when were you last shot at by enemy insurgents …it is like jobs are hard for different reasons. Saying teaching is a hard and demanding job is not saying all other jobs are easy.

    Just as “we” don’t appreciate how difficult being a teacher is, teachers have no idea what it is like to work in “business”. Other than those who have made the jump.

    Good point next time a teacher with no experience of business/your job tells you how to do it remind them of this. Afterwards you could then generalise this to you lecturing folk on things you have never done 💡

    If you only craw about how badly paid it is , and how it is awful, people stop listing on the “cry wolf” basis

    I was never very good at cryptic crossword clues – what s your point ?

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    oh and who said decent pension…..

    – ill let the echos of those who have seen answer that statement…. it HAS BEEN a decent pension but like many of our goverment services its been slashed and slashed and slashed.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    So if you had a clean piece of paper – would you structure the schools day and holidays in the same way as it exists today? Probably not. So Gove points out that we’re are living with a structure that was designed to meet the needs of a bygone age rather then the current one. And this is controversial? Blimey!

    He then follows this up with his opinion on how the current timetabling (broadly speaking) compares with those in other countries – yes, this is probably more debatable and I would expect the examples to have been chosen to suit the idea. However, I look at one group who come to the UK to benefit from our globally competitve secondary and tertiary education – namely Asian students. They are my children’s competition in the global workplace and in terms of hours put in, they work much longer hours. I am about to take son #1 back to Uni today and fully expect, as last term, to see the Asian students beavering away while the Brits take their time settling in. Its the same with the Asians who compete with son #2 at the secondary level. Again what is controversial about pointing this out. Kids need to be prepared for the future that they will face and one which is more challenging than that faced by their parents and their teachers. Forewarned in forearmed.

    Teachers is an honourable profession that should be valued more (difficult for many if it is perceived as a free service) but the comments from the NUT that teachers need the lengthy holiday to “recharge their batteries”, whilst partially true, is hardly going to curry favour with workers in other equally taxing professions.

    robdixon
    Free Member

    “- ill let the echos of those who have seen answer that statement…. it HAS BEEN a decent pension but like many of our goverment services its been slashed and slashed and slashed. “

    Teachers continue to get an extremely good pension with guaranteed benefits that are paid even if contributions from teachers result in a shortfall. For people who work their whole career as a teacher and go on to collect the pension the benefit still equates to a c27% co-payment by the employer / tax payer if you compare what teachers pay in to what they get out benefits, and what anyone else would need to pay in to a money purchase scheme receive the same guaranteed benefit.

    The fact the profession continues to bleat on about this at the same time as bleating about low pay (see previous posting on pay scales) and needing more time off just highlights that reform is absolutely necessary. The data shows us that teachers are well paid, get good pensions and a lot of time off.

    mrmoofo
    Full Member

    Teachesr are very sactamonious about their position.
    perhaps but they can spell [/quote)
    Ok – fair point – I’ma tad dyslexic, hence if I type to quickly and don’t have spel chucker, I’m buggered , really.

    They are not they are sick of folk like you going it is easy or other folk have it harder. I may as well ask when were you last shot at by enemy insurgents …it is like jobs are hard for different reasons. Saying teaching is a hard and demanding job is not saying all other jobs are easy.
    So, I have hit a raw nerve? I never said your job was easy. I said it needed reforming as it hasn’t moved with the times. It is teachers who are always saying how shit their vocation is, not “us” says its is a PoP

    Good point next time a teacher with no experience of business/your job tells you how to do it remind them of this. Afterwards you could then generalise this to you lecturing folk on things you have never done

    Well patronised. 10/10 for showing that teacher’s trait. Mum was a teacher, sister is a head, neice is a teacher, sister in law is a teacher, several friends that are teachers. I’m guessing know more about teaching that you do about my business TBH.

    I was never very good at cryptic crossword clues – what s your point ?

    My point is , how about teachers offering up something positive about how to change the career that they all moan about so much. If you cry wolf all the time, no-body will listen

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    Oh look, more anecdotal evidence (Asian students) flying in the face of the experts (some of whom he appoints himself) which Gove chooses to ignore again and again. And then again, just a bit more. I suppose he’ll be dismissing anyone who agrees with his latest lunacy as Marxists again.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    It is teachers who are always saying how shit their vocation is, not “us” says its is a PoP

    I’m guessing many teachers would love their jobs and do it for the money paid if they could just get on and teach without some muppet like Gove meddling with the curriculum and their working hours and children’s school hours all the time.

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