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.

So what is the the strategy and plan from the teachers to improve standards?
Or is it just “pay us more?”
I am happy to pay good teachers more – let see the perfomance records.

So what is the the strategy and plan from the teachers to improve standards?

Why are you asking me? I’m not an expert on education (despite having lots of family in the teaching profession, it doesn’t make me an expert). Gove appoints experts, some of whom must have experience in education, or must have taught in the past, who tell him stuff. He then ignores most of it and gleefully does what he wanted to do anyway. Mind you, that’s par for the course with this lot. He’s only taking his cue from Gideon and Ian I-Have-Suffered D. Smith.

My point is , how about teachers offering up something positive about how to change the career that they all moan about so much.

They do, don’t they? They want smaller class sizes so that they can focus more on individual students’ needs, more focus on actual learning rather than memorising very specific stuff for exams, and more support when dealing with troubled students. At least, that’s the impression I get from the teacher friends I have.

I don’t see how those suggestions are any less constructive than “make kids work longer with less holidays, because that works in some other countries”.

So what is the the strategy and plan from the teachers to improve standards?

Smaller class sizes? But no we can’t possibly afford that because 10 million pound funerals and tax cuts for millionaires don’t fund themselves. .

Less bureaucracy/form filling and government meddling too maybe? Stop constantly slagging them off and undermining them in the press?

DD – how do you know Gove is ignoring experts?
Do you have a link to the source?
Cheers

Unfortunately both education and health service need to be reformed but unfortunately not on the 4-5 year basis that general elections allow. It needs a 10 year plan at least …
Handing the power in the NHS to the Doctors may be a really daft idea …and produce some very rich ex Drs

DD, well if recognising that our children’s main “competition” going forward lies outside our national boundaries is mere anecdotal evidence, then so be it. I prefer to think that it is understanding the “real world” in a different sense to how that term is bandied around on here. And the students/my children will be left in no doubt where I think they need to benchmarking themselves against.

I am not sure who you consider the experts to be, but the latest comments from the NUT did not give exactly demonstrate the required expertise, more defending self interest. And there is a conflict there that most real world people can see all too clearly.

someone needs to help me out here. Why is that educational performance (numeracy, verbal reasoning, literacy amongst others) by students in Asia is so much better when they don’t have smaller class sizes?

DD – how do you know Gove is ignoring experts?
Do you have a link to the source?
Cheers

Here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jun/12/michael-gove-curriculum-attacked-adviser

Or if you prefer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9941075/Academics-attack-endless-lists-of-facts-in-new-curriculum.html

robdixon – comparing American schools to Asian schools but:

Although the school day is very long, individual teachers are responsible for a much smaller part of it than their American colleagues. Indeed, when most Asian teachers were told how much an American teacher had to do during the day, and what resources were available to do it, their response was usually simple disbelief.

In Asia, teachers are usually responsible for about three hours of instruction a day. In general, teachers were in charge of classes for somewhat more than half (60%) of their school day. What did they do the rest of the time? Prepare lessons, grade papers, work with individual students and confer daily with their colleagues.

http://www.tdl.com/~schafer/Asian.htm

[/quote]DD, well if recognising that our children’s main “competition” going forward lies outside our national boundaries is mere anecdotal evidence, then so be it

When you’re finished with the impertinent patronising tone, and putting words in my mouth, then you can join back in. [insert patronising winky smiley here for effect.]

As regards Gove ignoring expert advice, including his own appointees, it’s well known that he does. There are plenty of articles out there. Perhaps someone on a pooter could link for me.

EDIT: fanyuberrymuch grum.

The data shows us that teachers are well paid, get good pensions and a lot of time off.

If it’s so great why not quit your current job and retrain as a teacher. Personally I’m no better qualified than any teacher but I earn way more and don’t have to put up with unpaid overtime. Not for all the tea in china would I want to do their job.

pensions WERE good rob – you have seen what a teacher starting teaching today gets for a pension AND the age at what they get it ?

gonefishin i think he means “his interpretation of the data”

Words in my my mouth? I commented on the example of Asian students in the UK and how they compare with my children and their peers and you replied with “oh look, more anecdotal evidence.”

The “impertinent” tag dies with extended, over-use BTW rather like the comments from some of the NUT.

Of course, Gove is guilty of rejecting and accepting advice. That is his job. He gets it wrong too. But the link starts specifically with the structure of terms etc. To go back to my OP, in countries that are not tied to the agrarian legacy, they have different structures which reduce the need for extended summer (and other) holidays. Experiments have already happened in the UK with different structures (eg the semester style terms etc) and IMO ( if you will permit me joining back in) there is genuine merit in debating the structure issue in the UK too.

trailrat – the pensions are still good – have you seen what the rest of the country gets?

Teachers get 50% of their salary and a lump sum equivalent to 4 x earnings.

” I commented on the example of Asian students in the UK “

My experiance with asian students i have met through studies and working with them IS

they have drive to get out of where they grew up and a good way out is education for them.

from what i hear of the kids today at schools if left to their own devices would not study but instead would just waste time adn get up to no good. There is no drive – afterall a life of benifits is just round the corner.

the rest of the country being ?

maybe mines (non teaching – but low life expectancy) is just exceptional.

My mum was a teacher for 30 odd years, middle management, excellent skills, retired on 30k or thereabouts.

That’s pretty shite given that it’s a demanding and, let’s not forget, extremely important profession.

PS there are good asian students and bad ones, just like everywhere else.

With regards term structure, kids in the US are at school pretty much all the time between September and June. I’ve no idea how they manage to teach them anything at all tbh.

you only get that if you retire at 68 – you retire at 65 – which imo is even high for a teacher….. you loose out on a significant chunk of it .

work em till they die or die trying.

robdixon, so you’re just going to ignore the bits where I posted the links you asked for, because you didn’t like what they said? Bit rude.

If you are suggesting we follow the Asian model where teachers only average three hours a day of teaching time and get to do their planning and marking within the regular working day I imagine the teaching unions would be right there with you.

there is genuine merit in debating the structure issue in the UK too.

You might have a point if he wasn’t just using this as yet another stick to beat (state school) teachers with, or if it was based on some sort of evidence.

Grum – I guess the extent to which he is seen as beating teachers or otherwise will be open to interpretation. His words from the link that “He said that the current system left pupils at a “significant handicap” compared to children in East Asian nations who benefited from extra tuition and support from teachers” could be interpreted as such I suppose – if the cap fits!

But more telling IMO is the simple message – ““In order to reach those levels of achievement a higher level of effort is expected on behalf of students, parents and teachers,”[/quote]. In my mind that is as close to a truism as he is likely to get. And it will be those who miss that message who run the danger of resorting to future support from the government/”society” that Gove’s predecessors have warned ( 😉 ) may be more of a mirage rather than a real and worthwhile prop! Now whose message was that or has it merely been “buried” in the past now? 😉

Finland has a very interesting Education system, outperforming most systems in the world since their reforms a few decades ago.

Shorter days and longer summer holidays, shorter lessons and small classses of 20 (schooling from age 7)
Teachers are picked from the top 10% of graduates and respected like Doctors.
It is very difficult to become a Teacher because of the high level of competition.

http://www.greatschools.org/students/2453-finland-education.gs

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html

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.

This. Teachers more than deserve their salary and holidays.

I note that the government, so keen to talk about far eastern school systems, are less keen to talk about one much closer to home – Finland. There they don’t start until the age of 7, have short working days, no homework and call teachers by their first name. They also have the best results in the world. The needs of working parents are are addressed by state funded childcare, which largely pays for itself because it allows parents to go back to work, pay tax and buy stuff.

So, some countries’ schools with much better results than us work much longer, and some work less. Gove, as usual, is looking at a non-solution.

edit: I didn’t see theocb’s post!

. They[Asians] are my children’s competition in the global workplace and in terms of hours put in, they work much longer hours

Well thery must have de regulated the freedom of movement and employment whilst I was out riding my bike.
I would assume it would make more sense to compare us to say or EU partners who have free movement and are our competition
Could you or two brains compare it to say the German system, – which incidentally gets better outcomes in literacy and numeracy rates anyway.

Neither you nor he commented on what age our European partners start school and now there is a rush for Early years and nursery to start even earlier and still do more hours.

Its not as simple as two brains suggests and it is pretty poor [ ie it is a cherry picking distortion] to choose Asia as a comparison when we are a western G7 EU country
He knew what he was doing and I suspect you do as well.

This is not to say that education would not benefit from some changes, nothing is perfect, but there are other models more suitable to our situation and needs IMHO.

JY, I agree that there are many model to choose from both geographically and within the UK. The model that I am know best draws on the best from the state and private system and from business. All have valuable contributions to make. The Scandies have many interesting to things to consider – including (just for fun) the Swedish idea that there is no harm in schools making a profit! 😉 FWIW, I think the notion that there is one best way that suits all children (be it Finnish, Asia, UK or otherwise) is flawed from the outset, but the debates are fun nevertheless.

The reason I comment on the Asians is that I see it every day here, not in their home nations. My observations are confirmed by my children’s. Is their way better? Not necessarily, since some miss out on wider opportunities that some schools as able to offer. And lets not forget that many Asians make significant sacrifices to send their kids here – so UK education must have some merits, dont you think!?! But in the classroom and in the music school (piano and strings) their work ethic is noteworthy IMO. The other observation is indeed anecdotal, but last term when I took my older son to Uni and picked him up, the only students I saw working in their halls were all Asians. It will be interesting to see if the same is true later this afternoon.

Funny thing is, the issue about the antiquated term structure does seem to come up every few years and I get the impression that many teachers would quite welcome a reform in this area.

The trouble is teachers also have a boss that always seems to be telling them and the public in general that teachers are doing a bad job and that they need to work harder. Add to this the erosion of their terms and conditions of employment (along with other public sector workers) and the lack of esteem everyone seems to hold them in. It’s no wonder they don’t like him very much.

It’s easier to improve things through consensus rather than confrontation. I get the impression Gove is more interested in showing everyone how tough he is rather than actually reforming anything. He always comes across a bit of a bully. Perhaps he wants to go down in history as the man who smashed the teachers rather than the man who saved education.

Ok, other people must also be at fault (the leaders of the NUT might be spoiling for a 1970s style fight perhaps?), but its Gove’s job to lead and he doesn’t seem to be doing it very well.

I don’t know much about Gove, was he ever a teacher (or had any proper job) or is he a career politician?

last term when I took my older son to Uni and picked him up, the only students I saw working in their halls were all Asians

There’s a bit of selection bias going on here. The ones you see whose parents have the cash to send them here probably had a good work ethic instilled in them by said parents (or inherited it from them) and are probably under great pressure to do well because of said money.

There are probably a lot of loafers lazing around in Mumbai somewhere who you’ll never meet.

Gove’s idea of reform is pile more and more work on teachers, increase the audit trail and take away Teaching Assistants. More workload, less staff = poorer quality. The cretin is all stick and no carrot, a bit like some of the comments on here.

goves a ****-
state funded childcare would do more to benefit working parents and kids from all backgrounds, than any of his high handed empty headed right wing pandering bollox

and the pension thing also pisses me off, the private sector used to have good pensions too but successive thatcherite chancellors; lawson, lamont, brown have fuct over pensions with taxes, contribution holidays and raids
so now the politics of envy means that public sector pensions need to be destroyed too

State funded child care ! – why ?
You had them – you pay for them. It’s not up to the rest of the taxpayers. If you can’t afford childcare , don’t have kids.

Nobody is trying to “destroy” teachers pensions – they are just too generous to be afforded at a time when the country is skint. Or have you missed noticing that?

You play the “Thatcher” card … fair enough. Now go an research how Blair and Brown pissed money down the drain, allowed banks to de-regulate, sold of the gold etc ….

UK PLC is horribly skint because the last succession of CEOs have not done a very good job .. . so there is no money for free child care, smaller classrooms.

The questions to the teaching fraternity is how do you give a better service with what you have ?
That is what many businesses are faced with ….

mrmoofo – Member

State funded child care ! – why ?
You had them – you pay for them. It’s not up to the rest of the taxpayers.

Children are an integral and vital part of society – hadn’t you noticed ?

Also they do not create any wealth whilst they are still children.

There’s two good reasons to be getting on with.

The questions to the teaching fraternity is how do you give a better service with what you have ?
That is what many businesses are faced with ….

Better service ? This is children’s education we’re talking about – not a business, do you understand there are differences ?

And Mr Gove isn’t interested in putting “questions to the teaching fraternity”, apparently he thinks that as a qualified reporter he knows all the answers.

Here’s another perspective: 404,600 fully trained teachers under the age of 60 are no longer teaching, compared to around half a million still actively working in English and Welsh schools. So that’s almost half of the qualified teachers in the country not actually teaching. And it’s getting worse: some 47,700 teachers left their jobs in the year 2010-11, up from 40,070 in 2009-10. That’s a lot of teachers.

if its such a good job,well paid, country crippling pension sizes and massive economy destroying hilidays why does this happen. If standards are seriously to be addressed class sizes need reducing as well as workload. Any more negative changes to my terms and conditions and I’ll bugger off to the private sector which friends who have made the jump say has better pay and less shit. Pensions the same too. Maybe that is exactly what Gove wants.

Mrmoofo; I would love to apply your business model to teaching,but since it is a vocation l refuse to as as it would affect the quality of the service l provide if l was only to work,say 15-20 unpaid hours a week,take a lunch break etc. Oh;and l was a self employed plasterer for best part of 20 years,so spare me your crap about everybody doing more hours than teachers. Hardest,most time consuming job l have ever had is teaching.When,not if,sections of the profession work to rule,(after all Gove has stated he wants us all to do 35hrs)…You will get an insight into what teachers provide,and you may be surprised.

this is not the most stupid/annoying thing gove has said/introduced (see ebac, performance pay, gcse English results etc. )
As a teacher I would have no problem with a change to the terms or working day, as long as it was done in CONSULTATION nationally, he is suggesting that individual schools do it ad hoc.

What I mainly hate gove for is his constant degradation of the teaching profession, his insinuation through this statement is that teachers are lazy.

If he really wanted to improve education in this country he would need to work with teachers rather than constantly picking fights.

I find it rather sad to read some of the daily fail type comments from some people on here, I sometimes cringe when I hear comments from some of the Union leaders and it does sound like teachers whinge and moan, but if someone is constantly having a go at you it’s difficult to not have a go back on occasion.

Duckman – FFS read what I have written. Not what you think I have written. As a teacher, I would have thought you would know better than that. I don’t think everyone works harder than teachers – but I think teachers are a tad patronising when they say the “need their long holidays”. Everyone else would like to nee them, as well. I do think teachers work just as hard as many others in society.

Ernie – wow, I never realised that . Is that the case. Have as many children as you want , buster. But it is up to you to make sure they a become an addition to society – not the rest of the taxpayers , who maybe have chosen not to have them, to pay for child care. If you can’t afford it, don’t do it. That is life

By the “society” also need businesses to generate wealth and jobs. Taxes on those jobs to pay for the public sector … it’s not an empty pot.

Sure teaching is a vocation – but it has to be paid for by public money. That is tax money raised by every who is suffering from pension downgrades , no salary increases and regular redundancies, and inflation. So whilst it is a vocation , it also need fiscal responsibility.

The starting point is always ” how do you do a better job with the resources you have”. Someone earlier mentioned class size – yup – but the only way to have smaller classes with the resources you have, is to use those resources more effectively – i.e in the holiday times. The government is actually still paying you for 52 weeks a year.

The UK is skint – the pot is not endless – we all have to make sacrifices.

Can you explain how working in the holidays would make class sizes smaller. I did revision sessions in the easter holidays, havent noticed the class sizes reduce.

Can you explain how working in the holidays would make class sizes smaller.

Yeah, I was wondering that too. I’d also be eager to hear your reasoning on that one.

The UK is skint – the pot is not endless – we all have to make sacrifices.

Please explain what sacrifices the millionaires who’ve just received a massive tax cut have had to make.

And skimping on education is only going to make the UK more skint in the long run.

Interestingly enough, Gove seems to mean that “family friendly” means children spending less time with their parents. 😕

There’s only one way that I can think of to even hope to achieve it and that is to have children in the schools for 52 weeks a year, but with each individual child only there for say 38 weeks a year.

I should point out that I think this is a massively dumb idea as it would only result in average class sizes being reduced by 25% (1-38/52), but the make up of said classes would be constantly changing making consitant teaching an impossiblity. It has other problems with how teachers holidays would work, I’m assuming that teachers would be permitted some time off in such a scheme.

mrmofoo, you seem to have a basic misunderstanding of how society works

todays children will be in work and paying tax when you are claiming your pension, its in your interest to ensure that these children have the best possible start in life as they will grow up to be better educated and more productive and thus paying more tax

-weve got 2 kids once the 2nd is in childcare it no longer becomes worthwile both my wife and I working, how does that help the economy?

state funded childcare would also allow more parents back into work, claiming less benefits and being more productive

investing in children is investing in the country, but it seems youve bought into the daily fail/ tory rhetoric nicely so turn it into a business, pay the lowest possible for teachers and get a head start in the race to the bottom